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Good practice Imported

Invisible Battalion — Advocacy Research Driving Military Gender Reform in Ukraine

Ukraine · Kyiv · See the Ukraine profile · See the Kyiv profile

Evidence: Observational / pre–post Top 45% 74/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Sociological research by Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (2015) documented women serving in combat roles without recognition, directly driving Ukraine's 2018 law opening 63 military roles to women and the 2019 vote granting veteran status to women ATO volunteers.

42
In-depth interviews conducted (2015)
<40%
Women interviewed who obtained formal combat position (2015-16)
63
Combat role categories opened to women (2018)
tripled to ~5,000
Female officers (by May 2021)
~50,000 (incl. ~10,000 front-line)
Women serving in armed forces (September 2022)
Invisible Battalion — Advocacy Research Driving Military Gender Reform in Ukraine

Details

Promoter
Ukrainian Women Veteran Movement; National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy; UN Women Ukraine
Period
2015–2019
Keywords
civil society, defence, advocacy, research

Context

Invisible Battalion was a 2015 sociological study by Kyiv-Mohyla Academy researchers (Tamara Martsenyuk, Anna Kvit, Ganna Grytsenko), coordinated by activist Maria Berlinska with UN Women Ukraine support, based on 42 in-depth interviews with women serving in Ukraine's Anti-Terrorist Operation, documenting that women performed combat functions while formally registered in non-combat roles without legal recognition or veteran status.

Results

Fewer than 40% of women interviewed had obtained a formal combat position and its legal protections. The resulting advocacy led to the 2018 Law opening 63 combat role categories to women and an October 2019 parliamentary vote granting veteran status to women ATO volunteers. By May 2021, women in the armed forces had doubled since 2013, female officers had tripled to about 5,000, and female cadets had nearly quadrupled; by September 2022 about 50,000 women were serving, including around 10,000 on the front lines.

Conclusions

UN Women documented the research-to-advocacy-to-law approach as a replicable model for addressing gender blind spots in post-conflict security sectors.

Implementation

Implementation detail (cost, timeline, staffing, conditions for success) is not yet available for this practice.

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes CERV — Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values

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Data sources

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