UNBA representatives joined the CoE project on promoting gender equality

In Ukraine, the practice of underpayment of wages for women is quite widespread, as well as refusal to employ internally displaced persons.

These and other issues of gender equality were highlighted by the members of the UNBA Gender Policy Committee Council Victoria Polishchuk and Olga Shcherbakova during the introductory meeting organized by the Council of Europe Office in Ukraine on November 29 as part of the launch of the Council of Europe project «Promoting Gender Equality in Ukraine» in Ukraine.

The project provides technical assistance to Ukraine in policy development, decision-making and service delivery at the national and regional levels, ensuring that gender perspectives are taken into account in Ukraine's work to overcome the long-term consequences of conflict and violence. It is planned to focus on three key aspects:

• Raising awareness of European and international standards of gender equality among civil servants, media and the public;
• Strengthening institutional capacities to promote gender equality in line with the strategy (the Commission for Gender Equality has recently approved the draft Council of Europe Gender Equality Strategy for 2024-2029);
• improving tools that will help implement legislative and other policy steps to promote gender equality in Ukraine.

During the meeting, V. Polishchuk spoke about social imbalance and gender issues in the context of internally displaced persons and mobilized women workers.

In particular, she noted the difference in wages between women and men and called it a typical situation when internally displaced women are not hired because they have children or need to care for a sick family member.

The UNBA representative also gave an example from her own practice, when an employee who signed a contract for military service was not retained by her employer and did not pay her salary. The court found a violation of labor rights.

The lawyer also mentioned her participation in the CoE project «Human Rights in the Armed Forces», which was adapted for judicial training. As part of the training, a module on «Women's Rights in the Armed Forces» was developed, which explores the issue of maintaining gender balance.

In support of her colleague, Ms. Shcherbakova shared her proposals for informing the widest possible range of people, including business representatives, about the strategy prepared in the CoE. At the same time, she emphasized the need to include certain aspects related to the difficulties of access to training (retraining or obtaining a new profession) for women who are internally displaced and described the problems faced by such women.