You're reading: Ex-convicts find no work

In Ukraine, which is run by a twice-convicted president, ex-prisoners often can’t even find jobs as street cleaners.

According to the State Penitentiary Service, some 37, 000 ex-convicts left various places of detention last year, and few found jobs.

“They don’t have either a place to live or a passport or a penny to live on,” said Lina Polyasna, president of the nongovernmental organization Kyiv My Native Home.

Polyasna said the lack of state help, coupled with the unwillingness of employers to hire ex-convicts, “simply pushes them to commit a crime” and return to prison.

Vitaly Omelchenko, a 43-year-old lawyer and ex-police officer, spent eight years in prison. Authorities freed him two years ago.

Since then he has been unsuccessfully looking for a job. All in all he visited about 50 companies asking for a chance.

“At some of them, it was good that they didn’t throw me out into the window,” Omelchenko said. “I even asked a supermarket manager to let me wash the floors there. They told me: ‘Get lost.’’’

The lack of people willing to offer jobs means that ex-convicts, if they are among the lucky ones, are forced to rely on relatives and friends.

Human rights workers say that it is easy to understand why employers don’t want to hire those who have been in prison.

“Giving a job to such people will not profit employers in any way,” said Alexander Kudinov, head of Verkhovenstvo Prava, a Donetsk- based human rights organization.

According to another human rights activist, Alexander Betst from Vidrodzhennya (Renaissance) Fund, job centers should not discriminate against people with convictions.

A 43-year-old Victor Kandishur from Mariupol has spent 27 years in prison and has had no luck in finding a job. He lives with his wife and mother-in-law.

“The answer from employers is always the same: ‘We don’t need anyone like you,’” he said. He even sought help from the ruling Party of Regions. “They promised to help. I have been waiting for their help for 1.5 years already.”

Registration centers for homeless people are required to help people, including ex-convicts, receive their passports and registration – needed to be registered as job seekers with state centers.

Alexander Bets, human rights activist

Frustration sets in and some commit crimes just to return to the life they know – as prisoners.

The president, in contrast to most who have lived behind bars, is faring much better than most ex-convicts.

Yanukovych was convicted in Yenakieve in 1967 for theft and assault, spending 18 months in jail.

Then he was convicted of assault in 1969, and spent the next three years in prison.

Ukrainians who elected him as president on Feb. 7, 2010, evidently didn’t see his long-ago convictions as reasons enough to keep him from holding the nation’s highest position.


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Kyiv Post staff writer Irina Sandul can be reached at [email protected]