Experts believe Ukrainian women still have the status of “social invalids”

The State Committee for Family and Youth Affairs, in conjunction with the UNDP Equal Opportunities Project and the League of Women Voters of Ukraine 50/50 all-Ukrainian non-governmental organization, has recently held a roundtable titled Gender-Related Expert Examination of the Law and its Practical Application. This function, financially supported by the Canadian Agency of International Development, the Embassy of Canada in Ukraine, and the Canadian- Ukrainian Gender Foundation, is supposed to promote a dialogue among governmental and non-governmental entities, the analysis of national laws from the angle of gender equality, and help stamp out all forms of gender-based discrimination.

The expert examination of Ukrainian laws began back in 1999. The main difficulty the program initiators faced was that only a few of the incalculable number of national jurists know what gender analysis is and how it should be properly made. Meanwhile, experts claim this is a very serious question. Ukraine has signed all international conventions on equal rights and opportunities for women and men, thus admitting that the problem exists. However, there are irregularities even in this country’s Fundamental Law: according to Tamara Melnyk, expert of the UN-sponsored Promotion of Gender Equality program, the first part of Article 24 of the Ukrainian Constitution sets forth the aforesaid equal opportunities, while the second part lays emphasis on privileges for women. The analysis of Ukraine’s criminal and procedural laws (which the round table focused on) showed that a lot of provisions need to be modified. For instance, Ivan Kotiuk, head of the Criminalistics Department at Kyiv Taras Shevchenko National University, noted that it is exclusively women who are held responsible for prostitution. He also pointed out the predominantly masculine (in terms of Ukrainian grammar) terminology, which in principle occurs in all branches of law: we do not have feminine equivalents to such words as “deputy,” “citizen,” “criminal,” etc. The best intellectual potential of this country is involved in updating the law, including the Koretsky Institution of State and Law, the National Academy of Internal Affairs, the General Research and Expert Department of Verkhovna Rada, the Ministry of Justice, etc.

Ms. Melnyk noted that the gender problem in Ukraine still boils down to the question of etiquette (“who must help whom to put on the coat,” so to speak), while in reality the word “gender” is a social characteristic that presupposes equal opportunities and responsibilities as well as the right to choose. What we have in this respect is obvious disproportion and a total mess.

For example, while women have the right to take part in elections, they are heavily underrepresented in Verkhovna Rada, which runs counter to the declaration of their equal opportunities: women accounted for 8% of the previous- convocation parliament and for a mere 5% in the current one.

It will be recalled that many European countries employ the method of the so-called “civilized discrimination” whereby the number of parliamentary seats is proportioned at 50/50 or 70/30.

Incidentally, this quota is now being discussed in Kazakhstan and Russia. The Russian State Duma has shelved a bill that calls for a 30% representation of women because the Constitutions guarantees women half the Duma seats. Experts keep insisting that this provision should be included in the Law on Political Parties. In their opinion, one of the most pressing tasks is ironing out irregularities in this country’s main financial document which displays inequality at its most evident. Here is one of the innumerable examples: the pension of a woman is an average 40% lower than that of a man. Or take the walks of life where professions are traditionally distributed by the formula “statistics put nine boys against ten girls:” light industry, education, medicine, where, by the way, the “minority,” i.e., men, earn higher wages than women do. The expert notes, incidentally, that when we draw up concepts named a la “Improving the situation of women in Ukraine” (while the rest of the world considers this kind of wording as outdated, if not discriminatory, and prefers the term “gender”) and struggle for the increase of the female reproductive function, we flatly forget about the increase of the same function in men. For, as she says, statistics claim that about 40% of the national “stronger sex” are unable to be fathers. This as well as the fact that the last census recorded 3.5 million more women than men makes it clear that raising the gender problem is not a scheme of wicked feminists but a social necessity. Incidentally, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has already recommended foreign ministers to give more consideration to the recruitment of women into the army and police and, first of all, to nominate them more actively for the leading offices of these structures.

Ukraine is still afraid of women in decision-making offices, although the true reason must be the unwillingness of our lawmakers to “give up the seat to the lady,” Ms. Melnyk notes. When, as she says, the bill on equal rights and opportunities for men and women was moved for the first time in Verkhovna Rada in 1999, there was an almost 30-second-long din in the room, and the indignant deputies twice chose to decline it. One can well imagine, she says, the reaction if somebody suggests analyzing the law for the observance of the rights of sexual minorities, this also being part of the gender policy. “The initiative to set quotas triggers an interesting reaction: I am repeatedly asked where the law authors are going... to find so many women,” the expert says. “I then put a counter-question: where did you find so many men who are scarcely able to speak coherently and entrusted them deciding the destiny of this country?” Of course, there must be changes, first of all, at the mentality level, she says. The expert claims that what characterizes best the overall governmental policy is, for instance, the name of a Kyiv City Administration department, viz., “for the Affairs of Women, the Handicapped, and Low-Income-Earners.” “The budgetary funds earmarked for the capital should be also utilized for mapping out various strategies, for Kyiv is an example for others,” she thinks, “but will there be any results if the woman has been downgraded to the position of a socially handicapped in the capital?”

And, lastly, a piece of good news: this country’s basic gender law is now under study at the Council of Europe. This law is one of the top-priority items on Verkhovna Rada’s agenda.