Historical features of formation of the national legislation of Ukraine in the process of forming state policy of ensuring gender equality

Abstract

Abstract. Introduction. Ukraine’s signing of the Association Agreement with the European Union in 2014 posed new important tasks for our country, such as the development of new conceptual approaches to the formation of basic principles of gender policy, which would form in the Ukrainian society understanding of gender culture based on recognition of equality of men and women, and consequently help to overcome discrimination between the sexes in various relationships.

Quite often, the majority of society considers gender policy a part of state social policy, especially when it comes to social security payments to families with children or on childcare leave, or employment problems, etc. However, only few people understand that the very concept of gender equality is quite broad and applies to various areas of public policy, the purpose of which is to effectively guarantee equality to different groups of Ukrainian society. Therefore, further development and improvement of legislation in terms of ensuring gender equality in Ukrainian society is a very important task. The implementation of this task requires also a generalization of the reformist experience of the late 1990s – early third decade of the XXI century, which makes the chosen topic relevant and scientifically and socio-politically significant.

Purpose. The purpose of the article is to explore the mechanisms of national legislation in the process of forming state policy to ensure gender equality based on the analysis of sources involved in the study, using the latest principles and methods of scientific and historical knowledge.

Methods. Methods of historicism, objectivism, generalized inference, as well as problem-thematic and chronological methods of scientific research are used.

Results. The process of developing legal regulation of gender relations in Ukraine is quite dynamic in its content and is based on the principles of the international law, commitеd to writing in a number of documents of the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, etc.

In Ukraine, the legislative process to ensure gender equality began in the late twentieth century, in 1996 with the adoption of the Constitution of Ukraine, which in Article 24 enshrined the equality of rights of men and women. Over the next 25 years, a number of legal documents were adopted, which ensured the formation of public policy. Among them there are the Laws of Ukraine «On Ensuring Equal Rights and Opportunities for Women and Men», «On Principles of Preventing and Combating Discrimination in Ukraine», «On Preventing and Combating Domestic Violence», and the National Action Plan of Ukraine for Implementing UN Security Council Resolution 1325 «Women, peace, security», etc.

Conclusion. Thus, we can conclude that twenty-five years of Ukrainian politics has shown significant transformation of views on the role and place in the life of women. Thus, if at the end of the twentieth century the efforts of certain public organizations that defended the right to legislative «improvement of women», then in the XXI century there was a real legal support for equal rights and opportunities for both women and men in various spheres of society: social, educational, economic, political, and security sectors.