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“НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ЧЕРВЕНЬ 2018 WWW. UNWLA .ORG 11 Rural Women and Gender - Based Violence: Access to Specialized Social Services presentation by Halyna Skipalska Good afternoon, dear participants! I am extremely pleased to represent the Ukrainian Foundation for Public Health, the Ukrainian community, as well as HealthRight International. HealthRight Inter- national (HRI) has been working in Ukraine since 2005, coveri ng 18 of the 24 regions in the country. In 2008, it founded a local organization: the Ukrainian Foundation for Public Health (UFPH), which works in partnership with New York Univer- sity (NYU), and brings to Ukraine the best U.S. and international models and expertise. Background. There are 28,377 villages, 885 ur- ban - type settlements, 216 consolidated territorial communities, and 460 cities in Ukraine. About 7 million women in Ukraine live in rural areas. GBV and Access to Services. According to re- search b y the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), one of four women in Ukraine between the age of 15 and 49 has experienced physical or sexual violence at least once in her lifetime. Women in rural areas, especially married women, suffer from violence more oft en than women who live in big cities do. Moreover, rural women are less likely to report violence: only 30% of women living in rural areas have ever reported physical abuse compared to 32% of women who live in cities. 1 Social infrastructure in many rural or re- mote districts in Ukraine is limited. An ambitious decentralization reform is occurring in full force in Ukraine. New regional administra- tions and consolidated communities have acquired more power over local budgets and resources and can use these f or local services. However, there are thousands of villages and settlements in Ukraine that do not see the benefit of investment in the so- cial sector, empowerment of women and girls, new roads and communications. According to Ukraine’s State Statistic Ser- vice, 17,800 rural settlements do not have pre - school facilities or kindergartens, 15,000 villages lack schools, and 7,000 villages (with populations exceeding 833,000) have no medical facilities. The situation wit h social services is very critical. To receive assistance, rural women have to travel to cities; this is very inconvenient because regular buses often leave the villages only two times a day and also because of associated transport expenditures. The neare st center of so- cial services can be as far as 70 kilometers away (a distance of nearly 44 miles). Rural women who suffer from GBV or domestic violence are often afraid to ask for help. Our findings show that 70% of rural women have never sought support bef ore. Access to services often plays an important role in the decision to seek help. Unfortunately, many rural settlements in Ukraine do not have paved roads, transport communication, public ser- vices, and related amenities. For instance, 25% of rural settl ements with populations above 0.9 mil- lion people do not have public transport commu- nication. Moreover, 22% of villages with popula- tions above 2.2 million do not have paved roads. The undeveloped transport infrastructure creates additional problems for wome n survivors of vio- lence who want to receive support. Another problem is that high rates of un- employment in Ukrainian villages especially affect women. Women have lower incomes than men do: The average income of women in Ukraine is one - third less than what is paid to men. Moreover, women have an uneven burden because they are also responsible for housework and childcare. Such inequalities are often an underlying cause of violence against women. Mobile Teams as an Effective Solution . At the same time, there are good examples of what can occur if quality services are made accessible for women in rural communities. Such services are al- ready bringing relief to many rural women and communities. For instance, in 2015, in a move to address the problem of violence against women in Ukraine and strengthen the system of GBV re- sponse, UFPH, jointly with the UNFPA and Ukraine’s Ministry of Social Policy, developed a special service for women who survived violence: mobile teams of psychosocial support. These mo- bile teams are special units that consist of three psychologists/social workers who reach out to those violence survivors who live in remote areas with lacking or damaged infrastructure and no ac- cess to needed services. Mobile teams (MTs) are often the only availab le service providing quality psychosocial support for rural women who have survived vio- lence. MTs have a rented vehicle and provide out- reach visits, thus moving services closer to clients
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