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by the government, offer a unique opportunity for wom en’s non-governmental organizations to partici pate in the com m ission’s monitoring process. Ukraine’ s shadow report w as prepared by the Analyti cal and Research Group o f the Kharkiv Center for W om en’ s Studies (A R G K C W S ), and focused on sev eral problem areas, particularly on the trafficking o f women, domestic violence, sexual harassment in the workplace, wom en’s access to healthcare and social services, and their status in politics and education. On June 6, 200 2, Valentyna Ivanivna D ovz henko, Ukraine's former Minister o f Fam ily and Youth Affairs and current Head o f Ukraine’s State Com m is sion on W om en and Fam ily, delivered the government o f Ukraine’ s combined 4 th and 5 th reports to C E D A W . Speaking through U N translators, Dovzhenko ad dressed the C E D A W Committee, verbally supplement ing previously submitted written documents. Questions from the committee, a body o f 2 3 independent experts (each from a different country), followed. M any fo cused on concerns raised by the A R G K C W S shadow report. In their line o f questioning, the C E D A W ex perts proceeded from the premise that Ukraine is in an advantageous position. A s A yse A car o f Turkey put it, the status o f being a young state, in itself, offers Ukraine the opportunity to establish an order o f gender parity right from the start, from the foundations up. They recognized that Ukraine has m any “ blessings.” Ukrainian culture generally holds wom en in high es teem. Even though wom en have not always held high posts, their traditional position within the fam ily has been one o f high status and Ukrainian culture is not characterized by customs that overtly subordinate or subjugate wom en to men. The formal equality o f men and wom en is guaranteed by Ukraine’s (19 9 6 ) Consti tution and the principle o f equality is also reflected in Ukraine’s legal codes (Code on M arriage and Fam ily, Code on Labor Law , the Criminal Code, the Codes o f Criminal and C ivil Procedure, the Em ploym ent Act, etc.) M oreover, particularly optimistic is the fact that Ukraine’ s female population is very well-educated: Ukraine is well in compliance with the 10 th article o f the C E D A W convention which refers to equal and unobstructed access to education. Educational gains secured for wom en during the Soviet period have not been lost for the younger generations: women are in the majority among secondary school, college and uni versity graduates. Fem ales are also in the majority among students o f medicine and in the cultural, arts, and commercial schools, as well as in post-graduate studies. Concerns were expressed, however, when these rosy facts were considered in the context o f the statistics on female representation in Parliament, in managerial positions, and in higher echelons o f gov ernment. C E D A W experts asserted that while Ukraine has de jure equality, it must also cultivate de facto equality. H ow does one explain, asked Francoise Gas- pard o f France, the “ astonishing gap” between wom en’s high level o f education and their low partici pation in decision-making in Ukraine? Hanna Schopp- Schilling o f Germ any recommended training in gender parity that is being used even in Sweden (famed for its gender balanced Parliament) to root out indirect dis crimination by subverting negative stereotypes. There also w as concern, voiced by several committee experts, that the structure o f Ukraine's gov ernment machinery created to promote the advance ment o f wom en is unnecessarily complicated and un stable. Dovzhenko described the current arrangement o f government offices dealing with wom en’ s issues by commenting that on the Cabinet o f Ministers level, there is presently no formal body devoted to wom en’s issues, per se. Such issues are handled as they arise by a Division within the Department o f Domestic Policy (the Division for the analysis and development o f wom en’ s, fam ily and children’s healthcare.) D ovz henko was nonetheless optimistic about the effective ness o f her State Committee and the Directorate for Gender Equality Issues and Fam ily Policy, describing this structure as “ a real machinery that allows for the coordination o f efforts to bring true equality to Ukraine’ s wom en.” She also asserted that her office anticipates working productively with the 4 th term (2002-2006) Verkhovna Rada. It is generally agreed that Ukraine’s economic woes are at the base o f the myriad wom en’s problems. The mid-late 1 990s saw a sharp rise in unemployment, reduction in social welfare benefits, generally low w ages and government arrears in social payments. A ll o f these contributed to the crisis that has produced a plethora o f contemporary social ills. A s elsewhere, wom en and female-headed households in Ukraine are disproportionately affected by poverty in both urban and (especially) rural areas. W om en, who constituted 5 3 % o f Ukraine’s population and 6 5.4 % o f all regis tered unemployed in 1998, were hit particularly hard. A s providers, they suffered not only a real loss o f in come, but also acutely felt the loss o f social welfare. M any essential services, formerly provided by the state, now had to be paid for, since the government was incapacitated by drastic budget reductions. The budget o f a typical fam ily, however, also shrank: in 1996 an average o f 6 2 .2 % o f total income was spent on food alone. Dovzhenko fielded questions on em ployment conditions, on pension eligibility, on social welfare payment structures, on fam ily planning and 20 “НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ВЕРЕСЕНЬ 2002 Видання C оюзу Українок A мерики - перевидано в електронному форматі в 2012 році . A рхів C У A - Ню Йорк , Н . Й . C Ш A.
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