Gender-Based Violence in Ukraine: Empirical Evidence and Policy Interventions

Gender-based violence is a global phenomenon, affecting all countries and taking various forms: domestic violence, sex trafficking, sexual abuse, etc. This problem is particularly arising in territories covered with military conflicts and increased crime rates. However, in many societies it is justified with societal norms, cultural and religious barriers. In many aspects, gender violence makes a common challenge for national governments and international community, resulting from a weak coordination of relevant governmental bodies and poor sectoral capacity of authorities. A lack of reliable statistics makes a particular problem, as incidence of such cases is covered with silence, while victims are stigmatized in a society.

The proposed paper is devoted to analysis of gender-based violence in Ukraine based on data of Health and Demography Survey, National Survey on Violence against women and girls and administrative statistics on the number of registered cases. The paper will allow exploring trends, alarming indicators, prevalence of different forms of gender-based violence in the country. The recent trends in human trafficking will be also outlined with analysis of sex-age structure of victims, geography of flows, forms of exploitation. Empirical evidence of gender-based violence arising at territories of the Eastern Ukraine due to the current military conflict will be also discussed.

The findings will be used for development of proposals to the national policies, programmes and other interventions to prevent and combat gender-based violence.