On November 10, the eighth meeting of the Commission for Coordination of Interaction of Executive Authorities on Ensuring Equal Rights and Opportunities for Women and Men was held. It was chaired by Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Olha Stefanishyna and attended by First Lady Olena Zelenska.

During the meeting, representatives of ministries and other executive bodies, the Verkhovna Rada, the Prosecutor General’s Office, international organizations presented the results of work on preventing and countering various types of violence, as well as agreed on further steps to provide comprehensive assistance to victims, in particular the victims of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV).

The Deputy Prime Minister noted that close cooperation between the agencies, international partners and civil society, even before the full-scale military aggression of the russian federation, became the basis of Ukraine’s resilience in the war.

Olha Stefanishyna stressed that for 8 months Ukraine has not stopped the path of change and transformation, particularly in response to challenges in the field of gender equality, combating domestic violence and conflict-related violence. She stressed that an example of this is the recent ratification of the Istanbul Convention by Ukraine, which entered into force on November 1 this year and became a new stage in the fight against violence.

“The ratification of the Convention has become a long-awaited stage in the intensification of work on countering any kind of violence. It will strengthen the mechanisms of response to CRSV and domestic violence. In addition, it is an additional tool to protect temporarily displaced Ukrainians abroad,” the Deputy Prime Minister said.

Olha Stefanishyna noted that the analysis of the compliance of Ukrainian legislation with the Istanbul Convention has been carried out and a roadmap of legislative changes has been developed that will allow to move to a qualitatively new level of combating violence.

In turn, Government Commissioner for Gender Policy Kateryna Levchenko informed that the analysis of the compliance of Ukrainian legislation with the provisions of the Istanbul Convention showed that almost 20 laws and codes need to be amended. These changes will help not only to restore justice in relation to victims of violence by providing them with comprehensive and unimpeded assistance, but also to punish the offenders.

Particular attention was paid to the assistance to the victims of violence in wartime. “Today it is difficult to imagine the true scale of crimes committed by the russian federation in Ukraine. It is important that the state authorities, together with international and non-governmental organizations, make every effort to create an effective system of protection and care for those who have faced the horror of war,” said Deputy Prime Minister Olha Stefanishyna.

The official also informed the participants about the first results of the work on the creation of a network of centers for assistance to the rescued, working in close cooperation with mobile teams of social and psychological assistance to cover as many settlements as possible, including in the recently de-occupied territories. She noted that the centers currently operate in 4 cities of Ukraine: Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro, Lviv and Kyiv, but work is underway to scale up their activities, including abroad.

The meeting was attended by Andriy Kostin, Prosecutor General of Ukraine; Oksana Zholnovych, Minister of Social Policy; Denys Monastyrskyy, Minister of Internal Affairs; Dmytro Lubinets, Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights; Maryna Bardina, MP; Jaime Nadal, United Nations Population Fund Representative in Ukraine; Ashley Mulroney, Chargé d’Affaires, Embassy of Canada in Ukraine; Maria Lindgren-Saltanova, Deputy Chief of Mission, Embassy of Sweden in Ukraine; Susan Kutor, Acting USAID Mission Director in Ukraine.

For reference

The Commission for Coordination of Interaction of Executive Authorities on Ensuring Equal Rights and Opportunities for Women and Men was established by the Government decision of September 2, 2020 as an advisory body to the Government chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration.

The main purpose of the Commission is to ensure that Ukraine fulfills its obligations in the field of gender equality and to promote coordination of work in this area.