The question of women’s participation in politics and their representation in Ukraine’s governing bodies risks turning into an eternal issue or, at the very least, an enduring one. Who will bother to fix quotas for women in party lists when on Jan. 12 the “anti-crisis” coalition — whose representatives did not support the bill “On Granting Equal Rights and Opportunities to Women and Men in the Election Process” — has more important and urgent issues on its agenda: the successful distribution of already acquired power.
The issue in question was the long-awaited and extremely important step toward parity democracy: increasing the number of women in parliament, not to mention in the highest positions in the executive branch of power. We are still a long way from this.
What was the goal of the lawmakers who proposed the bill? They wanted the law on elections to parliament and local councils to state that there would be at least one woman for every five candidates. If the law is passed, then from 2011, the date of the next convocation, no less than 20 percent of women are expected to work in the Verkhovna Rada. This is the ideal, because the positioning of candidates in party lists has been at the parties’ discretion. There is no doubt that the most patriarchal ones would minimize the leading positions of women.
Clearly, this law is not “scary,” but even this approach did not satisfy the representatives of the Communist Party, Socialist Party, and Party of Regions. The regionals cast 2 votes out of 185, the socialists — 7 out of 31, while not a single communist out of 21 voted in favor. For some reason, the Party of Regions did not support the prime minister and the government, the latter with important powers and burdened by obligations in the sphere of securing equal opportunities for women and men. The socialists decided to ignore the lessons of their European counterparts, who initiated important gender policy changes in their countries, while the communists said they did not promise anything to anyone.
With their decision to vote down the law on equal rights and opportunities to women and men in the election process, the anti-crisis coalition took a step backwards on the path to pursuing a gender-balanced policy developed by the Cabinet of Ministers and the Ministry of Family, Children, and Sports in 2002-06, which would comply with international regulations. Among these are the 1979 UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, which determines the responsibility of UN member states for parity representation of women and men in governing bodies, based on positive actions — special temporary, primarily legislative, initiatives.
It has been almost a year and a half since the Verkhovna Rada passed the law “On Granting Equal Rights and Opportunities to Women and Men.” It is high time to accelerate the implementation of this law’s provisions, particularly in the section and stage of the electoral process in the Ukrainian legislative field.
This has yet to happen. Men’s dominance in the Verkhovna Rada (91.3 percent compared to 54 percent of women in the general population) likely played a negative role during the consideration of the draft law “On Granting Equal Rights and Opportunities to Women and Men in the Election Process.” The deputies did not care one bit that on Nov. 21, 2006, during the parliamentary hearings on “Equal Rights and Opportunities in Ukraine: Realities and Prospects,” it was representatives of the legislative power, mostly members of the CPU fraction, who gave the most vociferous assurances of their commitment to securing women’s rights in Ukraine.
I will take the liberty of repeating what I said that day in parliament as the Deputy Minister of Family, Youth, and Sports: one of the most acute gender problems in Ukraine is still the absence of equal women’s participation in decision making on the highest level of executive and legislative power. This is confirmed by the parliamentary profile (the number of women in Verkhovna Rada has never exceeded nine percent) and the personnel policy in the executive branch: the government of this “large European country” does not have a single woman.
A question arises: how is the parliamentary majority going to support the further introduction of both the current legislative base and the government’s initiative to grant equal rights to women and men? Nobody has rescinded these passed decisions. The government faces a number of important tasks, such as implementing the National Action Plan until 2015 to secure gender equality in society; creating a consultative and deliberative body in the Cabinet of Ministers to coordinate the activity of the executive branch, enterprises, organizations, and civic associations with the aim of ensuring equal rights and opportunities for women and men; approving and perfecting a mechanism for conducting a gender- rights examination of legal regulatory acts, with mandatory consideration of the principle of equal rights and opportunities for women and men; and introducing positions for advisors on gender issues in central and local bodies of the executive power and self-government.
Many of these questions have never been put into practice, a point that was discussed at the Nov. 21, 2006, parliamentary hearings. Let us hope this was just a momentary “failure” of the coalition’s understanding of the state’s policy priorities. In any case, this would be better for the government. Its leaders have important international obligations — without women’s participation in politics Ukraine will not be able to achieve the Millennium Development Goals proclaimed in 2000. According to them, by 2015 Ukraine must secure a gender ratio of at least 30:70 of either sex in legislative bodies and on higher levels of the executive power. Today, the executive branch and the government, as the supreme body in this system, have a priority task to achieve these goals, i.e., reference points for Ukraine’s development in the global perspective. Even in this sphere the Cabinet of Ministers cannot manage without support from the coalition that formed this government.
Let’s get back to my original question — fixing representation quotas as a temporary special instrument for achieving gender equality or at least a higher level of women’s representation in power. Will the rejection of the law “On Granting Equal Rights and Opportunities to Women and Men in the Election Process” become an impassable hurdle preventing women from entering politics? I am confident it will not. By all means, intelligent, energetic, educated, and savvy women will definitely be making decisions of state importance, and those decisions will contribute to the social comfort of life in Ukraine, if I may say so. The only snag is they will not be able to take any short-cuts. Instead, they will have to reach their goal by overcoming the resistance of Ukrainian communists and socialists, who have already staked on the obvious advantages stemming from parliament’s alliance with big capital.
I want to believe that in the next elections people will lend their support to those parties and political forces that will adopt measures to equalize the gender ratio in the electoral party lists. Parties will have to meet the requirements, values, and norms of the European Union, which are often boasted about in our country without the least care for the corresponding content and introduction of these values.
In the 1970s and 1980s such a path was chosen by a number of left-center parties in Norway, Denmark, and Sweden. Thus, in 1983 the Norwegian Labor Party introduced a 40 percent quota for women in all elections; in 1988 the Danish Social-Democratic Party claimed that its candidates of either sex enjoy a 40 percent representation quota; in 1994 the Social Democrats of Sweden adopted the approach of “every second woman” on its party list.
This kind of approach has been tested by Ukraine’s Greens. During the 2006 parliamentary election the list of candidates from the Green Party of Ukraine — the only party to do so — was formed with due account of the necessity to have gender balance. I wish their example were followed by all political forces, which by their actions, not words, would be concerned with the European dimension of Ukrainian politics, as well as our country’s social and state prospects. But in questions pertaining to the support of women’s movements and women’s representation in politics, our leftists are as far from their European counterparts as from an awareness of women’s role in promoting social values that are important to society. Perhaps they are not aware that establishing gender equality is a priority part of Ukraine’s state policy.
But the political fate of Ukrainian communists is less interesting to me than valuable social prospects related to adapting Ukrainian legislation to that of the European Union and Ukraine’s movement toward Europe. The latter requires a gender dimension of national legislation.
We have several examples to follow. Today Europe, which already in the last century assessed the advantages of gender equality and for which this concept is not a dead letter — is taking crucial steps to reinforce the mechanisms of equality. Last year the EU designed a Roadmap for Gender Equality in Europe 2006-2010. Without going into details of the European Commission’s plan, I will only note that ensuring equal access for men and women to participation in decision making is defined as one of the leading tasks among six other priority goals, such as combating violence and human trafficking.
Representatives of organizations whose activities are linked to developing women’s activity, political education of women, and supporting legislative initiatives in the field of gender equality need to broaden public discussions of the advantages of parity democracy and the social level that can be achieved through women’s participation in the decision-making process. The problem of election quotas can also be a topic of discussion because such an approach may be used by other social groups that need representation.
I think we can count on assistance for holding such discussions and programs from Ukraine-based international organizations and our counterparts from many countries, where they have been enjoying gender parity for about 30 years.
The legislative implementation of mechanisms to strengthen the position of women in Ukrainian politics will definitely mean the victory of political realism and common sense, and will enable Ukraine to develop in accordance with European ethical values and political standards. We should say “yes” to the chance for parity democracy in Ukraine. By Tetiana KONDRATIUK The author is the head of the Diia All-Ukrainian Union and the Kyiv municipal branch of the Green Party of Ukraine.
