Over 30 representatives of various civil society organizations gathered  for the coordination meeting to prepare shadow report on implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. The meeting was opened by Yuliya Shcherbinina, UNDP Senior Programme Manager. She emphasized  important it is to coordinate efforts of civil society at all stages of periodic reporting in order to demonstrate a consolidated position with regard to gender issues.
Larysa Kobelyanska, Adviser to the Minister for Social Policy noted that the national report on Ukraine’s implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women is almost ready. Public discussion of the draft national report will take place in mid-September, and in late September it will be furnished to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. Maria Alekseyenko, Chair of Board of Women’s Consortium of Ukraine shared her analysis of the experience of drafting shadow report in 2010 and stressed that some key success factors are promotion of motivation among NGOs, development of common methodological approach and organization of follow-up activities.
Ella Lamakh and Marfa Skoryk, Gender Strategic Platform, briefly presented the goals of Platform and invited everyone to join the working group of GSP tasked with preparing shadow report of NGO coalition to the UN Committee.
The participants shared an idea that warfare in Eastern regions of Ukraine and violation of the rights of women provoked by it should be a priority issue of the shadow report, in lights of the Security Council Resolution 1325 and Beijing Platform for Action. At the same time, it is important to ensure that the war-related issues do not entirely cut out other issues of observance of women’s rights.
The participants unanimously supported the idea of consolidating efforts on preparation of shadow report and agreed that under several circumstances separate thematic reports are also allowed – for example, a report on the observance of rights of women with disablities. In particular, Larysa Bayda, National Assembly of People with Disabilities of Ukraine, and Tetyana Barantsova, Luhansk Oblast Youth Organization “Association of Young People with Disabilities – East” pointed out that it is crucial to generate separate thematic report on infringements of rights of women with disabilities, taking into account the lack of targeted programme of supporting women with disabilities in Ukraine.
The meeting resulted into an agreement on the modality of subsequent cooperation between the organizations willing to contribute to developing coalition shadow report and thematic reports.