Ukrainian Armed Forces appoint gender advisor: What will she do?

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported that Oksana Hryhorieva has been appointed as an advisor on gender issues within the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Image: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine

Oksana Hryhorieva is a public figure, former gender advisor to the Command of the Land Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and a candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. She previously served as the Dean of the Faculty of Enterprise Security at the European University, headed the Youth Centre of the Atlantic Council of Ukraine, and the Dniprovec. Success and Development Charitable Foundation.

Hryhorieva is the author of over 30 scientific papers.

In her role as gender advisor, she will coordinate efforts between different branches and types of troops and the Ministry of Defence and be involved in the development and implementation of a gender strategy. The latter is not only part of Ukraine’s National Security Strategy and one of the sustainable development goals but also a prerequisite for Ukraine’s accession to the European Union and NATO.

The non-staff gender advisor position was introduced within the structure of the Land Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in 2021. As explained by activists of the “Women are 50% of Ukraine’s Success” project, the goal of such specialists is to ensure that the interests of both women and men are equally taken into account in various structures and at different levels.

For example, to prevent biased attitudes based on gender, discrimination, and harassment both within the team and externally, towards the team.

“The most basic example: a company needs to know how many men and how many women work in its staff to assess potential challenges related to this, for example, the likelihood of maternity leave or the like,” they said.

By way of background, last year, the general duties of servicemen and servicewomen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were supplemented with a mention of the inadmissibility of sexism and harassment. However, such cases continue to occur.

An anonymous survey conducted among female veterans and servicewomen before the full-scale war showed that 70% of them had experienced sexual harassment or witnessed such behaviour towards their female colleagues.

ZMINA reported the story of Lieutenant Valeriia Sikal. In 2018, Sikal shared an account of how, on her first day of work, the commander of her unit took her to a hut in the forest, where he offered her protection and easy service in exchange for sex.