Female members of parliament -- a distinct minority -- are more active about introducing legislation than their male counterparts, according to the civil network OPORA.
As of Jan. 17, they were authors or co-authors of 15 draft laws, compared to only 7.
The leaders in writing bills are Olena Ledovskih and Olena Boyko, members of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s People’s Front. They are listed as the authors or co-authors of draft law more than 440 times (222 and 219). Also active are Batkivschyna’s Oleksandra Kuzhel (25 times), former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko (22) and the Opposition Bloc’s Natalia Korolevska (22).
Women also gave more speeches in parliament: 3.24 performances per one female deputy against 2.51 speeches per man. The most active speakers, according to the research, are members of the Batkivschyna’s Kuzhel (26 speeches) and Tymoshenko (17 speeches).
They are followed by President Petro Poroshenko’s Iryna Herashchenko (9), Olena Sotnyk (Samopomich party, 9 speeches) and Oksana Prodan (The Poroshenko Bloc, 8).
Generally current parliament has the largest amount of women in the history of independent Ukraine – 50 or 11.85 percent — of the total number of deputies. By comparison, there were just 13 women in the first convocation of the parliament, after the country gained its independence in 1991.
“Now we have the biggest amount of women in Ukrainian parliamentary system since independence. Thus, we observe the process of balancing the parliament in gender terms,” admits one of the authors of research, OPORA’s representative Nadiya Virna.
But Ukraine is still far from the European index, where 23.4 percent of parliaments are made up of women. Only neighboring Romania has lower numbers than Ukraine – women make up slightly less than 10 percent of parliament .
“Why there are so few women? Because we have such political, parliamentary and, we can say, such gender culture in Ukraine. Unfortunately, in its basis the place of women is seen not in parliament. And what may surprise, not only men determined this place for woman. Women themselves often advocate actively for men’s representation in parliament. Namely, they vote mostly for men, they believe that it is man who can and should be a politician,” says Virna.
The lack of female deputies may be also partly explained by the fact that parties during electoral process often ignore the Article 8.10 of the Constitution Law of Ukraine, which requires them to have a minimum of 30 percent women candidates on their electoral list. In an analysis of the 11 most popular parties contesting the national race last October, made by Canadian election observation missions, only six reached the 30 percent quota – Batkivshchyna, Opposition Bloc, Syla Lyudei, Narodny Front, Radical Party and Sylna Ukraina.
Even if women receive seats in the Verhovna Rada, they are responsible mainly for humanitarian issues. There are no women at all in eight out of 21 committees, including those which answer for budget, preventing and combating corruption, financial policy and banking.
Another author of OPORA’s research, Grygorii Sorochan, explains Kyiv Post, the Ukrainians are used that politics, big business, programming, etc, aren’t women’s business. One of the main reasons of such attitude, on his opinion, is the lack of gender education among children and youth.
“Starting from kindergartens, schools, and their own families, parenting process involves segregation (separation) by sex in everything: in color of clothes, toys, at the educational institutions, and according to the future (of kids). All the rest is a consequence,” he claims.
Activist believes that it may be changed in two parallel ways: by implementation of a new type of educational process, which would provide development of Ukrainian children without gender bend, concentrated on the skills of specific child, not its gender. Second way is the introduction of legislation to align gender imbalance by promoting women in Ukraine, including such sphere as politics.
Adoption of new laws, which would provide equal rights and opportunities for men and women in Ukraine, is also one of the demands on the country’s way to full membership in European Union.
Meanwhile, activists emphasize that the last research shows the high level of activity and involvement of women in Ukrainian parliament.
“Political, gender culture has been slowly changing. Society sees women parliamentarians and starts to take them for granted. A habit that politics is a male thing will retreat into the past. So I would come out with positive sign – there are more women in Ukrainian parliament. And I believe that there will be more of them in the future parliament, local councils. Positive examples to encourage other activists for coming into political orbit,” says Virna.
