Unions in Ukraine join the campaign to end violence and harassment at work: Trade unions in Ukraine have shown strong committment to ending violence and harassment in the world of work. Inspired by the ILO Violence and Harassment Convention No. 190, the Building and Wood Worker's International (BWI) and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) have joined the ongoing global campaign - 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence – that started on the 25 November and will end on the 10 December, the International Human Rights day. Billboards and posters on major construction sites mark the campaign with messages on the need to ending violence and harassment.

The campaign is also being used as a platform to promote the ILO Convention No. 190, which is the first international treaty to eliminate violence and harassment in the world of work, including gender-based violence.


“Discussion of gender based violence and harassment has to be brought to the higher level in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia. This will play the role of a trigger mechanism to push our governments to ratify ILO Convention 190 on Violence and Harassment. Adoption of this important international labour standard is a great achievement for the international labour movement, however this is just a beginning of our path”, stated Lesia Gusak, member of the BWI European Regional Women's Committee. BWI swung into action soon after the landmark instruments were adopted in June 2019. BWI and ILO in Odessa, Ukraine organized a sub-regional Women’s Conference on “Trade unions strategies against discrimination and gender-based violence at the workplaces”, from 25 to 27 September 2019.

The conference was attended by 25 trade union leaders from Ukraine, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Russia. Participants represented trade union movement from different levels: grassroots trade union level, regional trade unions and national trade union organizations. The seminar involved an in-depth discussion on the new ILO instruments, explained by Mariko Ouchi, ILO Specialist in the ILO Office in Budapest. The seminar resulted in the development of several joint activities of unions led by BWI for promoting the ratification of the new ILO Convention.