Chapter 5. Observing rights and freedoms of persons who suffered temporary occupation and armed conflict The Commissioner sent a request to the Prime Minister of Ukraine to encourage development of a legal 107 framework to regulate the legal status and social protection of persons illegally deprived of their liberty as a result of the armed aggression against Ukraine. The issue remains unresolved. Violations of the rights and interests of family members of persons who have gone missing in unclear circumstances On 17 June 2015, Ukraine acceded to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. Law of Ukraine 2505-VIII “On the Legal Status of Missing Persons” of 12 July 2018 (hereafter Law 2505) defines the mechanism for acquiring the relevant status and the right to social protection for family members. It does not, however, establish which categories of persons are granted the status of person missing in unclear circumstances based on submission of correspondence about the fact of disappearance of a person, and which are granted this status based on a court decision. Pursuant to Law 2505, Article 1461 was added to the Criminal Code of Ukraine to define responsibility for enforced disappearances, but no court decision has been made on this issue. At the same time, monitoring of the implementation of the provisions of the above-mentioned Law proves that no secondary legislation has been adopted for its effective implementation. Therefore, in March 2019, the Commissioner submitted a proposal to the Prime Minister of Ukraine to take measures to implement the provisions of Law 2505. As a result, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine adopted Ordinance 248-p “On the establishment of the Commission on Persons Missing in Special Circumstances” of 10 April 2019 and Resolution 433 “On Approval of the Procedure for Payment of Average Earnings Authorized to Perform the Functions of the State Who Went Missing during an Armed Conflict, Hostilities, Riots or in connection with the Performance of Official Duties to Eliminate the Consequences of natural or Man-made Emergencies” of 22 May 2019. The Unified Register of Persons Missing in Special Circumstances has also not been established. Since the onset of the armed conflict, various data on missing persons have been published. For example, the Security Service of Ukraine reported on 403 missing persons. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has received reports on the disappearance of 768 persons. The NGO Myrnyi Bereh reports that 4,820 persons have gone missing during the entire period of the armed conflict. However, even such information does not reflect the real scale of the situation, as it only provides data on those who went missing during the hostilities. Civilians who have gone missing in the temporarily occupied territories are not registered. It is also impossible to tell the exact number of people who have been abducted and relocated to the territory of the Russian Federation. CHAPTER 5 However, payments have not been made calculated against average earnings, as the Commission had not been able to start its activities by the end of 2019, due to the fact that Regulations for its activities have not been approved.