Equality for women, remuneration for government officials’ counsel, and positive changes for Ukraine

During the All-Ukrainian Youth Summit, UN Goals for the Millennium, all the journalists played in their minds twenty questions, although they were evidently hard put to find as many differences between the youth parliament and that of their older colleagues. Hard as they tried they could spot only two distinctions, one being that the young outshine their older counterparts when it comes to making decisions and the other that virtually all the leading posts are occupied by representatives of the fair sex. For two days over 250 representatives of Ukraine’s numerous youth organizations put their heads together to discuss and work out their own recommendations to help Ukraine achieve the goals of the millennium which were set in 2000 by 189 UN member states. Commensurately with the number of goals set (which included overcoming poverty and fighting HIV/AIDS, lowering mortality rates for infants and mothers, environmental issues, gender equality, and the level of education, to name but a few) the young people divided up into committees. The committees worked tirelessly to structure problems, establish interconnections among them, and set priorities. And, most importantly, they developed mechanisms to solve those problems. Save for one recommendation, all of them were ratified by members of other committees at the General Assembly of the summit. The majority turned down only the final document on gender issues. Despite the fact that half the committee working on these issues, incidentally having the biggest membership, were men, it failed to draw a clear distinction between gender equality and feminism. The recommendations put forward by the committee were quite unexpected. To illustrate, young fighters against gender discrimination concluded that a subcommittee should be created within the VR human rights committee to examine bills to find out whether any of them infringe on women’s rights. According to the committee members, it would be worthwhile to introduce a compulsory gender equality course in all educational establishments as well as impose sanctions on enterprises where cases of gender-based inequities in employment are reported. In other respects, the young lawmakers were more like-minded, and their decisions met almost unanimous approval. Although it would be stretching it to call their recommendations a downpour of fresh ideas and approaches, all the same maturity of wording and a comprehensive understanding of problems came as a pleasant surprise. For instance, the global cooperation for development committee concluded that Ukraine needs to become a member of the WTO, EU, and NATO, enact legislation only after public hearings, and grant government officials the right to be remunerated for counseling services. However, the last item met a good deal of criticism from adult politicians attending the closing session. Heorhy Kriuchkov, head of the parliamentary security and defense committee, said that such statements were blatant interference on the part of adults in the legislative process of the young. Nevertheless, the guests admitted that ideas of the younger generation did not lack common sense. Most importantly, the deputies rejoiced at the fact that young people abandoned the consumer pattern of behavior so typical of them. During the summit, representatives of youth organizations outlined goals and assignments as if they were their own. To illustrate, they have suggested that the problem of HIV/AIDS in Ukraine be solved the UN way, i.e. through encouraging charity, organizing amusements to serve educational purposes, introducing compulsory thematic classes and, finally, through expanding the network of social psychological rehabilitation centers not only in cities, but in rural areas as well. They also believe that the problem of poverty should be tackled by way of embracing UN strategies, that is, by encouraging the development of private pension funds and social security funds, as well as assisting small and medium businesses. Having listened to the recommendations of the young people, the deputies vowed to enlist their services during deliberations on bills in committees as well as take into account their comments when enacting legislation. These words comforted the young politicians. A representative of the committee on combating poverty, Olena Kharchenko, stressed repeatedly that young people flocked to the summit not to merely show concern, but to help overcome the crisis that has befallen Ukraine. True to this principle, the young people asked their guests a provocative question which, as they later confessed, continued to reel in their minds: “Why does Ukraine profess to be making headway while no positive changes are observable?” Regrettably, this question caught the guests with no answer.