Combating discrimination and sexual harassment in the army - Parliament adopted a law

The Verkhovna Rada has adopted a bill that improves mechanisms for ensuring military discipline, as well as preventing and combating discrimination and sexual harassment. In particular, the document obliges every serviceman to behave with dignity and honor, to respect the honor and dignity of every person, and obliges commanders to initiate investigations in cases of gender discrimination, sexual harassment, or violence. This is reported by UNN with reference to bill No. 13037.

Details

The law has been passed

According to the draft law, the Disciplinary Statute of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is to establish that military discipline is achieved, in particular, by "ensuring equal rights and opportunities for women and men, fostering a culture of gender equality and intolerance towards any manifestations of discrimination, including on the basis of sex, preventing and combating gender-based violence, sexual harassment, and offenses against sexual freedom and sexual inviolability in the military collective."

It is intended to establish that military discipline obliges every serviceman "to comply with the norms of legislation on ensuring equal rights and opportunities for women and men, as well as preventing and combating discrimination" and "to behave with dignity and honor, to respect the honor and dignity of every person."

It is also stipulated that every serviceman's duty is "not to allow and to restrain others from indecent acts, expressed verbally or non-verbally (words, gestures, body movements, etc.), including those related to discrimination on the grounds of race, color, political, religious and other beliefs, sex, ethnic and social origin, property status, place of residence, language or other characteristics, as well as to prevent gender-based violence, sexual harassment, offenses against sexual freedom and sexual inviolability in the military collective."

The document also enshrines the duty of commanders to immediately respond to offenses against sexual freedom and sexual inviolability. In particular, it obliges the commander to take measures to detain a subordinate when he commits or attempts to commit a criminal offense or immediately after committing a criminal offense against sexual freedom and sexual inviolability.

A serviceman who reports such facts cannot be punished, dismissed, or subjected to any negative measures in connection with such a report.

Every serviceman who directly or indirectly learns about facts of discrimination, sexual harassment, or gender-based violence is obliged to report this to the relevant unit or gender adviser.

Recall

Since the start of the Ukrainian army's recruitment centers, 36,760 citizens have received consultations on joining military service. 8,053 of them have already become candidates for the Defense Forces, 20% of whom are women.