The Special Representative stressed that during Ukraine's chairmanship in the OSCE, one of the priority issues is the issue of gender equality, as well as increase of number of women in government and fight against human trafficking. June Zeitlin noted that in Ukraine, as in some other countries of the region, women often do not have access to well-paid jobs and suffer from violence in family. She drew attention also to low representation of women in the Ukrainian government, which does not meet educational and professional level of women.
“We should think strategically and determine the main directions of work in order to concentrate our efforts on them, in order to prevent and fight violence in families to overcome the insufficient number of women in governmental bodies,” June Zeitlin stressed.
The people’s deputies, representing inter-faction union “Equal Opportunities”, informed the guest on the work of the union. In particular, the co-chairperson Iryna Herashchenko (“UDAR” faction) stressed that the key priorities are: defense of gender equality, increased involvement of women into the social and political life, increased number of women in the government and political parties etc.
Iryna Herashchenko stated that the union has registered already first bills.
Co-chairperson of the inter-faction union Olena Kondratyuk ("Batkivshchyna" faction) said that the party "All-Ukrainian Union “Batkivshchyna” consistently approaches the issues of gender quotas.
Co-chairperson of the inter-faction union Iryna Berezhna (“Party of Regions” faction) deems also that the increase of women percentage in the Parliament to 9.7 % is a positive result of the inter-faction union’s work during the last convocation.
The inter-faction union initiated holding of the first in the last 8 years parliamentary hearings on gender equality, which are to be held this year.