Appeal from the National Council of Women of Ukraine

We are distributing an important appeal from the National Council of Women of Ukraine:

"Dear Members of Women's, Feminist and International Organizations!
We were inspired by the result of our self-organization with you on the preparation and advocacy of the National Parallel Report on Ukraine's implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action +25 "Beijing +25". In a short time, we were able to create a Report in Ukrainian and English and conduct its discussion at the National (Kyiv, 20.08. 2019 — National Consultations at the office of the Human Rights Commissioner of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine) and the International level (Lviv, 31.08-1.09.2019 — Annual meetings SFUZHO, 27 countries; Geneva, 27.10.2019 - General Assembly of the European Center of the International Council of Women; 28.10.2019 - NGO Forum, 29-30.10.2019 UNECE Session).At CSW64/NY (which took place in an abbreviated version due to COVID-19), a Statement was sent based on our Parallel Report, prepared by SFUZHO as an organization with consultative status at the UN Economic and Social Committee.

In 2017, the Ukrainian government reported to the UN Committee on the implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. 12 parallel reports on SEDAW were prepared by non-governmental organizations, which did not allow to concentrate the position of Ukrainian women's public organizations and caused sincere surprise of the world community. Governmental and legislative bodies, the judiciary and international institutions implement the recommendations of the UN Committee. A year after the discussion of the State and parallel reports in Geneva, we initiated monitoring of the implementation of comments to the state of Ukraine, and held a press conference on the results of the monitoring (link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyzedFADhkc ), having started the Monitoring Group of public organizations for the implementation of the "women's" UN Convention: CEDAW in Ukraine - NGOs Monitoring Group.

We, the representatives of the National Council of Women of Ukraine, the Kyiv Institute of Gender Studies, the Women's Consortium of Ukraine, the Women's Information and Consultation Center and the World Federation of Ukrainian Women's Organizations, announce that we are joining forces to prepare the writing and advocacy of the IX Periodic Report of public organizations under the CEDAW Convention.Our activities and those of our colleagues have already included the preparation of questions for the government, which were considered at the pre-session of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (Geneva, March 3, 2012) and were taken into account by the Committee and sent to the Government of Ukraine (link: https://www.undocs.org/en/CEDAW/C/UKR/QPR/9).

In the near future, we will hold a joint press conference with a statement about this intention. With this letter, we appeal to women's, feminist, international organizations and public activists with a proposal and request to join the analysis of Ukraine's implementation of the UN Committee's observations, and to submit their representatives to our Monitoring Group.

Only our joint, clear civil position will allow us to carry out an objective analysis and control over the actions of the authorities and, together with international organizations, to provide real assistance in the issue of respecting the rights and non-discrimination of women, in building a true civil society."