Unsteady Ground: Gender-responsive Small Arms Control in Ukraine

While efforts are underway, Ukraine does not currently have a comprehensive and robust small arms regulation framework. There is also a severe lack of reliable data on violent crime, as well as its relationship to firearms ownership and use. This is particularly true when it comes to gendered dimensions of crime and small arms use in Ukraine. Moreover, there is little informed and sustained public national debate on the issue of firearms control and its gendered impacts. Yet, effective, evidence-based, and gender-sensitive policies and regulations are hardly realizable without a broad and thorough public discussion, as well as the involvement of all relevant stakeholders, particularly women’s organizations.

This paper—Unsteady Ground: Gender-responsive Small Arms Control in Ukraine—seeks to fill the gap. It aims to provide an overview of the current status of gender-responsive small arms control and violent crime in Ukraine, its gendered distribution in Ukraine during the ongoing full-scale war, and the current state of knowledge and available data on these issues. The goal of this paper is to become a stepping stone for the broader public discussion, and a launching pad for community building among women and feminist stakeholders.