Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze: Ukrainian women protect our independence just like men

The Chair of the Committee on Ukraine’s Integration into the EU took part in the discussion ‘Gap in security: the role of women in the modern army’. The discussion was organised by the Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs.

According to Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, in 2014, when Russia's war against Ukraine began, more than 16.000 women served in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, mostly in civilian positions. ‘From that time, we began to open opportunities for women to hold military positions and to get high ranks. I am very proud that we managed to open the possibility for girls to study in military lyceums. This helped to double the number of women serving in the Ukrainian army and enabled women to occupy higher positions in the army’, the Chair of the Committee said.

With the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the number of women in the Armed Forces doubled. Today, there are almost 60.000 women in the army. 5.000 of them are directly involved in hostilities. Unfortunately, more than 100 military women have died during the full-scale war, more than 100 have been wounded, and about 50 are missing.

‘Women try to become part of the army on an equal footing with men. They demonstrate incredible capability in this new type of technological war. They protect our independence just like men’, said Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze. Despite this, according to her, we are still observing a kind of glass ceiling in the army for women. A few years ago, the presence of women in politics was also quite rare. Currently, Ukraine has quotas for women in politics. There must be at least 30% of women in political parties. ‘When I entered politics in 2014, after the Revolution of Dignity, I came from an analytical environment specifically in the field of security. And I always had to compete with men based on my expertise. Therefore, it seemed to me strange and humiliating to introduce quotas for women, for example, in political parties. But later I realised that this enables us to move this process faster and to get closer to gender equality in politics. For comparison, in the previous convocation of the Parliament, we had 12% of women, in this one there are more than 20%’, said Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze.

She also informed that criminal liability for sexual harassment has been increased in Ukraine. But this is not enough. ‘We have to work on overcoming the fear of affected women and men to talk about it, to report it. Ukrainian society — both men and women — demonstrated incredible resilience in this war. I hope that it will not only achieve the victory, but also become more inclusive and open. And after the war, we will observe positive gender changes at the level of politicians and in the field of security’, Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze concluded.