Statement of Ukraine at the 2016 WPS Debate
HUman Rights
The victims of Russian military aggressions since the spring of 2014 have been millions of Ukrainian women, and the Russian Federation is fully responsible for violating human rights, both in occupied Crimea and Donbas. This was recognized by two recent resolutions of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
Women and children are the most vulnerable during these conflicts. Allow me to provide a few harrowing figures. According to recent data, in Ukraine today there are 1.7 million internally displaced persons. Of those, about 900,000 are women and more than 236,000 are children. Over the past two years in Donbas, 495 women have died in the civilian population.
In this particularly difficult situation regarding violations of the rights of women and children in the occupied territories, the Russian occupying army has taken Ukrainian women as hostages. According to the Security Service of Ukraine, there are 238 Ukrainian women in prison at the moment. At the moment, 233 women have been found they either have been released, or their bodies have been identified, although five were left in prison. The most well-known Kremlin prisoner, Nadiya Savchenko, spent almost 2 years in a Russian prison. Another Ukrainian woman — a journalist, Maria Varfolomeyeva — was imprisoned for more than a year in Luhansk. She was freed in March of this year.
SGBV
Conflicts are always accompanied by violence against women and girls. We are aware of cases of trafficking in persons on temporarily occupied territories, sexual violence and exploitation, and the use of minors in military activities, which are incompatible with human rights law and unacceptable in our contemporary world and goes against the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was ratified by the Russian Federation. .
Allow me now to offer a few examples. Last month we discovered a shocking fact regarding the gender element of the violence in the temporary occupied territories of Donetsk oblast. Such violence was perpetrated by members of armed gangs and terrorist groups, including fighters of the so-called Pyatnashka International Brigade of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic. That involved the setting up of establishments where minors were forced to provide sexual services. Human trafficking also took place. Foreign nationals established studios to produce child pornography, and the materials were then distributed outside of Ukraine. Furthermore, children were recruited and received military training to participate in the fighting. That is yet another example of what we are also trying to resolve in the Minsk Working Group on Humanitarian Issues.
We have been unable to gather a complete set of evidence on the incidents, including the cases of sexual violence.
In that regard, I want to take this opportunity to reiterate once again, on behalf of Ukraine, our appeal to the United Nations to include in the mandates of the appropriate bodies of the Organization the need to combat sexual violence during the provoked armed conflict in Ukraine and the Crimea.
Participation
I would like to say the following. Ukrainian women have rallied to deal with the current situation. Female politicians, social activists, volunteers and human rights activists are working actively to re-establish peace, and their role in dealing with women and peace and security issues is extremely important and ever-growing.
I should also point out that today women make up 12 per cent of the members of the Government and the Parliament of Ukraine. They play a very active role, first and foremost in the peacemaking processes. In February 2016, the Ukrainian Government adopted a national plan of action for implementing resolution 1325 (2000). The implementation of the plan will allow us to ensure even greater participation by women in peacekeeping and decision-making in the field of national security and defence, and in further combating gender-based violence.
The aggression against Ukraine has led to greater involvement by women in the peacemaking processes, and the President of Ukraine has appointed a woman to a position in charge of the peace process in the Donbas region. We also have women in at least two Minsk working groups dealing with humanitarian and political issues, and they are doing everything possible to ensure a peaceful solution to the situation in the Donbas.
SSR
But the war has also meant greater involvement by women in the armed forces. Many Ukrainian women voluntarily signed enlistment contracts in order to protect their country against the aggression. We now have 19,892 women in the armed forces of Ukraine, of whom 2,458 are officers and 17,000 are non-commissioned officers or soldiers. Of that group, 266 women were mobilized directly into the ranks of the armed forces. Women also play an important role in providing medical help at the front, and very often they have been active in saving both civilians and our soldiers during the conflict. This year we took a number of special steps to include the gender component in the area of security-sector reform. Although those measures are just at their initial stage — to speak frankly — they have already brought initial results: they have brought about a transformation in the military structures and the military culture.
This past summer we expanded the list of specialities in which women can serve in the armed forces, including in military functions. We need to bring gender advisers into the military. We hope that will be done soon and that the Ukrainian Government will adopt such a measure. We plan to enact broader legal changes so as to eliminate barriers, ensure the equal representation of women in the military and enhance parliamentary oversight of national security and defence.