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An Expert Opinion On The Key Challenges For The Exercise Of Voting Rights Of Women As A Vulnerable Group Of Voters

(October 18, 2024)

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(Original article published by Civil Network OPORA)

Introduction

Usually, in a society that is considered democratic or aspires to become such, views on the role and significance of certain social groups transform. For many decades, women have been fighting for their rights and the opportunity to take an active part in political life.

Ukraine is also taking steps to ensure gender-balanced representation. The Constitution of Ukraine enshrined the equality of rights of men and women (Art. 24), and subsequently, the Law of Ukraine “On Ensuring Equal Rights and Opportunities for Women and Men”was adopted. However, this process has continued to this day. 

With the adoption of the Electoral Code in 2019, imperative gender quotas were introduced. Undoubtedly, they contributed to the fact that political parties began to engage more women and include them in the lists in a certain order. However, holding local elections in 2020 showed that some electoral subjects tried to ignore gender quotas when nominating and registering candidates. Sometimes, parties bypassed quotas, encouraging women to refuse to run for elections after the registration of the electoral list by the relevant election commission or to withdraw the representative mandate, which ultimately contributed to the election of more men. The monitoring mission of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) also emphasized the need to overcome these problems in their Report following the observation of the 2020 local elections. To this end, in 2021, a working subgroup, which included representatives of various NGOs, including the Civil Network OPORA, developed amendments to the legislation aimed primarily at overcoming the identified problems in regulating gender-balanced representation and combating discrimination during the 2020 local elections and taking into account the recommendations of the OSCE/ODIHR. 

In a report on Ukraine within the framework of the Enlargement Package adopted in November 2023, the European Commission stated that Ukraine should continue to reform the electoral legislative framework to implement the unimplemented recommendations of the OSCE/ODIHR. That is why the reform of electoral legislation in this area is one of the preconditions for Ukraine’s accession to the European Union. 

The full-scale invasion presented new challenges for women’s political participation and gender-balanced representation. OPORA tried to explore these aspects in this study. In particular, we conducted more than 20 in-depth interviews with leading experts in elections and gender issues. 

International Standards

To overcome discrimination against women in various spheres of public life, the international community has developed many requirements and recommendations that are present in documents of a general nature (preamble, Art. 2 and 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Art. 3 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 3 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Preamble and Art. 8 of the UN Charter, Art. 12 and 14 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms) and in specialized documents, such as:

  • The 1952 UN Convention on the Political Rights of Women;
  • The 1979 UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and its 1999 Optional Protocol;
  • European Charter for the Equality of Women and Men in Local Community Life, May 2006;
  • UN Security Council Resolutions No. 1325 (2000) of 31 October 2000 and No. 1820 (2008) of 19 June 2008;
  • Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, or Istanbul Convention of 11 May 2011;
  • Strategy for Gender Equality of the Council of Europe for 2018-2023;
  • Council of Europe Directives No. 79/7/EEC of 19 December 1978 No. 2000/78/EC of 27 November 2000, No. 2004/113/EC of 13 December 2004, No. 2006/54/EC of 05 July 2006, etc.

Moreover, according to OPORA’s report on OPORA’s study about women’s participation in the 2020 local elections, in 2002, the European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission) adopted the Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters. Paragraph 2.5 of the Practice is entitled “Equality and Parity of the Sexes”. It states that “Legal rules requiring a minimum percentage of persons of each gender among candidates should not be considered as contrary to the principle of equal suffrage if they have a constitutional basis.” In 2010, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted Resolution 1706 (2010) “Increasing women’s representation in politics through the electoral system”. Paragraph 4 of the Resolution states: “Changing the electoral system to one more favorable to women’s representation in politics, in particular by adopting gender quotas, can lead to more gender-balanced, and thus more legitimate, political and public decision-making.” In the case of Zevnik and Others v. Slovenia (Metka ZEVNIK and Others v. Slovenia, 2019), the European Court of Human Rights underscored “that the achievement of gender equality is today the main goal in the member states of the Council of Europe” and that its [the Council of Europe’s] institutions consider the lack of gender balance in politics as a threat to the legitimacy of democracy and a violation of the right to gender equality” (§34).

Thus, the provisions of these documents provide for states to take positive measures (such as gender quotas and other forms) to balance the representation and influence of different genders on policy-making. Due to historical discrimination and objective obstacles, the category of women can be classified as vulnerable in the sense that they need assistance from the state, which will not be considered a violation of the principle of equality under the outlined international standards.

Public opinion about women as a vulnerable category and ensuring their voting rights. The Kyiv International Institute of Sociology conducted a study from September 5, 2024, to October 7, 2024, which, at the request of the Civil Network OPORA, included some issues related to ensuring the electoral rights of vulnerable categories in the post-war elections. It must be highlighted that 14% of respondents believe that women would face the most significant obstacles to voting in the post-war elections. At the same time, a similar number of respondents ( 15.4%) also believe that women would face the most obstacles regarding passive suffrage (the right to be elected) in the post-war elections. About half of Ukrainian people (50.4%) are convinced that the state should contribute to ensuring voting rights for vulnerable categories by introducing mandatory positions (quotas) in the lists of candidates, including women. However, there are respondents (14.4%) who consider the existing gender quotas sufficient, and a fifth of respondents (20.3%) are generally convinced that any quotas, including gender quotas, are unnecessary.

Findings of in-depth interviews 

Women as a vulnerable category. For the most part, experts agreed with the position that women are undoubtedly a vulnerable category of voters in the post-war elections, and after the end of the legal regime of martial law, their vulnerability will additionally increase.

“We are a vulnerable country. In this vulnerable country, women certainly make up a vulnerable category. We are a post-Soviet society with huge gender stereotypes, with sexism in politics and the army…”

However, some of the interviewed experts still emphasized that “vulnerability” as a category cannot be applied only to women because it violates the principle of equal rights enshrined in the Constitution of Ukraine and many international acts. In their view, both women and men can be vulnerable, and their vulnerability depends not so much on gender but rather on other factors (such as physical functional limitations, in particular in the ability to move, social status, place of residence, etc.).

“… it is completely incorrect to consider women a vulnerable category of the population. This approach destroys the understanding of social and gender policy and politics in general. On the one hand, we say that 60 thousand women in Ukraine are at war, millions are working. At the same time, we call them a vulnerable category, don’t we? Yes, women can be in situations of vulnerability. But, there are vulnerable groups of women, just as there are vulnerable groups of men. It is extremely important!”

“I have never observed the restriction of women’s rights… the gender dimension, in my opinion, is adequate to the highest European standards…. in the context of post-war elections, where elections will be organized, there will be equal opportunities for women and men. The question is whether they will take them?”

The war has made everyone vulnerable to different extents and created new social fractures that will be very difficult to overcome when it is over.

“The society of war is peculiar. The existing social disruptions have been aggravated with some new, which will be very difficult to overcome…”.

In addition, the war led to a mixing (combination) of the statuses of different vulnerable categories of voters, including women. Thus, women can combine the status of a vulnerable category with such statuses as IDPs, migrants abroad, servicemen, persons with disabilities, etc. 

Challenges for the exercise of electoral rights by certain vulnerable categories of women. 

The first group is women who went out of the country following the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine. According to experts, “… the war has made a very clear gender division into those who have left abroad and can leave, and those who have stayed and must stay on the territory of Ukraine.”

According to the UN⁠High Commissioner for Refugees, since February 24, 2022, about 6 million citizens of Ukraine have applied to the competent authorities of European countries for temporary (or similar) protection status. As of May 19, 2024, almost 6 million (5,942,300) of such citizens of Ukraine were registered in European countries.

Outside Europe, another 541,200 Ukrainian citizens were registered (as of March 27, 2024). In particular: in Poland ~1.8 million, in Moldova ~50,000, Romania ~165,000, Hungary ~43,000, Slovakia ~145,000, Estonia ~59,000, Lithuania ~ 86,000, Latvia ~54,000, Germany ~1 million citizens of Ukraine. Information on Canada and the United States is not available on the UNHCR website, however, according to the data of the Embassies of Ukraine in these countries, there are ~401,000 people in Canada, USA ~885,000 citizens of Ukraine. According to the estimates of foreign diplomatic missions of Ukraine, there are about 7.6 million citizens of Ukraine outside Ukraine as of May 2024. You can find more about who and how counts the migration of Ukrainians in the piece The number of Ukrainians and their migration abroad due to the war — a study by the Civil Network OPORA.

It must be noted that among such a number, the vast majority of people displaced abroad are women and children (the largest share of them — 13% — are women aged 35–44).

In addition, for 2022-2023, 1,465 birth certificates were issued by institutions abroad, and in the period from February 24, 2022, to May 10, 2024, 133,457 passports of a citizen of Ukraine were issued to children abroad to leave the country.

“Women abroad are excluded from political processes in Ukraine for objective reasons. They take care of children and households. They can follow the developments in Ukraine, but mostly about the war-related updates.”

“In the context of post-war elections, women are and will be in an awkward position. The process of returning home will last longer than a day or a month; if the child goes to school, then they need to wait for them to finish at least the school year; if the woman is employed – then you need to notify the employer somehow and quit… Women who now stay abroad will objectively be excluded from the political process in Ukraine in the first years after the war. On the one hand, it is very dangerous, and on the other hand, it is unfair. We can talk about a conscious choice to leave Ukraine, but it was forced upon, and under other circumstances, they would not do it…”

Today, we can state the risks of exercising women’s active and passive suffrage abroad. As to active suffrage, the main problem in the post-war elections will be the ability to exercise their right to vote since foreign diplomatic missions where such a right can be exercised are not able to host so many voters.

As to the obstacles that may hinder the participation of such women in the elections, we can outline the following:

1) logistical (long distance to the place of voting, personal presence is required to verify the voter lists, etc.);

2) socio-economic (lack of resources to get to the embassy or consulate, rent an accommodation, provide care for minors or other persons in need to be able to travel to the polling station);

3) organizational (complexity of the procedure for inclusion in the voter list);

4) information (lack of information about the out-of-country elections, candidates and parties, the address of the voting premises, the procedure for changing the electoral address, etc.);

5) the load on the election infrastructure on the election day.

Experts highlighted one of the main challenges for women staying abroad – the exercise of passive suffrage in terms of the need to comply with the residency requirement, which is 10 years for presidential candidates, and for candidates for people’s deputies of Ukraine, it is 5 years. 

According to the Electoral Code (Part 4 of Art. 75 and Part 4 of Art. 134), a person is considered to be residing in Ukraine if their one-time trip abroad in private matters did not exceed 90 days, and the period of stay outside Ukraine in each annual period during the last years before the voting day in the relevant election did not exceed 183 days. Therefore, for many possible candidates in national elections, especially women, whose exercise of passive suffrage is currently legally protected by “gender quotas”, the stay abroad (from February 24, 2022) has already exceeded 90 days. In addition, their forced departure as a result of an aggressive war does not fall under the list of exceptions provided for by the Electoral Code, including the departure of a person abroad on a business trip, for training, on vacation, or for medical treatment on the recommendation of the relevant medical institution.

“The challenge of post-war elections will be the residency requirement: 5 years for parliamentary elections and 10 years for presidential elections. Appropriate amendments to the Electoral Code of Ukraine can solve this problem. Besides, as for prisoners, they find themselves on the territory of the occupying state against their will. Therefore, this problem can be solved at the level of the law. ” 

Civil Network OPORA, together with the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), also indicated in the Roadmap of Electoral Reform in Ukraine 2023 (in wartime) that staying abroad due to martial law should not be a reason for depriving persons of passive suffrage.

Draft laws #11300 (main) and # 11300-1 (alternative)  on amendments to the Electoral Code of Ukraine on combating sexism in electoral processes and ensuring balanced representation of women and men in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and local councils (for more information, see the Analysis of draft laws on amendments to the Electoral Code on combating gender discrimination) tried to solve this problem, but the parliamentary subcommittee on elections, referendums and other forms of direct democracy rejected them and recommended that the committee develop a separate draft law on their basis, with a mark “д”.

Other factors are also mentioned for non-participation of women who left abroad in the upcoming post-war elections, such as demotivation of political participation, which will consist in unwillingness to exercise active or passive suffrage due to social, economic, or domestic difficulties, unwillingness to return home, or because of the delay in the return process.

The second group includes IDP women and women from the most affected and liberated territories. According to the Ministry of Social Policy, as of April 29, 2024, there were 2,851,691 IDP women in Ukraine, along with 973,807 children under the age of 18. Although the current legislation has resolved the issue of exercising voting rights for IDPs and provides an opportunity to change the voting address and, therefore, to exercise their active and passive voting rights in all types of elections, it is important to emphasize certain potential challenges: adaptation to a new place of residence, social, domestic, psychological problems, difficulties with employment, placement of children and their adaptation to a new environment, etc. These problems may hinder active political participation and the willingness to participate in elections.

“… the main problem for IDP women is adaptation to a new place of residence…. to be included in the voter list as an IDP woman, you need to be active, join a community, engage in volunteer activities, and do something in condominiums. In other words, you need to make yourself seen, while our environment is by default unfriendly to them. “

The third group is female members of the military/veterans. Since the outbreak of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops, many women have joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the National Guard, the State Border Guard Service, the State Emergency Service, the Security Service of Ukraine, the National Police of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, and other formations. According to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, as of January 1, 2024, 47,162,000 women were in military service in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Compared to January 2022, the number of female military members increased by 14,593 persons.

“The Veterans Party is the response to an existing demand in society, but few people ask female veterans, or female members of the military, whether they want to… We observed something similar in 2014-2015 when they served as “facades” for political parties, and I would not want people who presently do a lot for the country to win the sympathy of voters because of their “facade” and not be involved in political processes after the elections.”

The key risks in the context of the upcoming post-war elections will be the possibility of exercising active suffrage outside the places of permanent deployment and passive suffrage while serving in the military. In addition, there may be reluctance to participate, fatigue from the war, and risks of political parties including women in their lists solely for campaign purposes, such as using them as a “front cover” to win more votes.

The fourth group is women deputies of local councils. Deputies of local councils face problems of the impossibility of terminating their powers because sessions of local councils cannot be held, especially in the occupied or frontline communities. They also face challenges with traveling abroad under the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine No. 69 of January 27, 2023 (for more details, see OPORA content pieces). Ukrainian deputies and officials will no longer be able to freely cross the border during martial law. This applies to both women and 60-year-olds).

Most of the interviewed experts highlighted the absurdity of the ban and claimed they did not understand the risks it was supposed to prevent.  

“… the prohibition of deputies of local councils to travel abroad is absurd since these persons are not in the civil service but work voluntarily. Such bans do not favor the motivation of women’s political participation at the local level. ”

“…there is a problem of women’s political participation in connection with the prohibition of deputies of local councils to cross the State Border of Ukraine. Many people withdraw their deputy mandates because of such a ban. If women MPs face the choice between children or family and political activity, they will choose the first option. “

“… at the border, I was told, as a council deputy, that I⁠must have an executive order of the head of the Oblast council endorsing the work trip. How can an order be issued when the deputy of the local council is not a full-time employee?”

In practice, today, there are ways to circumvent the ban in the form of orders of the heads of councils who do not have the legal right to issue them, or letters of the heads about the special purpose crossing of the State Border, etc.

Some respondents say that the practice of female deputies of local councils withdrawing their mandates may raise the question of the feasibility of gender quotas in the future.

“…when women withdraw their deputy mandates – this can give rise to conversations, such as why do we need the gender quotas, why do we need the political representation of women in local councils if they refuse from their mandates?”.

In the context of post-war elections, there is also a threat of low involvement of women candidates due to the stereotypical thinking of the population about the need for men to come to power.

“…as the experience of post-war elections shows, unfortunately, women are little involved as candidates in organizing such elections. …people believe that war is a matter of the military, of men, and they are more trusted.”

Difficulties with current deputies of local councils and their participation in the political process are causing and will be causing in the future the reluctance to run for elections as candidates, both in local or national elections. Moreover, in the future, the issue may arise when quotas are provided by the law, but no women are willing to go into politics.

Gender quotas. The introduction of improved requirements for gender-balanced representation in the law in 2019, with the adoption of the Electoral Code, certainly contributed to the fact that political parties began to engage more women and include them in the lists in a certain order. 

At the same time, as indicated in the Report on the findings of OPORA’s study on women’s participation in the 2020 local elections, this number did not always indicate the inclusive approach of parties: there were cases of involvement of “technical” candidates (i.e., they were included in the list for the formal compliance with the legal requirement rather than for full involvement in the election campaign). Only 5 female respondents admitted that they were involved as “technical candidates” from the beginning, but as many as 120 female respondents (more than 41%) said they were aware of cases of such involvement by other political forces. The report’s authors conclude that such a discrepancy may (although not necessarily) indicate that the share of formal inclusion of women in the electoral lists could be quite high.

Therefore, some of the obstacles to implementing passive suffrage highlighted by experts are some gaps in the current model of gender quotas. They also emphasized the need to eliminate them. Although such quotas have not yet been tested in national elections, the experience of local elections allows us to propose legislative mechanisms to prevent similar problems in composing the parliament. In particular, such mechanisms were reflected in draft laws No.11300 (main) and No. 11300-1 (alternative) on amendments to the Electoral Code of Ukraine on combating sexism in electoral processes and ensuring balanced representation of women and men in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and in local councils (for more information, see the Analysis of draft laws on amendments to the Electoral Code on combating gender discrimination), but the parliamentary subcommittee on elections, referendums and other forms of direct democracy rejected them and recommended that the committee develop a separate draft law on their basis with the mark “д”. It should be emphasized that failure to ensure the possibility of women running for office from out of the country will offset the effectiveness of gender quotas introduced in 2019, which will contradict the goal of the gender-balanced policy of Ukraine.  

At the same time, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine illustrates a positive trend because, with each convocation, the representation of women in its composition increases, albeit at a slight pace: 46 women deputies worked in the VII convocations, 56 in the VIII convocations (12%), and 85 in the IX convocation (this is more than 21% of the total composition). According to local councils, no statistics are available, but when they were compiled as of October 25, 2020, the CEC published the results of gender monitoring. According to it, women in local councils averaged 44.66%, significantly higher than in 2015.

In this regard, criticism of the current gender quota model triggers a discussion about replacing it with a system of reserved seats (applied by assigning positions (seats) to women in parliaments or other bodies) or abandoning it altogether.

Thus, some experts, recognizing that the current model is ineffective, advocated for a system of reserved seats.

“… gender quota or reserved seats – that is the question? As to gender quotas, in many countries, they do not work. Still, reserved seats work much better, especially at the local level…”.

The experts pointed out an important issue: women’s reluctance to enter politics and take an active part in the political process, even if there are gender quotas.

“…quotas exist, but women do not go into politics, they do not run as candidates. And this is a problem. There must be certain conditions in place, awareness campaigns, a change in the attitude towards politics as a dirty business… there is still a stereotype that politics is not a women’s business. “

In this regard, the key risks in the context of future post-war elections may be the issue of gender quotas, their replacement with reserved seats, or the continuation of the current legislative model of their regulation without any structural change.   

Conclusions and recommendations

  1. Women’s exercise of active and passive suffrage in the post-war period is associated with a number of challenges (territorial, social, political, legal, etc.), which are mostly not static and conclusively measurable due to the very dynamic situation in connection with the ongoing aggression and its consequences. However, some aspects of women’s suffrage, in particular those related to combating sexism in electoral processes and ensuring balanced representation of women and men in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and local councils, based on the recommendations of the OSCE/ODIHR, as well as those related to the establishment of exceptions to the residency requirement for Ukrainian citizens who had to leave their homes without violating domestic legislation, can be resolved at the current stage of electoral law reform during martial law. 
  2. For the active participation of women in the political process, political parties should be encouraged to develop and implement internal party mechanisms for balanced representation of women in elected bodies and a system of motivation for the involvement of women in internal party work. 
  3. It is vital to continue electoral reform in this area, in particular: 
    • at the level of the Electoral Code, to provide for the impossibility of changing the order of candidates in electoral lists without decisions of congresses (meetings, conferences) of parties and their organizations;
    • to develop a mechanism for replacing candidates in electoral lists with representatives of the same gender;
    • to strengthen the capacity of the CEC to respond to illegal decisions on the registration of lists with violations;
    • to encourage parties to comply with the gender quota by introducing additional incentives (including by strengthening public funding mechanisms);
    • to finalize and adopt amendments to the Electoral Code, following the findings of this study, on combating sexism in electoral processes and ensuring balanced representation of women and men in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and local councils based on rejected draft laws 11300 and 11300-1.
  4. To be interested in women’s participation in the upcoming post-war elections, it is necessary to amend the Law of Ukraine “On Local Self-Government in Ukraine” regarding the possibility of deputies of local councils resigning without a corresponding decision of the local council and amendments to the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine No. 69 of January 27, 2023, regarding the possibility of women deputies of local councils to travel abroad without hindrance, without any permits.

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