Iryna Zalialova is a police colonel in the Ukraine National Police service. She leads the Department for Monitoring Gender Equality and efforts to combat domestic violence under the Human Rights Compliance Department. Until 2014, Zalialova lived in Horlivka and worked at the Donetsk Law Institute. When pro-Russian militants entered the Donetsk region, Zalialova and her family were forced to flee to Kyiv. Already in the capital of Ukraine, she decided to try out for the National Police: she passed the competition and got a job as a precinct officer.