Zaporizhzhia regional council requests to remove ‘sexual orientation’ from wording of Ukrainian laws

Members of the Zaporizhzhia Regional Council call for maintaining the current definition of the family in the Constitution of Ukraine, to remove the term “sexual orientation” from the Labour Code, and to introduce a post of the Government Commissioner for Family.

The decision was approved on October 31, at the seventh extraordinary session of the Zaporizhzhia Regional Council of the seventh convocation. The appeal of the members was sent to the President of Ukraine and a number of ministries, ProChurch.info portal reports.

The MPs are concerned about the fact that the Government of Ukraine has not decided on the strategy for development and support of the family. This strategy, according to the Zaporizhzhia Regional Council members, “must be based on traditional Ukrainian spiritual and moral values and the traditional Ukrainian understanding of the family as a union of a man and a woman.”

Therefore, the members demanded to stop the process of amending the Constitution of Ukraine and other legislative acts in terms of changes in the definitions of family, marriage, fatherhood, motherhood, and childhood.

In addition, the Zaporizhzhia Regional Council members drew attention to the wording of the Labour Code, which includes the phrase “sexual orientation” and “gender identity”. In their view, these terms are ideological and unscientific and should not be included in the text of the draft Labour Code of Ukraine, which is now being prepared for the second reading in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

The members also urge to remove the provisions about intention to legalize same-sex partnerships in Ukraine and promote same-sex sexual relations from the National Human Rights Strategy until 2020.

In addition, they urge to restore the position of the Government Commissioner for Family.

The initiator of the appeal, member of the Zaporizhzhia Regional Council Yevhen Demianenko said: “These questions are very important. They must be raised and submit for consideration to the regional and local councils in all regions of Ukraine. This will show that not only Zaporizhzhia region defends family values and understands that the family should be between a man and a woman, not in some other way, but also the entire state has a clear stance on the protection of the institution of family.”

At the same time, deputy director of the Zaporizhzhia regional Charitable Foundation “Gender Zed” Oleksandr Vitvitskiy believes that such initiatives violate the human rights.

“The initiative of certain Zaporizhzhia Regional Council members does not show the real attitude of the society towards this issue. There are people who are loyal or neutral. Such initiatives infringe on the rights of people who themselves are or may be associated with the LGBT community. The democratic state, on the contrary, should strongly defend the rights of people exposed to discrimination, introduce gender and sexual awareness-raising campaigns. It is time for the officials making such initiatives to decide where they want to go – either homophobic Russia or democratic Europe,” he said in a commentary to the Human Rights Information Centre.