Celebration of 8 March in a women's colony

On the eve of International Women’s Day, 8 March, a concert was organised for the convicted women of the Chernihiv Penal Colony No. 44 through the joint efforts of local authorities and the public.

Artists helped the women serving sentences in the Chernihiv women’s colony to feel the arrival of spring this year. Traditionally, for several years in a row, they have visited this closed institution at the beginning of the first month of spring.

On 7 March 2008, on the eve of International Women’s Day, 8 March, performers from the ‘MoZART’ production centre (directed by Victoria Vitaliivna Muzyka), break-dancers from the ‘Alliance’ dance troupe (directed by Nataliia Mykolaivna Kholchenkova), and members of the ‘7*Ya’ KVN team (S. Miliaiev, A. Shyrokyi, R. Babko, O. Khachko) performed for the convicted women of Chernihiv Penal Colony No. 44. The concert host was Bohdan Andriiovych Protsko.

The convicted women warmly welcomed the artists who came to congratulate them on the spring holiday.

This concert was made possible through the joint efforts of the Department for Family and Youth Affairs of the Chernihiv City Council (Head V.L. Holub), the Chernihiv City Supervisory Commission, and the charitable organisation ‘Chernihiv Women’s Human Rights Centre’.

The social role of penitentiary institutions is not limited only to the execution of sentences. Penal institutions must have a clearly defined social task: the moral rebirth of people. It is impossible to carry out this process without the involvement of civil society institutions. Therefore, the charitable organisation ‘Chernihiv Women’s Human Rights Centre’ would like the territorial community and as many institutions and organisations as possible to care for the problems of resocialising offenders and to cooperate with penal institutions, so that they, in turn, do everything in their power to ensure that those convicted return to society as full-fledged citizens.

We hope that such performances by artistic groups, including talented children (such as Roman Serdiuk and Yurii Samarskyi), in the women’s colony will help the return of full-fledged citizens to our society. Undoubtedly, the presence of the public and amateur performers in a closed institution will contribute to the further openness of the penitentiary system, the process of humanisation and democratisation of the serving of sentences, and will provide an opportunity to bring to the attention of city residents the problems that currently exist in closed institutions.