Background:
UN Women, grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, works for the elimination of discrimination against women and girls; the empowerment of women; and the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security.
In Ukraine, UN Women is committed to delivering results across strategic priorities, exercising its triple mandate encompassing normative support, UN system coordination, and operational activities to mobilize urgent and sustained action to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls. UN Women has long been actively supporting local priority areas in Ukraine from increased political participation to gender mainstreaming in public policy, and economic development.
Since the start of the Russian fullscale military invasion, Ukraine has rapidly emerged as one of the world’s most complex emergencies. Women, girls, men, boys, and LGBTIQ+ persons have been affected differently, have specific needs and different priorities for recovery. As of October 2023, 56% of the 7 million estimated IDPs are women, who make up 93% of the 6 million people returning to Ukraine. Women face significantly increased safety and protection risks. Incidents of genderbased violence (GB, particularly domestic violence and conflictrelated sexual violence (CRS, including trafficking in persons for sexual purposes have drastically increased. From 24 February 2022 through 31 May 2024, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMdocumented 304 cases of CRSV (201 men, 91 women, 10 girls, 2 boy[1], and the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine recorded 304 cases of CRSV (112 men, 191 women, 14 girls, and 1 bo[2] as of 1 July
Since the beginning of the largescale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation, women, womenled civil society organizations and women human rights organizations are playing a crucial role responding to the humanitarian needs, often being the first responders to the needs and protection risks of the most affected by war women, men, girls and boys in the high risk areas. Many grassroots women’s CSOs have been providing psychological support, protection counselling and free legal aid to survivors of CRSV and their families being the crucial resource of support at the local levels in particular in the locations where the GBV/CRSV survivors have been disrupted due to the war, referral pathways broken, women’s CSOs have stepped up mobilizing resources and providing the highly needed services to CRSV survivors at the community level. Furthermore, women’s CSOs have been instrumental in promoting social cohesion between displaced and host communities in Ukraine and have played a vital role in international advocacy for peace, recovery and reconstruction, including through reparations to CRSV survivors and other victims of the war.
On 3 May, 2022, Ms. Pramila Patten, the UN SecretaryGeneral’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, and Ms. Olha Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister for European and EuroAtlantic Integration, signed a Framework of Cooperation between the Government of Ukraine and the United Nations on the prevention and response to conflictrelated sexual violence, that supports the design and delivery of priority interventions in the areas of justice and accountability as a central pillar of deterrence and prevention. The agreement also addresses comprehensive service provision for survivors, including sexual and reproductive health services, medical and specialized mental health services, legal assistance, and livelihood support. To implement the Framework of Cooperation (Foin coordinated way, the Government has created a thematic Working Group on preventing and response to CRSV under the Commission on Coordination of Activities of Central Executive Bodies on Equal Rights and Opportunities of Women and Men.
UN Women has worked closely together with the government counterparts and the United Nations Country Team (UNCto support the development of an Implementation Plan for the Framework of Cooperation (Fo, which was adopted by the Government of Ukraine in September 2022, in 2023 the Implementation Plan was updated within the work of the InterAgency Working Group on CRSV to reflect the recent developments. Under this plan, UN Women has committed to closely collaborate with Ukrainian authorities along with other UN entities, women civil society organizations and other relevant partners to support national CRSV prevention and support efforts.
The Ukraine Joint Programme on conflictrelated sexual violence (CRShas been developed with the aim of strengthening the prevention and response to CRSV in Ukraine by reinforcing national mechanisms through the deployment of crosscutting policy experts bringing a range of expertise on addressing CRSV from monitoring and reporting to security sector reform. These experts will be deployed both within the UN Country Team (UNCand as part of various institutions of the Government of Ukraine in order to contribute to building the capacity of the stakeholders involved in this sector and improving the availability of services to survivors of CRSV.
The Office of the Ombudsperson of Ukraine, Apparatus of Government Commissioner for Gender Equality Policy, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister on European and EuroAtlantic Integration of Ukraine and members of the InterAgency Working Group on combating conflictrelated sexual violence are supporting the Implementation Plan with a focus on five critical areas: (trafficking in persons for the purpose of sexual exploitation, (iprovision of comprehensive assistance to survivors of CRSV, (iiaccess to justice and accountability, (istrengthening the capacity of the security and defence sector to prevent and address CRSV, and (reparations and compensation. The Office of the SRSGSVC cochairs each of the interagency working groups dedicated to these themes together with UN Agencies in Ukraine and national counterparts.
A Joint Secretariat comprising representatives of the Apparatus of the Government Commissioner for Gender Equality policy of Ukraine, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister on European and EuroAtlantic Integration of Ukraine and relevant UN entities will be established to support the Government’s InterAgency Working Group in developing and coordinating activities within the Implementation Plan. As a critical component of this project, the Government of Ukraine identified the need to be supported by other national experts to be deployed in four government institutions, including the Deputy Prime Minister’s office for European and EuroAtlantic Integration, the Apparatus of the Government Commissioner for Gender policy of Ukraine, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the National Social Service of Ukraine. Concurrently, a team of Women Protection Advisers, led by a Senior Women’s Protection Adviser (SWPin the Office of the Resident Coordinator, will be deployed to support the UN Country Team in accordance with relevant UN Security Council resolutions, especially resolution 2467 (2019), in support of the Joint Secretariat that is responsible for coordinating the overall implementation of the FoC, as cosignatories of the agreement, and its Implementation Plan. Activities to achieve the expected results under the various workstreams will be implemented on the ground, in collaboration with the WPA Unit and the national experts deployed in the various Government entities for this purpose.
The CRSV Expert (Human Rightto the Office of the Ombudsperson of Ukraine will focus on providing the subjectmatter expertise, legal and policy advice, and analysis to the implementors of the relevant provisions of the Framework of Cooperation and, as such, will be tasked with strengthening the capacity of the Office of the Ombudsperson of Ukraine to monitor human rights violations related to the crimes of ConflictRelated Sexual Violence.
[2] Statistics on CRSV from the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine as of 1 July 2024
Description of Responsibilities /Scope of Work
Under the overall guidance of the UN Women Representative, the incumbent will work under the daily supervision of the Office of the Ombudsperson of Ukraine, reporting to and working in close collaboration with the UN Women WPA (Women Protection Advise, and under the technical guidance of the Office of the Ombudsperson of Ukraine, the National consultant will provide expert and technical support to the Office of the Ombudsperson by contributing to the implementation of the Framework of Cooperation between the Government of Ukraine and the United Nations on the prevention and response to CRSV to strengthen the capacity of the Office of the Ombudsperson and its regional representative to prevent and respond to incidents of ConflictRelated Sexual Violence in a survivorcentric manner, monitor the work of State institutions with CRSV survivors, and increase coordination and referrals including at the field level between the Office of the Ombudsperson and multiple stakeholders working on prevention and response to CRSV.
The CRSV Expert (Human Rightwill deliver the subjectmatter expertise to the Office of the Ombudsperson of Ukraine and will be tasked with strengthening the capacity of the Office of the Ombudsperson to respond to CRSV.
The assignment will include but not be limited to the following tasks developed and agreed in coordination with the Office of the Ombudsperson of Ukraine:
Consultant’s Workplace and Official Travel
Financial arrangements
Inputs
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