Yanina Stemkovskaya – UnMode paralegal, representative of Ukraine.
I am conducting a survey among convicts people in Ukraine penitentiary system institutions. I identify cases of human rights violations and provide legal support in national and international courts. The main goal is to achieve justice for people who use drugs and stay in prison. Most often these people who have been tortured (abstinence is equivalent to torture) without receiving any specific treatment; people who, for health reasons, can no longer serve their sentences, but they continue to be kept in the prison until death, without being released.
As for me, I am a drug addict one who has experience of serving sentences in institutions of the penitentiary system, and I remember very well that it is unreal to get the slightest service or help there. My work is to change that. To give the opportunity to get out of the prison alive. To make people believe that it’s possible to defend their rights and you have to have only a wish to do it. Everything else – we will help and teach.