A workshop on matters of legislative mechanisms for gender equality in electoral legislation was held in the Verkhovna Rada at the initiative of the Inter-faction deputy union “Equal Opportunities” in partnership with the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI)
25 June 2014, 17:47
That is why new electoral legislation should open the way to a more balanced representation of women and men, thus, moving us closer to European principles of democratic government.
These issues were discussed in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Committee on European Integration on June 24, 2014. A workshop on matters of legislative mechanisms for gender equality in electoral legislation was held at the initiative of the Inter-faction deputy union “Equal Opportunities” in partnership with the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI).
The issues of Ukraine’s international commitments in the sphere of gender equality, as well as introduction of efficient mechanisms for a balanced representation of women and men in the bodies of state authority and several others were on the agenda of the meeting.
The workshop was run by a leading international expert in the sphere of
gender equality in politics the Director of Haffert Group, Kristin
Haffert. Her speech was dedicated to the
issue of including tools for reaching gender equality into the reforms’ agenda,
as an important component of representative democracy. She considered
legislative mechanisms of gender equality that are optimal for different
electoral systems.People's deputies of Ukraine Lilia Hrynevych, Maria Ionova, Iryna Lutsenko, Inna Bohoslovska, representatives of the NDI and IFES, as well as workers of the Committee on European Integration and the Committee on State Building and Local Self-Government participated in the workshop.
People's deputies emphasized the need to legislatively consolidate quotas in electoral party lists. Iryna Lutsenko stressed the importance of considering the draft law on amendments to several legislative acts of Ukraine (re ensuring equal rights and opportunities for women and men in the electoral process) under Reg. No. 3411 (authors of the draft law are Kondratiuk O., Herashchenko I., Tomenko M., Yatseniuk A., and Klychko V.).
Moreover, the bill stipulates sanctions for its non-fulfillment – the Central Election Commission (at parliamentary elections) and a respective territorial election commission (at local elections) does not accept documents for registering candidates for deputies at a nationwide constituency if proportion of candidates of one sex does not correspond to the requirements in the approved electoral list.
Lilia Hrynevych paid particular attention to the necessity of making electoral lists more transparent. She also stressed the need to integrate the bill's provisions (No. 3411), particularly the suggested mechanism of control that guarantees implementation of a respective quota principle of forming a party list, into a new electoral legislation in case the bill No. 3411 will not have been considered by the time of elections.
Maria
Ionova claimed that apart from legislative consolidation of the quota principle,
it is urgent to conduct extensive education campaigns, inform the public about
perceiving women in the politics, overcome stereotypes, and conduct inner-party
work for supporting women in politics.
Participants of the workshop agreed upon further steps, particularly steps on strengthening cooperation between the Verkhovna Rada and public organizations on the issue of elaborating and introducing legislative initiatives in the sphere of gender equality.