On 22 December 2020, UNODC through its Global Firearms Programme (GFP) organized an online workshop on collection of firearms data with the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine and the National Police of Ukraine. The activity is part of UNODC’s project “Support to criminal justice response to counter firearms trafficking in Ukraine”. Under this project, UNODC GFP supports the harmonization of the national criminal law and criminal procedure law and policies with relevant international instruments, increased international cooperation on investigation and prosecution of firearms trafficking, and detection of firearms, their parts and ammunition in postal / fast parcels.
During the event UNODC’s experts provided updates on the use of UNODC’s Illicit Arms Flow Questionnaire data and analyzed the data submitted by Ukraine. UNODC presented also new support tools that were developed to assist countries in collecting firearms data during the various stages of the investigation process. Mr. Pedro Moura, Director, Department of Firearms and Explosives, Public Security Police of Portugal, presented the experience of the law enforcement agencies in Portugal in collecting and sharing firearms data with national and international counterparts, including their contributions to UNODC’s Questionnaire. In his presentation he identified the initial challenges in data collection and how they have been overcome.
Based on the findings from the workshop, UNODC and the Ukrainian law enforcement agencies will establish a working group to address the challenges identified in the collection and sharing of data under UNODC’s Questionnaire. The objective will be to increase the quality and quantity of data provided by Ukraine in the annual data collection exchange on firearms conducted by UNODC.
The workshop was supported through a generous contribution from Germany.
