4 March, 2008. Kyiv, Ukraine. The representatives of the Ukrainian Parliament and Government, UN experts and leading national media met to discuss the issues of equal opportunities of men and women at the press-breakfast entitled ”Investing in women and girls: Ukrainian perspective” devoted to the International Women’s Day.
This event was organized by the Sub-Committee on international and legal issues and gender policy of the Committee of the Verkhovna Rada on human rights, national minorities and inter-ethnic relations together with the UN Department of Public Information in Ukraine and UNDP-led Equal Opportunities Programme. Key speakers of the discussion were Member of the Parliament of Ukraine Olena BONDARENKO, Deputy Minister of Family, Youth and Sport Tetyana KONDRATYUK and Head of UNDP Eaqual Opportunities programme Larysa KOBELYANSKA.
Having acknowledged the importance that gender equality plays in overall economic progress of the state, the participants of the meeting affirmed that there is a need to improve the efforts of state bodies for ensuring equal rights of men and women in social and economic sectors and increasing the number of women in decision-making bodies.
“The level of development and prosperity of the nation depends directly on the level of equality between men and women. It is possible to achieve the positive changes in the development of democracy, economic power, social security, to solve demographic and various social problems by investing in the PERSON only. But due to the fact that women and men have different needs and different opportunities, this investment must be gender-differentiated. Investing in the development of women and girls is important not just because of humanitarian aspects, but also because of economic reasons. It allows the society to make a step forward in its development,” – stated Olena BONDARENKO, MP, Head of Sub-Committee on international and legal issues and gender policy of the Committee of the Verkhovna Rada on human rights, national minorities and inter-ethnic relations.
According to the recent UN research, women dominate low-pay, low-status, part-time or contract work that offers limited opportunities for social security coverage. Even for similar kinds of work, women are typically paid 20-30% less than men. Women contribute to two thirds of the hours worked in the world, but they earn one tenth of the world’s income and own about 1% of the world’s property.
In Ukraine, women control only 5-10% of economic resources. Women make up 38% of the total number of entrepreneurs doing their own individual business, and manage 26% of small enterprises, 15% of medium, and 12% of large ones. Only 2% of industry business managers are women. Women’s wage rates are 68.6% of men’s on average.
“The researches conducted in different countries indicate evidently that strategies of development, political decisions cannot be effective unless they ignore the contribution of women and their participation. The benefits of involving women, taking their contribution and ideas into account, have positive impact over the entire society and bias towards drastic changes: the politics is getting socially-oriented, investments take humanitarian nature, social self-perception of the nation improves,” as underlined Larysa KOBELYANSKA, Project Manager of UNDP-led Equal Opportunities Programme
According to the latest survey, conducted by the Centre of Social Expertise of Institute of Sociology of National Academy of Science of Ukraine with the support of the UNDP, the problem of gender inequality remains important for Ukrainian society. Both men and women more and more understand this. The role of woman in social and political life continues to be under-estimated, and such views are expressed even by the gender experts. According to the survey, one of two Ukrainians acknowledges that there are gender stereotypes in Ukrainian society. The majority of population (62%) considers that these are women whose rights are restricted.
The participants of the meeting also agreed that gender problems still need the adequate presentation in the mass-media.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION:
Investing in women and girls is the theme of International Women Day 2008, proposed for the discussed by the United Nations. Gender equality has been recognized by UN Member States as an essential factor for the achievement of the United Nations priorities of peace and security, human rights and development, including the Millennium Development Goals. Little number of international campaigns conducted by the UN have such broad and effective support as the campaign aimed at ensuring equality and protection of women. The UN Charter, signed in San-Francisco in 1945, was the first international agreement to declare the equality of women and men as fundamental right of person.
Ukraine signed the UN Millennium Declaration on the Millennium Summit in New York in 2000. On signing this Declaration, Ukraine undertaken the obligation to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015 on all six directions: poverty reduction, quality life-long education, sustainable environmental development, improved maternal health and reduced child mortality, reducing and slowing down the spread of HIV/AIDS and TB, gender equality.
MDGs for Ukraine are 6 goals, 13 exact targets on long-term perspective, adapted with due account of particularities of national development of our country. In order to achieve these goals, the Government has to implement such a policy that will improve the prosperity of the entire nation. Therefore, achieving gender equality and women empowerment shall be among top priorities of state policy of Ukraine.
World-wide campaign on achieving the MDGs started in 2000 and is now on the midway to its termination. The United Nations in Ukraine together with the Ministry of Economy announced the nation-wide informational and educational campaign “Ukraine-2015. Millennium Development Goals” on 8 November 2007. The campaign is planned for 2008.
Informational campaign is the continuation of a dialogue that the UN Agencies have with the Government of Ukraine on including the MDGs into long-term strategic programmes of national development of the state and better information of Ukrainian people about the priorities of MDGs. Its strategy is directed on raising public awareness about MDGs, granting information about the level of achieving MDGs in Ukraine, problems and obstacles on the way to MDGs by 2015, popularization of the conception of MDGs and its importance among the broad public.
The implementation of the campaign “Ukraine-2015. Millennium Development Goals” has the following aim: the politicians, representatives of the Government, scientists, state officials, representatives of private sector, NGOs and mass-media, should turn their attention to the necessity of further promotion of the process of achieving MDGs in Ukraine by the deadline – 2015. You can get more information from here: www.ukraine2015.org.ua
If you or your organisation is interested to participate in this process, we will be glad to cooperate with you.
Contacts:
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04.03.08
