NORMATIVE AND LEGAL SUPPORT OF GENDER POLICY AT THE LEVEL OF TERRITORIAL COMMUNITIES IN UKRAINE: INTERNATIONAL ASPECT
Authors:   Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Kyiv, Ukraine, HONIUKOVA Liliia , DUPESHKO-DZHUS Yuliya ,   Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Kyiv, Ukraine
Published: November 2024

Background . Ukraine's candidacy for EU membership contributed to the acceleration of changes in Ukrainian legislation in accordance with the requirements of the "Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union, the European Atomic Energy Community and their member states, on the one hand," signed in 2014. Of particular interest in the context of the development of municipal gender policy are the issues of localization of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 and the joining of local communities to the European Charter of Equality of Women and Men in the Life of Local Communities. In order to adapt European approaches to gender policy at the local level, it is necessary to carry out a detailed analysis of the normative and legal support of gender policy for the effective post-war reconstruction and recovery of Ukraine. The subject of the research is international normative legal acts in the field of human rights, gender equality, local self-government and other areas of law (from the standpoint of the provisions of the Law of Ukraine "On Law-Making Activity") and their adaptation to Ukrainian legislation. Methods . In order to conduct a correct study and obtain reliable results, an institutional approach was used, which makes it possible to form the author's vision of ensuring equal rights and opportunities for women and men at the local level by formal and informal social institutions. A structural-constructivist approach was also used to study the structural factors that determine the framework of gender relations. Results . International legal acts in the field of gender equality, rehabilitation and municipal policy are aimed at the unification of approaches to the regulation of human rights protection in the plane of the so-called "unified legal field" – international legal standards – and are acts of a binding or recommendatory nature. From the point of view of the development and implementation of gender policy at the level of territorial communities in the conditions of postwar reconstruction, UN Security Council Resolution 1325 "Women. Peace. Security". The focus of the UN Security Council Resolution on the idea of implementing a gender approach at "all levels in operations to ensure peace and security", including at the level of local communities, is closely related to the concept of "localization". The term "localization of Resolution 1325" was introduced 14 years ago by the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders and is a confirmation of the potential of the direct impact of this international act on gender policy at the level of territorial communities. Unfortunately, this tool (local action plans) for the implementation of gender policy is rarely used and implemented in Ukraine today. Although they have significant potential in achieving gender equality at the level of territorial communities in the conditions of post-war recovery. Ukraine's accession to the international Biarritz Partnership also improved the environment for the implementation of a gender approach in management at the level of territorial communities and created the conditions for a potential increase in revenues to local budgets in the long term (involvement of women in economic activity, reduction of the wage gap between women and men, reducing the consequences of gender-based violence, increasing the life expectancy of men and establishing contacts with children through the opportunity to go on maternity leave, creating dadhubs, inclusive public spaces in communities, etc.). In June 2022, after a long-term advocacy campaign of the Ukrainian feminist human rights movement in partnership with the Equal Opportunities MFI, the VRU ratified the Council of Europe Concept on preventing violence against women and domestic violence and combating these phenomena, which strengthened not only national gender legislation, and gender policy at the local level. The European Charter of Equality of Women and Men in the Life of Local Communities provides for inter-municipal partnership of communities in the direction of achieving gender equality. For Ukraine, as a state that has acquired the status of a candidate for the EU, the synchronization of national legislation in the field of gender equality is important. Conclusions . International legal acts, which are a consequence of legal globalization, have an indirect effect on the development of gender policy at the level of territorial communities in Ukraine. They include international treaty acts on gender equality as a component of human rights and fundamental freedoms. Policies and documents adopted by EU government structures, international representatives of civil society are not normative in nature and do not relate to international legislation, however, they are frameworks for the formation of national legislation at the local level.