In Kyiv, on March 8, hundreds of people marched in celebration of International Women’s Day from Mykhailivska Square to Poshtova Square,.
The Women’s March participants raised awareness of the necessity of ratifying the Istanbul Convention, which criminalizes domestic violence and violence against women as a whole. Participants also decried sexism and discrimination in the public sphere.
The March was overseen by what the Kyiv police said was “enough personnel from the subdepartments of the Kyiv police and military personnel from the National Guard of Ukraine.” The March passed without noteworthy incidents, despite the presence of counter-protesters at the start of the route.
As it is known, Ukraine has been demanding ratification of the Istanbul Convention for many years: Ukraine signed a document called the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence back in 2011, but it was never approved. The document is designed to create a legal framework at the pan-European level to protect women against all forms of violence, and prevent, prosecute and eliminate violence against women and domestic violence. The Convention also establishes a specific monitoring mechanism ("GREVIO") in order to ensure effective implementation of its provisions by the Parties.
Similar marches were also held in the Ukrainian cities of Kharkiv, Kherson, Zaporizhia, and Lviv.
“We’ve been fighting for centuries for the right to control our own bodies, to have the right to decide when to have children, how many, and who to marry. We’re women and we’re different, but we’re equal. And for some reason, in the year 2020, we still go to the centre of the city with this sort of ‘security’ in order to say that we’re against violence,” one of the organizers of the march in Kyiv explained.