On March 18, we presented our Network at an online event in the framework of the Committee on the Status of Women. Our team talked about the history of how the Network was founded, what it means for each of us, and which work is enabled through the Network. We centered the efforts of grassroots feminist groups and discussed what principles enable a more flexible, caring, sustainable, and feminist infrastructure of moving resources. We will share our key remarks and advocacy recommendations in a series of three articles.
The third and final article in the series, written by our member Oksana Potapova, discusses systemic changes that are needed for Ukraine’s wartime present and post-war future, from a feminist perspective. In the previous articles, you can find parts one (funding for resilience) and two (on communities of care).
Two years into the war in Ukraine, feminist organizations, women, girls, persons with disabilities, historically marginalized groups, and internally displaced persons are facing unprecedented challenges. These challenges include personal and family security and safety risks, mental and physical health issues, and a lack of livelihood opportunities. According to the recent Rapid Gender Assessment confirms an estimated 17.6 million people in need of multisectoral humanitarian assistance within Ukraine[1]. Women and girls account for 55% of the 11.1 million people targeted, and for 57% of the 17.6 million people in need of assistance and protection; while as of August 2023, 61% of those displaced were female. Multiple vulnerabilities experienced by women include increased unpaid care burden; loss of employment and rise of poverty; severe mental health issues and the rise of gender-based violence.
Nevertheless, feminist activists driven by social responsibility, the needs of their communities, feminist values, and principles remain frontline responders to humanitarian crises caused by war. Most pre-war feminist human rights defenders still have the willingness and ability to continue the work on women’s leadership, women’s rights, and women’s participation in Ukraine’s political and social life. Studies confirm that women’s rights organisations, as well as grassroots activists and community groups have been and remain at the forefront of the humanitarian response. Many feminist and WROs have leaned into their community connections and expanded their areas of work from humanitarian to psychological support, while continuing to do their advocacy work. Two years later, their situation is (quote) “one of simultaneous resilience and exhaustion”. The funding for humanitarian work is decreasing, while bureaucratic demands of donor organisations and hierarchical relationships with local partners remain a reality.
Our work takes place in the background of this context, and we want to highlight our contribution to the solution of this challenge which is the Ukrainian Feminist Network for Freedom and Democracy. Founded in September 2022 by Ukrainian grassroots feminists and women’s rights defenders, it intended to respond to several gaps which we identified: one of access to funding for grassroots groups; the other one of burnout and exhaustion of activists, who often do not have enough resources to take care of themselves and are encouraged to seek solutions outside of their activist community. The Network also aimed at responding to the need for local voices from Ukraine to fill a gap in knowledge about the region and the context by Ukrainian feminists, as opposed to Global North researchers.
Over the course of the year we have supported 15 initiatives and individual activists; published 18 texts and conducted 2 community-building events for the network members. We have also started working on systemic analysis of our approach and develop recommendations for systemic change on several levels.
Below you will see our key advocacy recommendations for systemic changes that are needed for Ukraine’s wartime present and post-war future, from a feminist perspective.
Problem statement: gaps in women’s participation in the recovery processes
The range of projects that our partners are implementing span from humanitarian assistance, to supporting women in job search, and psychological recovery and community integration through arts, among others. They also conduct cultural activities, informational campaigns and raise awareness about the role of women in Ukraine’s history and contemporary realities. All of this work, we argue, is the backbone of Ukraine’s resilient society during war. It needs to be seen, properly recognised and integrated into the conversations about the future change and recovery.
Despite the overall recognition[2] of the gendered impacts of Russia’s war on Ukrainian society, as well as acknowledgement[3] of the diverse roles that women are playing in sustaining social resilience during war, the infrastructure of recovery, as well as policies around Ukraine’s recovery lack an explicit gendered approach[4], both at the national, local and even international level. At the same time, the women’s rights and feminist organisations, alongside international partners, continue to advocate for a gender-sensitive post-war recovery of Ukraine[5]. To conclude, there seems to be a growing disconnect between realities on the ground, narratives of women’s rights organisations, and the national and international discourses around (gender-sensitive/feminist) war-time assistance and post-war recovery of Ukraine.
A set of narratives has solidified in media discourse and top-level decision-making spaces[6], focusing on “women’s resilience”[7], their heroic contribution to the war efforts and their undeniable leadership. First Lady Olena Zelenska claimed that “Women have already proven their leadership in society, and just need to embrace it”[8], adding “In fact, we can say that Ukraine’s gender equality level is comparable to that of Europe”[9]. These narratives omit the documented realities of women as witnessed by feminist organisations working with communities, including increase in women’s poverty and unemployment, precarity caused by displacement, as well as the growing cases of domestic violence (see Care, ActionAid reports above).
The narratives about Ukraine’s (post-war) recovery, as presented during the Ukraine Recovery Conference (London) focus on business-led economic growth and attraction of investments (Potapova&O’Sullivan, 2024). Citizens are framed through the discourse of “human capital” that is needed to restore the economy. Socioeconomic, infrastructural, and holistic security needs of different groups of population are partially included in the discourse, but not backed up by economic or political choices. This leads to the growing sense of disconnect between lived realities of Ukraine’s population and decisions of the government that claims to fight the war “for its people” (Dutchak, 2024).
Response:
Feminist security and peace scholars have argued that there is a direct connection between sustainable peace, inclusive post-war recovery and gender-transformative economic and social policy that focus on addressing the roots of inequalities caused or exacerbated by war[1]. It is therefore crucial to ensure that a feminist perspective on Ukraine’s recovery is adopted and properly implemented, including the following recommendations.
- An inclusive and transparent dialogue around recovery: more effort is required to ensure that spaces of decision making and discussion of the recovery agenda are inclusive of civil society, and specifically the women’s rights organisations, trade unions and human rights activists. Such conversations and spaces for continued engagement need to be created, supported and funded on all levels – from local (where most of the recovery takes place on the daily basis), to national and international (where majority of narratives are shaped and resources distributed).
- Inclusion of a gender-sensitive and feminist analysis of the recovery approaches, policies and processes. Given the strong evidence in literature and previous (post)conflict settings about the role of women’s paid and unpaid labor and women’s leadership for overall social wellbeing, an analysis of all recovery-related decisions needs to integrate a perspective that is informed by a gender-transformative approach. Collaboration with academic researchers, local research institutions and NGOs is crucial in ensuring thorough analysis. Such analysis is already being produced by international NGOs in partnership with local organizations and needs to be centered in further decisions[2].
- Focus on women’s political and economic participation as interconnected with democracy and social welfare. Investment in women’s leadership and participation in economic and political life is crucial for ensuring a more sustainable and resilient society. However, the capacity for agency is directly connected to the structural support available to women through social welfare programs, dignified working conditions, programs for gender-based violence prevention and political quota. Expectations on women to continue to be “resilient” on their own do not lead to sustainable results, rather create an atomised and individualized agency that is contrary to the logic of social cohesion.
To conclude, we would like to reiterate the recommendations of a recent policy paper by the Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy (Berlin), which states that “a feminist approach [to recovery] would understand that peace, if it is to be sustainable and just, requires more than just the absence of violent conflict. A feminist approach would challenge dominant models of recovery to invoke a process of structural change capable of overcoming societal patterns of inequality and exclusion. It would transcend rhetorical commitments to equality and ensure mechanisms and conditions for meaningful participation of women, LGBTQI* individuals and other minority groups at all stages of the recovery process”. (Lomonosova, Provan, 2024).
