Information about assurance of gender equality
 in the Armed Forces of Ukraine

The introduction of the gender approach in the Armed Forces of Ukraine is performed by committed, systematic and multidimensional activity of the Armed Forces and the General Staff of Ukraine on the improving of the model of interaction within the modern Armed Forces of Ukraine, which should be characterized by the gender-sensitive organizational culture and comfortable conditions to perform military activity by military personnel of both gender.  
In order to coordinate the actions on the implementation of the National action plan on implementing the UN Security Council resolution 1325 “Women, peace, security for the period up to 2020”, affirmed by the regulation of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine as of 24.02.2016 No. 113, the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine has taken the following steps:
• established a Working group on implementing the above mentioned resolution, this working group included representatives of the structural units of the Ministry of Defence, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the institutes of civil society. The general amount of members in the working group is 26 individuals.  
•developed an institutional action Plan on implementing the UN Security council resolution 1325 “ Women, peace, security”. 
With the aim to adhere to the principles of equal rights and opportunities for men and women the representation of women in the Armed Forces of Ukraine has been increased. 
The positions of privates and non-commissioned officers have been made available for women including the “combat” positions (driver, grenade launcher, deputy commander of a reconnaissance group, commander of the infantry combat vehicle, gunner, sniper, shooter etc.)
Female military can be appointed to all officers’ positions with an exception of those that are introduced by the current legislation on the special conditions of labor protection, connected with the reproductive health:
Positions that involve the usage of explosive poison substances, diving activities and direct firefighting; 
Positions on submarines and ships (with an exception in terms of medical and psychological assurance);
A certain number of positions in units of the Special Forces.
The increase of female military is one of the indicators of the consequent introduction of the gender policy in the activity of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. 
There are more than 56 thousand of women that are serving and working in the Armed Forces of Ukraine (21,7%  from the general number of personnel), among them: 
approximately 25 thousand are military (11,7% from the general amount of military men).
More than 6000 women serving or employed with the Armed Forces of Ukraine were engaged to the conduct of the Anti-terroristic operation on the territory of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which is basically 3 % of all the personnel generally involved.
107  women have been rewarded with awards from the State, more than 3000 with insignias’ of the Ministry of Defence and the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Unfortunately 4 of them have been awarded posthumously.
There’re 3 military women currently in service as a part of the national personnel abroad:
2 of them – are part of the UN mission (The Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of Kosovo);
1 of them is a part of the Ukraine mission to NATO (Brussels, Belgium).
Taken into consideration the increasing amount of female military personnel a number of measures have been taken in order to improve their material assurance taking into consideration the experience of the prominent armies in the world.
A lot of attention is paid to the implementation of gender principles in the process of training of military personnel.
The general amount of women that are studying at higher military facilities and the military educational units of higher educational facilities are more than 
1 thousand individuals.
Particularly in 2017 the amount of women who have entered the higher educational facility or the military units of higher educational facilities include approximately 8 % from the general amount of personnel enrolled in training.
Prior attention is shown to the increase of the gender awareness of personnel and cadets (attendees).
The training system of specialists includes issues on the topic of gender: 
In higher military educational facilities - additionally to the programs of education disciplines in the sphere of humanitarian science;
In order to assure the professional development of the non-commissioned personnel (as it is the most numerous category within the Armed Forces of Ukraine) –  additionally to the program of training courses for non-commissioned military men and instructors of different levels.
Two educational leadership course programs have been developed for non-commissioned military men paying attention to the issues of gender.
Gender issues are also included within the framework of the system for obtaining higher qualifications, particularly in the following documents:
the planning – program of courses of the scientific-pedagogical staff of higher military educational facilities;
the course “Military UN observer” (on the basis of the Training –Scientific Centre of International Peacekeeping Activity of the Ivan Chernaychovskogo National University of Defence); 
the courses of civil-military cooperation (on the basis of the Training –Scientific Centre of International Peacekeeping Activity of the Ivan Chernaychovskogo National University of Defence).
In order to assure the appropriate reaction on legal violations connected with the gender conditioned violence, the Ministry of Defence has introduced the effective system of “hot lines”. The information on contact data is available on the official MOD web-site.
Within the framework of the Ukraine-NATO partnership the Ministry of Defence has included a new partnership Goal G 0013 on the gender perspectives, which envisions the increase of intensity of the gender factor in the activity of the Ministry of Defence, and also the participation of national contingents and personnel in operations and missions under the NATO auspices.
In order to implement the set Goal in the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine a working group has been established that was comprised of military men of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the officials of the Ministry of Defence and civil representatives. The activity of the mentioned group is organized in accordance with the Plan for the years 2018-2019. 

On the legislative regulations of certain issues of gender politics 
It were developed some drafts aimed the assurance of gender equality in the Armed Forces and other military formations, the counteraction of discrimination in accordance with gender in the sphere of security and defence: 
• the draft of the law of Ukraine “On the introduction of changes to a certain number of laws of Ukraine on the assurance of equal rights and opportunities of men and women in the course of service in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and other military units” (registration No. 6109), which:
grants the individuals of both genders to have equal opportunities on signing the contract to be enlisted for military duty, having determined that women also have the right to sign a contract for enrolment before they’ve reached the age margin to maintain on military duty;
sets and reinforces the principles in accordance to which women serve in accordance with the same principles as men, and this includes equal access to the military positions and ranks and the equal quantity of responsibility in the course of exercising duties:
annihilates the limitations concerning the appointment of women to perform tasks in the around-the-clock tour of duty, lifts the limitations to be sent off to perform detached duties or to serve as a reserve officer and also to assure the conduct of military exercises both by male and female. 
On the 05.12.2017 the draft law of Ukraine was adopted by the Ukrainian Parliament during the first session as an example of a basis;
• the draft of the law of Ukraine “On the introduction of changes to a certain number of legislative acts of Ukraine (on the improvement of a number of issues on military service for the citizens of Ukraine) which envisions the maximum age for women to be in reserve up to 60 years, similar to men (currently, this maximum age for women is set at 50 years). On the 27.02.2018 the draft of the law of Ukraine was adopted by the Ukrainian parliament.


Ministry of Defence of Ukraine