Human rights in Ukraine 2009 – 2010. 23. Women’s rights and gender equality

1

The gender issue, either as a component of humanitarian and social policy or as one of the aspects of human rights agenda, has never been a priority for the Ukrainian authorities (even at declaratory level). Moreover, it can be characterized as a marginal trend. The concept of gender equality, for one, has never been mentioned either among the policy implementation principles or among the goals of the “Ukrainian breakthrough”2. President Yanukovich in his election promises also failed to mention gender equality as a cardinal value of a democratic society.3 Nevertheless, the developments of 2010 show that the gender policy is becoming a real policy, while the violation of women’s rights and gender-based discrimination remain a part of everyday life.

The Ukrainian legislation has practically no provisions addressing discrimination of women; however, the equal rights for men and women, declared by the Constitution, do not guarantee real equality. Current practice demonstrates that the gender parity, declared by the Fundamental Law of Ukraine, is often neglected in real life, although predominantly in the latent form.

The demographic situation in Ukraine is deteriorating due to migration processes and shorter life expectancy among men as compared to women.

The difference in men’s and women’s wages, as another manifestation of gender inequality, remains a serious problem. The earnings of women working in the public sector of economy are 30% lower than men’s earnings. According to the State Statistics Committee of Ukraine the average salary for women in January-September of 2007 amounted to 1091 UAH, which constitutes 72.2% of the salaries for men. The working day of a woman is longer than that of a man, because, alongside with going to work, women have to do the house chores. Women are the first to be fired, and, consequently, to lose the means of subsistence for themselves and their families.

We should admit that discrimination in disguised form is deeply rooted in the social consciousness and conservative gender stereotypes, i.e. the role and place of women are inalienably linked with the family, while men’s role and place are associated with public activity. However, the lack of women’s participation in decision-making processes is contrary to the democratic development principles and manifests once again gender inequality in Ukraine.

By number of women in the parliament Ukraine ranks 110th among 188 countries, while the education level of Ukrainian women is not lower than that of men. Family violence and human trafficking also are gender-biased.

There is not a single woman in the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine (2010).

Difference in men’s and women’s remuneration for the same type of work constitutes over 30% for the benefit of men.

The classifieds offering jobs abound in the examples of sexism (gender-based discrimination) and ageism (age-related discrimination). They contain illegal requirements as to the age, sex and even appearance of the potential employee.

Job refusals, based on family status and age of a woman, are common practice. Specifically, single women, women with young children and women over 40 fall under the most discriminated category. Educational background, experience or professional qualifications are simply disregarded in these situations. Usually, girls show better academic results than boys in higher educational establishments; nevertheless, the senior managerial positions are given for the most part to men.

Report on Ukraine’s fulfillment of the Millennium Development Goals (2010) enumerates main factors hindering the elimination of gender inequality in the country. The experts believe that the major obstacles include incomplete process of gender transformations, need for the further development of gender-related statistics which should address in a overarching and comprehensive manner the issues of gender developments in various areas of social life, existing gender stereotypes in the community, as well as the underdeveloped social and communal infrastructure.

Among the widely spread forms of discrimination women are facing at their working place is a refusal to grant maternity leave, child-care leave, payment of benefits stipulated by the state, restriction of professional/career growth, sexual harassment, family violence.

Women have to cope with never-diminishing double burden of work both in public area and at home. The house chores are neither considered real work, nor paid for. Women, compelled to stay at home with small children due to the lack of pre-school institutions and scanty child benefits, lose their professional skills, competitiveness at the job market, experience lack of knowledge or understanding of their labor-related and social rights.

The situation can be rectified through implementation of appropriate gender policy including establishing of gender equality; elimination of gender-based discrimination; affirmative action; ensuring equal participation of men and women in the socially significant decision-making; equal opportunities for men and women in combining professional career and family obligations; family support, promotion of responsible parenthood; raising Ukrainians’ awareness and disseminating knowledge in the area of gender equality; protection from the gender - discriminatory information.

How can gender policy and gender mainstreaming become instrumental? They can serve as tools for resolving existing social problems, alleviating social tensions in the society by paying due attention to the aspirations and needs of specific social and demographic categories of population and by considering the latter’s interests in the operation of public structures, local self-governments, businesses etc.

However, the required instruments and mechanisms, which have never been in place in Ukraine in the past, will hardly appear in the foreseeable future. The lack of (at the very least!) a declaration of intentions in this area can be regarded as total neglect of these instruments of mobilizing available social potential. We mean gender-disaggregated statistics at all levels and in all areas, gender-aware budgeting, gender-related legal expertise of the legislation in force and draft laws and normative acts, etc.

Ministry of Ukraine for Family, Youth and Sport is authorized to consider complaints and provide recommendations. To that end a special expert board was set up in 2009 by the Decree of the Minister for Family, Youth and Sport. Until now the board has not passed a single decision. The experts, therefore, argue that a board should be independent from any power body.

The coordination of this activity, insufficient in the past, remains poor at present; same applies to mobilization of civic society members for setting up and implementing gender policy.

Lack of high quality assistance in children care and house chores remains main obstacle for the professional advancement of women.

Persistent ideas of traditional gender roles distribution in public and private life, operation in the job market and in home-making, “masculine” and “feminine” professions and types of work, are rather characteristic for Ukrainian society. Insufficient involvement of men in performing their familial and parental duties makes it more complicated for women to combine professional operation with house chores, career growth, participation in political life and socially significant decision-making. The men are expected to be bread-winners; social unacceptability of those who don’t meet the expectations contributes to their high-risk behaviors. Traditional gender-based distribution of social roles is still enhanced in the school textbooks and curricula, reinforced by the practice of misrepresenting women in mass media and publicity, in the country leaders’ discourse.

So, it follows from the above discussion that gender development in Ukraine requires providing equal opportunities for men and women in social and political life and governance, overcoming the gap in their income levels, setting up mechanisms for protection against discrimination or sexual harassment, fighting gender stereotyping, protection from violence etc.

Serious changes in political guidelines brought to life by presidential elections of 2010 give grounds for identifying two periods in the gender –related developments .

2009 – February 2010. Introduction of minor changes into the legislation after passing the Law “On ensuring equal rights and opportunities for women and men”. The Decree of the Ministry of Ukraine for Family, Youth and Sport № 4374 of December 16, 2009 “On Expert board on inadmissibility of any forms of gender-based discrimination”. Period of active collaboration between national, international and non-governmental organizations. Communication with UN Committee on the elimination of discrimination against women. Ukrainian support of the 6th and 7th Joint Report on adhering to UN Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. Recommendations of the UN Committee to be addressed in the next report (planned date -2014). The majority of Supreme Rada voted against gender quotas. Beijing+15.

February 2010 – present time. Changes in the national political guidelines. Gender-discriminatory discourse in the public speeches of the country leaders. Concern of the international community. Start-up of the new program for promotion of gender equality issues in the Ukrainian society. First public steps of Ukrainian government aimed at further deterioration of women’s situation in Ukraine, i.e. raising retirement age, increasing social security eligibility by 10 years (from 20 to 30). Devising national report on Ukraine’s fulfillment of the Millennium Development Goals and presenting it to UN. The Decree of the Ministry of Ukraine for Family, Youth and Sport № 306 of September 6, 2010 “On Expert board for the consideration of gender-based discrimination complaints” is practically identical with decree of 2009, without the latter’s cancellation.

The State Program for economic and social development of Ukraine for 2010 (the anti-crisis program) contains, among other tasks of social policy aimed at family support, the provision of “ensuring equal rights and opportunities for men and women in all the areas of public life, resistance to gender-based violence and human trafficking”(p. 19).

Let us focus on anticipated program implementation results: decrease in the family violence, in the instances of gender-based discrimination, in the number of human trafficking victims (p.21). Setting up these basically positive goals in practice will lead to falsification and concealment of data concerning gender-based discrimination, infringements related to family violence and human trafficking crimes. This conclusion follows from the fact that all these negative phenomena are latently present in the Ukrainian society of today, so that the increase in statistical data at least partly reflects their “coming out of the closet”. Besides, the statistics reflect only a small portion of the aforementioned violations and crimes, that’s why the increase or decrease in the figures is not an ultimate indicator of the respective increase or decrease in the actual number of the infringements. The figures can be affected by various factors. For example, gender-based discrimination has been detected only in isolated instances, so theoretically this figure has no room for decrease. Therefore, incorrectly chosen indicators can adversely affect the efficiency of various governmental structures in identifying and registering these facts.

Meanwhile, the gender factors decisive for the functioning of certain structures are neither mentioned nor registered. Thus, the analysis of social factors contributing to the deterioration of the situation in the country, points at demographic crisis as one of factors. However, one of its important characteristics, i.e. gender misbalance in men/women ratio, is not even mentioned.4 The same is true of significant gender differences in men’s and women’s salaries. (p. 8).

The program of economic and social development envisages cutting down of the state special programs to be funded from the state budget. Only those, whose implementation helps in resolving most crucial problems will remain in place in 2010 ( all the other special state programs will be financed predominantly from other sources (local budgets, customers’ funds etc) – Ministry of Economics, Ministry of Finance, other central governing bodies (p. 10). There are serious concerns that the new program of promoting gender equality, which is to be developed by the state, will never make it to this list.

In 2000 Ukraine became a party to the Millennium Development Goals – a document devised by the UN and approved by 189 countries of the world. It set up the principles enabling world community to achieve by 2015 results in the areas where irregularity of global human development is manifested most of all. The issue of gender equality is spelled out as one of the eight main goals. For Ukraine achieving this goal means ensuring gender correlation indicator at not less than 30% representation of either sex in representative governing bodies and reducing by half the difference in men’s and women’s earnings.

2009-2010 developments

1. Setting up Expert board for consideration of gender-based discrimination complaints.

2. Devising and presentation of Ukrainian report on the implementation of UN Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women in the respective UN Committee on January 2010.

3. The rejection by parliamentary majority of the quotas in electing people’s deputies. BYUT deputies M. Tomenko and O.Bondarenko as early as in 2007 submitted the draft law # 1232 on ensuring the equal rights and opportunities for men and women in the election process. It envisaged the inclusion of both genders’ candidates into each electoral roll of five. On the basis of the parliamentary vote on February 9, 2010, this project was rejected by the majority of votes and withdrawn. (http://gska2.rada.gov.ua/pls/zweb_n/webproc4_1?pf3511=31114).

4. Advent of a significant number of women – deputies of the Head in Presidential Administration, i.e. Anna Herman, Olena Lukash, Iryna Akimova.

5. Decrease in women representation in the Supreme Rada of Ukraine due to the Party of Regions’ members’ rotation and arrival of 22 new deputies with not a single woman among them. Presently there are 34 women there, constituting 7.5% of the Supreme Rada.

6. Exclusively male composition of Ukrainian government. The persistence of “pyramidal” tendency in women representation in power structures – the higher the level, the lesser the participation.

7. Patriarchal declarations of the state leaders – the President and the Prime Minister. For example, the President of Ukraine on May 27, 2010, in Lviv stated that ”the economy is a very sensitive woman, which is not to be approached bluntly, without consideration”. (http://unian.net/ukr/news/news-378794.html) It demonstrates not only the lack of understanding of the very essence of gender equality as a cardinal European value, of the principle of adherence to human rights, but also the lack of competent or highly-qualified specialists on these issues both in the Government and among the President’s advisors. It’s been long time since such open and public disregard for principles of democracy and civilized development have been articulated by a Ukrainian leader.

Besides, while still a Presidential candidate, he sent women directly back to their kitchens (http://unian.net/rus/news/news-358158.html), while Prime Minister on March 19, 2010, stated that “reforms are not for women to address”, thus restricting women’s rights in a state governance.(http://unian.net/ukr/news/news-368344.html).

8. Establishment of the position of the Supreme Rada of Ukraine Ombudsman’s representative on the issues of non-discrimination can be regarded as positive factor. It shows the attention of the Ombudsman to the gender issues which are to constitute an inalienable part of her operation under article 18 of the Law of Ukraine “On the Human Rights Ombudsman of the Supreme Rada of Ukraine” and article 9 of the Law of Ukraine “On ensuring equal rights for women and men ”. On the other hand, when the public demanded the explanation of their rights in relation to the discriminatory statements, made by M.Azarov, no clarification has been offered, even after the 30-days period stipulated by the law. No active public steps in this direction have been made so far by the Human Rights Ombudsman either.

9. On April 27, 2010, answering the questions, posed by the members of the European Council Parliamentary Assembly, V.Yanukovytch declared that he was ready to take the steps, needed to raise the gender policy to the new high level in the nearest future. For the first time a high-ranking official was asked the questions concerning women’s rights and gender equality. The members of the European Council Parliamentary Assembly expressed their amazement at the backward attitude of the Ukrainian leaders towards the issue of women’s rights and gender equality; that’s why they were asking the President these questions in the course of his presentation.

10. The first law-suit containing the gender-based discrimination complaint was filed in relation to the Prime-Minister’s discourse. Qualifying M. Azarov’s statement as discriminatory presented no difficulty to the experts and foreign politicians. The press service of the Cabinet of Ministers, however, (http://novynar.com.ua/politics/108872) as well as the Ministry of Justice, refuse to recognize the fact of discrimination in the statement. Pechersk district court in Kiev ruled that in his statement M.Azarov exercised his right to freedom of speech and personal opinion. The appellation was filed. The case is continued.

Public discussion around the statement became a test for the government, whose duty is to protect human rights, including the right to non-discrimination. It demonstrated total impotence of protective mechanisms, stipulated by the law of Ukraine “On ensuring equal rights and opportunities for women and men”, in cases of gender discrimination. Thus, the Ministry of Ukraine for Family, Youth and Sport is a government body authorized to address complaints against discrimination and to provide its recommendations. A special expert board to consider these complaints was set up in 2009 by the Decree of the Minister for Family, Youth and Sport. However, when a complaint was filed against the direct superior of the Ministry, i.e. Prime-Minister of Ukraine, the mechanism for dealing with complaints demonstrated its total incapability. The response, given by the Ministry of Ukraine for Family, Youth and Sport to the female complainants, testifies to the fact. Allegedly, the discriminatory statement was a manifestation of affirmative actions, formulated in article 6 of the Law of Ukraine “On ensuring equal rights and opportunities for women and men”. This case once again confirmed the accuracy of experts’ recommendations on necessity for setting up and functioning of an independent board to address similar complaints.

11. Notorious case on dismissal based on sexual harassment allegations in Kharkiv. http://ukr.mediaport.ua/news/criminal/20073/Суди_через_звільнення_та_сексуальні_домагання._Харків’янка_виграла_першу_справу).

12. Ukrainian leaders’ declarations concerning the opportunities and quick results in gender transformations in the country. Among others, declarations on gender issues, made at the first meeting of the newly elected Ministry of Ukraine for Family, Youth and Sport, on June 11, 2010.

More examples of such declarations can be found in Prime-Minister’s Azarov speeches; e.g. after meeting the leaders of Republic of Finland he stated that he has been convinced that women are able to work in the government and will work there in the nearest future. These statements were not supported by any practical steps.

Meanwhile, declarations on non-feasibility of achieving Millennium Goals concerning the reduction of a gap in men’s and women’s earnings and increase of women’s representation in the higher echelons of power.

13. Setting up the position of Prime-Minister’s public advisor on gender issues in early June 2010. The Ukrainian coordinator of UNDP program “Equal rights and opportunities for men and women” L.Kobelyanska was elected to that office.

14. First, declarations on raising the retirement age of women to that of men without well-grounded clarifications as to the importance of that measure, including the increase in pensions for women, and, later, their legal reinforcement. The economic reforming program envisages the equalization of retirement age for men and women: it shall be phased in adding 0.5 a year for 10 years’ period. (http://pravda.com.ua/news/2010/06/2/237149/). Public at large perceived these plans, as well as the plans for enhancing retirement age for law-enforcement staff and servicemen, most negatively, as no scientific or informational clarifications were provided.

15. Setting up a working group to develop new gender equality program under the Ministry of Ukraine for Family, Youth and Sport Sports (June 2010). Devising the program concept. The program development continues till October. The major part, if not all the proposals from non-governmental organizations and independent experts, have been taken into account in the draft program.

16. Further dissemination of gender stereotypes in advertising and mass media. The authorities cannot be held directly accountable for the promotion of gender-discriminatory images in current advertising; nevertheless, this is the result of total inertia and lack of reaction on behalf of the power, either on its own initiative or in response to the public appeals.

Significant increase in gender-discriminatory advertising materials in Ukrainian streets and highways is another negative phenomenon. In June 2010 a regular competition for gender anti-award “Poison of the season” was carried out. This was the third time the public organization “Information and consulting women’s centre” organized the event. The sampled ads were judged at the competition and then submitted for evaluation to the Expert board for addressing gender-based discrimination complaints. As of mid-October no decision was passed.

17. Expert evaluation and personal observations lead us to the conclusions that low level of gender culture and lack of required knowledge among public servants, even in the departments responsible for the implementation of gender policies in the country, make it impossible for Ukraine to achieve any success in the protection of women’s rights and promotion of gender equality.

18. The country lacks specialized research on women’s rights and gender equality, especially those concerning most vulnerable groups of women who suffer various types of discrimination. Namely, these are Roma women as well as women from other ethnic minorities living in rural areas; female migrants and refugees, especially from the countries with language and culture substantially different from Ukrainian. The members of UN Committee on the elimination of discrimination against women have drawn attention to these problems. Nevertheless, draft program on gender equality promotion, ignoring the experts’ recommendations, does not address them at all.

19. Lack of state gender integration policy; the whole operation in this area is limited to the activities under the Ministry of Ukraine for Family, Youth and Sport.

20. Discourse openly targeted against women’s rights and gender equality, roused resentment among gender community and women’s organizations. Gender museum (Kharkiv) site was launched and now serves as a main source of gender-related materials in Ukraine. However, lack of resources still presents a serious hindrance for Ukraine. No doubt, publications on popular sites, the beginning of a discussion and coverage of the topic in question by media can be regarded as positive developments –as the saying goes, “each cloud has a silver lining”. Forums and blogs are becoming more active. At the same time, though, there is certain reluctance in open coverage of these issues in mass media, which once again leads one to believe that all socially significant topics and processes are closely intertwined.

21. Weakness (or virtual absence) of institutional mechanisms for gender equality implementation. Lack of specialists at raion and local levels ( one person in charge of all the related issues), priority importance of programs for sports and young adults’ development at the oblast’ level give grounds to conclude that governance vertical in gender area is non-existent. The new government so far has not demonstrated any will to re-create, re-animate or reinforce it. Inefficient operation of the Ministry of Ukraine for Family, Youth and Sport as a structure authorized to address these issues, gives rise to a question as to the expediency of its existence at all.

22. At the same time, we observe the collapse of an institutional mechanism for the promotion of gender equality, manifested by liquidation of the Department for the monitoring of human rights’ observance under the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine (http://umdpl.info/index.php?id=1269125507) and absence of advisor on human rights and gender issues, although the order establishing this position is still in force (order № 1221 of 10.06.2004, http://umdpl.info/index.php?id=1238049940).

23. The new government received the recommendations, issued by the UN Committee on the elimination of discrimination against women, expressing concern with regards to low level of women’s representation in the higher echelons of power, prevalence of gender stereotypes in the society, violence against women and human trafficking. (http://umdpl.info/index.php?id=1275745690). Specifically, “The Committee recalls the State party’s obligation to systematically and continuously implement all the provisions of the Convention, and views the concerns and recommendations identified in the present concluding observations as requiring the State party’s priority attention from this date until the submission of the next periodic report. Consequently, the Committee urges the State party to focus on those areas in its implementation activities and to report on action taken and results achieved in its next periodic report. It calls upon the State party to submit the present concluding observations to all relevant ministries, to the Parliament (Verkhovna Rada) and to the judiciary in order to ensure their full implementation”.

So far these recommendations haven’t been made public by the Ministry; measures for their implementation have not been discussed. Experts participating in the development of the new draft program for the gender equality implementation in the Ukrainian society insist that the program should take these recommendations into account. The reports on implementation of two recommendations i.e. counteraction to human trafficking and enhancing the role of women in decision-making processes (respectively, articles 31 and 33 of the final recommendations), should be submitted as early as 2012.

24. Election of the judge of the European Court of Human Rights. The debates, which started in Ukraine on gender issues, insufficient representation of women in power structures and neglect of this issue by Ukrainian government, exceeded the bounds of the country and, to a certain extent, affected the election of European Court Judge of Human Rights by Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on April 27, 2010.: Hanna Yudkivska, supported by human rights organizations in Ukraine and outstanding human rights activists from other countries, who sent their letters to the Council of Europe, was elected from Ukraine. It is noteworthy that her competitor was a very strong politician, people’s deputy of Ukraine from the Party of Regions , former Minister of Justice Serhiy Holovaty.

25. Passing of the order № 155 of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine “On approving recommendations on the appearance (dress-code) of the Secretariat of the Cabinet of Ministers’ of Ukraine staff”(http://kmu.gov.ua/control/uk/newsnpd), recognized as gender-discriminatory and contradicts the right to privacy. Its content is at variance with article 8 of the European Convention on the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms (http://zakon.rada.gov.ua/cgi-bin/laws/main.cgi?nreg=995_004), article 1 of the Protocol № 11 to the Convention (http://zakon.rada.gov.ua/cgi-bin/laws/main.cgi?nreg=994_537) and article 5 of the UN Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (http://zakon.rada.gov.ua/cgi-bin/laws/main.cgi?nreg=995_207).

26. In 2010, religious organizations, for the first time, showed interest to the gender-related issues. They organized first anti-gender manifestations in the western regions of Ukraine, claiming that gender equality leads to the destruction of families.

27. Proposal, submitted by the members of Ternopil city council on the initiative of the council secretary Taras Bilan to the President and the Prime-Minister, under which the childless men over 25 years of age should pay the issuelessness tax. In Bilan’s opinion, this measure would help to improve demographic situation in Ukraine. The proposal suggested that not less than 6% of the men’s earnings should go to the orphanages, kindergartens and schools. (http://forum.mediaport.ua/read.php?103, 763433).

28. In September 2010, parliamentary majority voted for exclusion of maternity leave from the total term of the continuous service, required by pension plan. Experts argue that this step by no means will contribute to the budget revenues (which was the main supportive argument offered by the members of parliament); neither will it improve demographic situation, but, on the contrary, will further aggravate economic situation of women and workers with family duties. (http://dw-world.de/dw/article/0, , 6004731, 00.html).

29. Management and coordination challenges in gender policy. Coordination of gender policy is realized through Inter-departmental coordination council on counteracting human trafficking, home violence, gender and family policy, protection of children’s rights. This monster was created in 2007 to coordinate the operation of various governmental agencies and has undergone no changes till 2010. The council was criticized a lot for its inefficient operation. The efforts were made to improve it by setting up specialized expert groups. Besides, all the decisions of Inter-departmental council, which is, in its essence, an advisory-consultative body, should be officially registered as orders and decrees of the Cabinet of Ministers; thus they would become mandatory for all the executive power bodies, oblast’s state administrations and local self-governments. This council should be restructured and then its impact should be enhanced. Its authority is almost nil; nevertheless, with due political will (indispensable in this and all other areas) the devising of protocol order by the Cabinet of Ministers is feasible; this practice was formerly in use. Involvement of specialized international and non-governmental organizations into the discussions and decision-making process remains an important factor contributing to the efficiency of operation.

Lack of interaction between the executive and legislative power, and, in particular, with sub-committee on gender issues and international operation under Supreme Rada Committee on human rights, ethnic minorities and inter-ethnic relations presents another coordination challenge.

Efforts, made in this area, have been insufficiently harmonized both in the past and present. In many cases we are dealing mainly not with the deterioration of operation, but with prolongation of inertia and preservation of the imperfect situation, characteristic of the former government. Promised improvement never happened, while aggravation of the situation can be registered.

The above characteristics of the state of things in the Ministry of Ukraine for Family, Youth and Sport, higher echelons of power, absence of concepts or provisions on gender equality as an inalienable principle of a society respecting social equality, confirms that the integration of the gender component in all political areas consistent with both international obligations, undertaken by Ukraine, and international recommendations, specifically those made by the UN Committee on the elimination of discrimination against women and Council of Europe. We face a situation, where concept, theory, ideology and practices of the gender mainstreaming remain beyond the scope of the country’s leadership and are not used by it.

30. In fact, the whole activity in this area (with few exceptions) has been realized till now by international and non-governmental organizations on their own initiative. That’s why the openness of power structures for the dialogue, their readiness to cooperate with these organizations and to delegate certain authorities is an important prerequisite of success or very existence, in fact, of this activity as part of the state policy.

Asserting women’s rights and the right to gender equality, non-governmental organizations more than once submitted collective appeals and letters to the country leaders, demanding due attention to these issues. More detailed information can be found on the site of Kharkiv gender museum (www.gender.at.ua).

31. In order to evaluate the changes occurring in the implementation of gender policy a survey of experts’ opinion was carried out5. The research does not lay claim to comprehensive approach; nevertheless the opinions of the activists in women’s rights’ protection and gender equality promotion were instrumental in identifying the gender policy tendencies over the years 2009 and 2010.

The questions, offered to the respondents, mainly referred to evaluation of national and oblast’ authorities’ operation in the development and implementation of gender policy, cooperation between the state structures and non-governmental organizations, as well as the level of involvement of the international, donors’ and pubic organizations in tackling these issues.

The data, represented in the above table, demonstrate that the indicators, assessed in all categories, decreased in 2010 as compared to 2009. The indicator of “ Supreme Rada Human Rights Ombudsman response to the infringement of women’s rights and gender discrimination” ranked among the lowest – 1, 77 points in 2009 and 1, 4 – in 2010. The indicator “State power bodies’ response to the infringement of women’s rights and gender discrimination” turned out the worst in 2010 - 1, 38 points. Most negative dynamics was registered in the indicators “State leader’s attention to gender issues” – minus 1, 22 points and “Ministry of Ukraine for Family, Youth and Sport’s operation” - minus 1, 06 points.

The indicators “Activity of non-governmental organizations promoting women’s rights and gender equality at the national level” and “Ministry of Ukraine for Family, Youth and Sport’s cooperation with international organizations (national level)” ranked among the highest - respectively 3, 68 points in 2009 and 3, 54 points in 2010 for the former, and 3, 68 points in 2009 and 3, 4 points in 2010 for the latter. It should be kept in mind that the number of experts-respondents decreased in 2010 as compared to 2009.

Conclusions

The area of gender policy and ensuring the women’s rights is characterized by a controversial combination of positive public declarations and promises, made by the government, and negative practical measures which lead to the further deterioration of women’s status in society, perfunctory bureaucratic steps and non-compliance with the proclaimed declarations, attempts to mislead the international community and Ukrainian citizens as to the official standpoint on these issues.

Recommendations

1. Devising and implementing action plan focused at fulfilling the recommendations of the UN Committee on the elimination of discrimination against women.

2. Setting up efficient and independent mechanism of response to the complaints regarding gender-based discrimination.

3. Calling off Order № 155 of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine “On approving recommendations on the appearance (dress-code) for the staff of the Cabinet of Ministers’ of Ukraine Secretariat”

4. Organizing practical training for public servants on gender policy issues.

5. Introducing tests and exams for the public servants of all levels on their knowledge of the Law of Ukraine “On ensuring equal rights and opportunities for women and men”.

6. Introducing the practice of public debates for politicians and senior public servants on social issues, including the issue of gender equality.

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1 Prepared by K.Levchenko, co-authored by, International women rights center “la Strada-Ukraine”

2 (http://vybory.org/articles/821.html).

3 (http://vsyapravda.com/elections/cpr4334

4 “Demographic crisis (the threat of work-force deficit, especially among the qualified workers; increase in demo-economic load on working population and socially-targeted budget lines due to the ageing of population and hampering of scientific and technical progress” (p. 8);

5 About 60 experts from 18 obalst’s of Ukraine participated in the survey. They represented researchers specializing in gender studies, activists from public organizations, journalists covering gender issues, former assistants to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine on human rights in charge of counteracting gender-based discrimination, members of international organizations, independent experts. The majority of the experts (18) reside in Kiev. The survey was done on-line between May 23 and June3 2010. The experts were not obliged to answer all the questions, hence the number of answers differs from question to question