December 9, 2022, Кyiv, Ukraine - Denise Brown, the United Nations Resident & Humanitarian Coordinator in Ukraine, Geeta Kuttiparambil, UN Women Ukraine Representative, a.i., and Tetyana Kudina, Programme Coordinator, UN Women Ukraine, co-hosted the United Nations Thematic Dialogue with Ukrainian Women’s Civil Society Organizations. The event was held in Kyiv on December 7th.

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.

Although security sector officers face trauma in the line of duty, these experiences play no significant role in their attitudes and behaviours related to gender equality. So, gender stereotypes derive not from the nature of work in the security sector but from general social attitudes, childhood experiences, and other factors. This is one of the key findings of a national study entitled Understanding of Masculinity and Gender Equality in the Security Sector of Ukraine, commissioned by UN Women Ukraine and the non-governmental organization Promundo-US at the initiative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) of Ukraine.

Natalia Kalyuzhna is a Police Captain and Head of the Counteracting Gender-based Violence Unit at the Main Directorate of the National Police in Sievierodonetsk, a city in the conflict-affected eastern part of Ukraine. She applies innovative approaches to address the needs of violence survivors and women at risk.