ENoMW Letter
The European Network of Migrant Women expresses serious concern regarding proposed Drafts of the Civil Code of Ukraine (№14394, №14394-1, №14394-2) that risk undermining women’s rights, child protection, and Ukraine’s commitments under international human rights law. These amendments represent a coordinated assault on the fundamental principle of equality between women and men, signaling a departure from a human rights-based legal framework toward a model of state-sanctioned patriarchal control.
Key Concerns Raised in the Letter
In particular, these developments are concerning because they:
- Continue the commodification of the female body through surrogacy, which reduces women to biological instruments.
- Restrict divorce during pregnancy and the first year of motherhood (Article 1512), effectively institutionalizing a form of forced marriage and removing a woman’s legal exit strategy during her period of greatest vulnerability.
- Commodify the right to consent by introducing a financial penalty for withdrawing from an engagement (Provision 1488).
- Reinforce archaic notions of motherhood as a compulsory civic obligation rather than a human right (Article 1514).
- Grant a tool for post-divorce harassment by allowing a spouse to demand a change of an ex-partner’s surname based on subjective definitions of “unworthy behavior” (Article 1516).
- Entrench structural inequality by shifting the financial burden of child-rearing almost exclusively onto the primary caregiver, who in most cases is the mother. (Article 1636).
Most alarmingly, the move to lower the age of marriage and sexual consent to 14 represents a catastrophic violation of child protection. Weakening these boundaries reframes adult sexual exploitation as “consent,” empowering predators and exposing girls to grooming and “lover-boy” tactics.
The European Network of Migrant Women calls for the full withdrawal of the Drafts of the Civil Code and demands the immediate alignment of the law with international human rights standards—including the Istanbul Convention and CEDAW—to ensure that no woman is forced into silence or subservience.