Report finds limited progress in protecting human rights in Lithuania

Lithuania made some progress in human rights protection in 2025, but many problems remain unresolved and legislation has not always led to real change, LRT reported, citing the parliamentary ombudsmen’s annual report.

“Progress in human rights must be measured by the result for the person,” parliamentary ombudsman Erika Leonaitė said at the presentation of the 2025 Human Rights Situation Monitoring Report on Tuesday. She said the key question was whether people could move from rights that exist formally to rights experienced in everyday life without having to fight for them.

The report found no significant change in the prevalence of violence last year, with trends remaining similar to those seen for several years. The number of reports of domestic violence rose by about 1,500 to 55,873.

Authorities registered 4,300 criminal offences related to domestic violence. Women accounted for 75 percent of victims, while men made up 85 percent of suspects or defendants whose cases had reached law enforcement institutions, Leonaitė said.

The number of domestic violence protection orders issued declined slightly in 2025, but 54 percent were repeat orders. A total of 3,159 orders were issued to people who had previously been subject to the measure more than twice, including one person who received an order 14 times.

The report identified the lack of a definition of systemic violence and the absence of long-term protection against repeat violence as key challenges. Cyberviolence and sexual violence also remain concerns.

Positive developments in reproductive rights included the launch in May of a family-visiting service based on positive intervention and a Constitutional Court ruling on access to assisted reproduction, the report said.

However, parliamentary ombudsman Jolita Miliuvienė said Lithuania still lacked a sufficiently systemic approach to reproductive rights as part of human rights and private life. After the court ruling, assisted reproduction services remained available only to women diagnosed with medical infertility, she said.

Other challenges include access to contraceptive reimbursement and medical abortion, education on sexual and reproductive health, fragmented regulation of reproductive rights and insufficient protection of personal autonomy.

Miliuvienė also pointed to a provision in the Civil Code that allows sterilisation in certain cases without the consent of people with disabilities, saying this clearly violates personal autonomy.

Foreign nationals continue to make up about 7.5 percent of Lithuania’s population. The report welcomed efforts to strengthen the integration system, including better access to information for vulnerable people and members of different ethnic groups, new measures, interpretation services and improved procedures for identifying vulnerability.

However, Leonaitė said the high level of social distance remained worrying. According to a social distance survey, 43 percent of respondents said they would not want to live next door to people from Central Asia, 42 percent to people from Russia and 23 percent to people from Belarus.

The report also criticised the so-called pushback policy over a lack of transparency.