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From left: Anna Krawczuk, Ambassador to USA from Ukraine Yurij Shcherbak and Martha Bohachevsky-Chomiak. MARTHA BOHACHEVSKY-CHOMIAK THE FAMILY IN UKRAINE The family unit in Ukraine and in the various parts of the world in which Ukrainians have settled through out the centuries has sustained the identity of the group. As in other societies that fell under the rule of an out side power, families in Ukraine preserved their identity as Ukrainians and served as havens from outside stress. To a large^extent, it was the women who were responsi ble for preserving this sense of identity. Women, for example, preserved the use of the Ukrainian language, particularly when it was outlawed in formal use. Yet Ukrainian women today feel the lack of published works in their own language in all walks of life. In the past, the role of independent women’s organ izations in Ukraine was especially important in helping modernize the country and in attempting to raise the standard of living, especially in the villages. Under the Soviet regime, the family in Ukraine survived repeated attempts to annihilate it and women were in the fore front of the fight for survival. During the famine of 1993, for example, it was the women who often led the pro tests against the forceful, brutal and deadly requisition of grain. More recently, it was the women who organ ized in 1990 to defend drafted Ukrainian soldiers from lethal abuses in the army and it was the women who led the protests against atomic and environmental pollu tion. Women are in the forefront of attempts to alleviate the suffering caused by the Chornobyl accident and the hardships caused by continued poverty. Today, Ukraine needs help in establishing programs of self help in local communities. Promises of major economic help, of industrial restructuring, and the like, filter to the local communities only slowly. Women, as always, are faced with the daily tasks of making do, of feeding, clothing and housing their families. In large measure, the family functions as an economic unit, and the mother is often its major administrator. The func tions of community have also devolved upon the women, and women in Ukraine, as in many frontier societies, have performed what needs to be performed, regardless of accepted sexual roles. Women’s organizations have created programs for the care of the needy, elderly, infirm and orphans. They have few resources for per forming these tasks adequately. Moreover, as members of a society emerging from a totalitarian system, Ukrainian women especially need strengthening of self-confidence, and need ways of bet ter accomodating the lives of individuals, men, women, and children with the demands of modem mobility. All Ukrainians need to overcome colonialism and totatita- rism. Over and above these two ills, Ukrainian women have to struggle with sexism. Although they perform so many vital tasks in the changing society in Ukraine, few of them have a sense of empowerment or even the full realization of the importance of their work. The expe rience of the world community at the U.N., and espe cially the resources and experience available to UNESCO will be of inestimable use to these women. Those of us of Ukrainian origin who have access to these resources and who work with these organizations should work to see that these resources are shared with Ukraine’s women, enabling them to strengthen the Ukrainian fam ily and ease its burdens. "НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ГРУДЕНЬ 1994 19
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