Representatives of the Roma Women Fund Chirikli have joined the joint drafting of the Declaration of the Feminist Movement of Ukraine — a document that continues the work begun at the 5th Feminist Forum.
The Declaration sets out a shared vision of international advocacy, the principles of cooperation between organisations, and the priorities around which Ukrainian women’s organisations are ready to join forces.
From the forum to a document
The Feminist Forum brought together human rights defenders, activists and allies of the women’s movement from Ukraine and other countries. The conversation there centred on current challenges in women’s rights and on the role of civil society in addressing them.
Work on the Declaration became the logical continuation: instead of dispersing after the discussion, the organisations sat down to write a shared document. That is how agreements reached at a venue turn into a text one can refer back to.
What the Declaration sets out
The document covers three things. First, a shared vision of international advocacy — the demands the Ukrainian women’s movement takes outward. Second, the principles of cooperation between organisations within the movement. Third, the priorities around which they are ready to join forces.
The practical value of such a document is that on an international stage an agreed position carries differently than a dozen separate voices. The Declaration becomes an instrument for strengthening that voice and for developing partnership between the various parts of the movement.
The full text is available on the website of the Ukrainian Women’s Fund: Declaration of the Feminist Movement of Ukraine.
The principles it rests on
For Chirikli, the principles are the essential part of the Declaration. They are solidarity, inclusiveness, sisterhood, strategic partnership, transparency, respect for the diverse experience of Ukrainian women, and the uncompromising defence of human rights and national security.
Inclusiveness and respect for diverse experience are not decorative words here. They determine whether a shared document leaves room for women whose experience differs from that of the majority — Roma women and girls among them.
What this gives Roma women
Taking part in drafting the Declaration allows the fund to strengthen women’s leadership within Roma communities and to bring advocacy for the rights of Roma women and girls onto a wider stage.
It is also a matter of visibility. The Roma human rights movement is rarely present in the general agenda, either Ukrainian or international. A joint document that Chirikli has signed on to secures that presence.
The fund works on this systematically — from joint action by Roma women across Europe to bringing Roma women’s activism into the agenda of the wider feminist movement.
Who is behind the initiative
Work on the Declaration is taking place within the project “Women’s Voice and Leadership: New Force”, implemented by the Ukrainian Women’s Fund with the support of the Government of Canada.
Chirikli joined the initiative as a partner. A united, solidary and inclusive women’s movement in Ukraine is the framework within which the voice of Roma women can be heard not as a separate case but as part of the whole.
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