There was a meeting of the Rector of Kharkiv National University of Internal Affairs, Police General of the third rank ValeriiSokurenko with the leadership of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Regional Program Office for Eastern Europe countries (UNODC). The event was attended by Zhannat Kosmukhamedova, Head of the UNODC Program Office for Eastern Europe, SerhiiRudyi,National Program Officer of UNODC, and AndriiSaladovnikov, International Consultant of UNODC. During the meeting, the issues of cooperation on the joint project the European standards and algorithms implementation in the activities of the National Police of Ukraine for referring drug addicts to medical, therapeutic and rehabilitation institutionswere discussed.
This project envisages a set of measures for development and implementation of anti-drug information materials developed by UNODC and KhNUIA into law enforcement agencies activities, some of which have already been approved, namely:
1) Methodological recommendations “Organization of the activities of the National Police of Ukraine on interaction with communities while informing the representatives of high risk groups of human immunodeficiency virus infection”. This document is intended for use by police officers, who, while on duty, interact with representatives of risk groups and people with a history of drug use, or their environment. Methodological recommendations are introduced by the Scientific Council of KhNUIA and posted on the Educational Portal of the Ministry of Internal Affairs at https://osvita.mvs.gov.ua/storage/KhNUIA/metod_1.pdf.
2) Instruction “On the interaction of bodies and units of the National Police of Ukraine with communities while informing the representatives of high risk groups of human immunodeficiency virus infection” was drafted by the staff of the research laboratory on combating crime of KhNUIA, head and deputy head of the laboratory Kostiantyn Buhaichuk and Oleksii Serdiuk together with the Department for Combating Drug Crimes of the National Police of Ukraine and UNODC.This instruction embodies the global standard of “referral”, according to which when police come into contact with people who use drugs and have a high risk of HIV infection, they need to be informed about the availability of medical facilities that help drug addicts - to refer them to specialized medical institutions, which significantly decriminalizes drug users and brings them closer to medical care.
3) A training course on practical application of the Instruction on “informing- referring”, which is to be posted in educational resources of KhNUIA as a short distance course consisting of 2 topics (to ensure the possibility of its inclusion into already existing courses as a separate module), and recommend it for inclusion in the training programs of National Police of Ukraine.
4) A set of educational films to be used in training process for the bodies and units of the National Police of Ukraine, with the demonstration of algorithms and global standards of police response in situations of interaction with risk groups.
Cooperation of KhNUIA with UNODC is to be supplemented by another essential issue - combating illicit arms trafficking.
