'EU not aiding women enough'

Inequalities between men and women are not adequately addressed in aid programs for countries of the former Soviet Union, a new study has concluded. Advertisements for job vacancies in Ukraine routinely state that women need not apply; 30 percent of Tajik women report they have suffered from domestic violence; and there are no female heads of large firms in Georgia. Yet despite such problems, many of the aid programs financed by the European Union in the three countries have been described as "gender-blind" in a study by the Network of East-West Women (NEWW) from Gdansk, Poland. According to the report, launched in Brussels on Sept. 11, the EU's strategy for assisting Central Asia in 2007-13 does not contain any specific scheme aimed at improving women's rights. And an EU plan for Ukraine in the same period does not address such issues as women's unemployment, the earning gap between male and female workers, or women's health. Because of these omissions there is "little chance" that poverty affecting either women or men will be alleviated, said Oksana Kisselyova of the Liberal Society Institute in Kiev, one of the report's authors. Kisselyova does not accept official assurances from the EU's executive, the European Commission, that all of the activities it is funding in Ukraine take gender issues into account under a policy known as 'mainstreaming'. She believes that this cannot be used as a pretext for avoiding gender-specific schemes and that the concept of mainstreaming is not being heeded systematically by Ukrainian officials tasked with handling EU aid. "Gender studies show that if you address everyone, you address no one," she told IPS. "Women and men have different approaches to spending money, so it is essential that you have gender-specific budgets. Women's values are safety for themselves, for children and the environment, so women focus on medical care, education and municipal transport. Men tend to spend money on the military and armed conflicts." At present, the EU is considering how to achieve far-reaching economic and political ties with Ukraine, without actually offering it formal membership of the Union. As part of that work, the Union has said that it wishes to promote good governance in Kiev. But Kisselyova said that it is impossible to improve governance unless women's involvement in the decision-making process is also improved. Women currently occupy just 8 percent of seats in Ukraine's national parliament. Vibeke Roosen Bell, a European Commission official working on relations with Ukraine, said that Kiev has placed laws banning discrimination against women on its statute books but that these are not being properly enforced. Although it is illegal, for example, to restrict competitions for jobs to one sex, this is still occurring. Roosen Bell said that the EU is trying to raise awareness of women's issues in Ukraine by providing financial support to campaigners lobbying the national authorities. Yet while she said that gender issues will be addressed in any accord on strengthening official links with Ukraine, she acknowledged that no studies have yet been sought by the Commission into how greater market liberalization could affect women in the country. Ukraine is likely to join the World Trade Organization by the end of this year. Rano Kasymova from Parastor, a women's rights organization in Tajikistan, complained that gender issues are largely absent from some of the EU's main planning documents for Central Asia. The NEWW report urges that Tajik political parties are required to increase the number of female candidates they field in elections. Yet Brian Byrne, a Commission official dealing with Tajikistan, said the EU could only play a limited role in issues related to the domestic politics of third countries. "We're not into regime change," he said. About $91 million is likely to be allocated in EU aid for Tajikistan in 2007-10. Poverty alleviation will be one of the main objectives in spending this aid, said Byrne, who insisted that gender issues are "certainly being addressed" in this context. He criticized the Dushane government for introducing new restrictions on freedom of assembly, including the activities of non-governmental organizations. Groups funded by foreign philanthropists such as the billionaire George Soros have been shut down, he noted. Helen Rusetskaia from the Women's Information Center in Georgia also voiced misgivings about how the policy of mainstreaming is being applied. Mainstreaming was agreed as an international goal at a 1995 United Nations conferences on women's rights in Beijing. An action plan drawn up for that meeting said that gender equality should be the aim of every activity relating to social and economic development. But Rustskaia said that because gender issues are a new subject in Georgian political discourse, the concept is "not clear" for many government officials. She argued that the EU's policies on gender "must be clearly defined" and that every effort should be made to involve women's rights activists in the decision-making process.