There has been a 117,800 increase in the number of employed females in Ukraine, and now it is around ten million persons. The number of unemployed fell by 12.4% within the period from March 2002 to March 2003, and in numbers comes to a little over a million. The unemployment rate for the members of the fair sex (9.2%) is lower than that for men (9.7%). On September 1 the State Employment Center, or rather, its executive administration, used these numbers as well as others taken from the quarterly study of the State Committee on Statistics ordered by the Compulsory State Insurance of the Unemployment Fund of the Human Rights Watch international human rights organization. According to Ukrainian mass media accounts, the latter in its new report had denounced Ukrainian government for its inability to ensure equal rights to both women in the workplace.
The main HRW conclusion is that Ukrainian women are discriminated against and compelled to do poorly paid jobs with little prestige. The Ministry of Labor and Social Policy in its official reply (of August 27, 2003) did not argue the assertion. At least, in the information provided by the State Unemployment Center one will not find arguments against the theses of the rights organization like “discrimination against females, which is common for employers, does not allow women to find a job, in particular, a high-paid and prestigious position... placing an advertisement for a vacancy employers in both the private and state sectors constantly emphasize the desirable gender of an employee,” etc.
Instead, it contains a hint at “not quite correct” conclusions about the “women’s face” of Ukrainian unemployment. In the Ministry of Labor they believe the reason is that women are more active in registering themselves with the Employment Service. The experience of communication of basic Employment Center officials with visitors has proven that the specific problem of unemployed male clients also exists. Seeking help in finding a job is asserted to be more difficult for the stronger sex, because of some false notions and fear to show their own inability to make a living.
It is really difficult to say if, according to what they have inferred in the HRW, the requirements as to the appearance or age can be of a hindrance, even if women absolutely meet the post in professional terms. But the fund’s administration notice that the cases, when women, who always take care of their families, appeal to employment centers instead of or for their husbands, are “not infrequent.”
According to Labor Ministry officials, the HRW experts claiming that “the women are being more and more forced out into the poorly paid service sector and state sector, or they have to look for a job (especially for how to combine jobs) in the unregulated shadow sector” are therefore not quite correct — and not only because within the period from January to July of the current year 1,224,100 women resorted to the help of the state employment service (“263,700 thousand of whom are thereby underemployed”). For this is already a confident assumption that there are enough males among the Ukrainians combining jobs, working part time, being on forced leaves and experiencing other things generated by the national economic concept, like secret unemployment (this category being a complete mystery to the theory of economics).
On the other hand, it is gratifying to learn that, according to the ministry’s report, within the first six months of 2003 12,108 female citizens of Ukraine received one-time pecuniary aid to do business. However, another part of the HRW’s reporting that many women “go abroad to seek better economic possibilities” and “thus run the risk of being involved in the commercial sex industry (other forms of forced labor)” are not pleasing at all.
At any rate, the Ministry of Labor’s reaction to the published HRW’s report was prompt, and this also refers to the statistics that can hardly be called a standard of trust .
