We collaborated with the Ukrainian feminist movement to implement a collective campaign supporting the ratification of the Istanbul Convention against gender-based violence amidst disinformation campaigns. Through collaborative spaces and strategic communications insights, the campaign successfully gained the President’s public commitment, leading to the Convention’s ratification a few months later.

About the project

When we began our project in Ukraine, the feminist movement had been working for over a decade to secure the ratification of the Istanbul Convention—the first European legally binding instrument to prevent gender-based violence. The opposition propagated disinformation online, linking  it erroneously to LGBTQI+ proselytism, among other things.

Komons collaborated with Ukrainian feminist organizations and groups to support their ratification effort. Together, we crafted a collective campaign aimed at engaging key audiences, featuring evidence-based, well-framed messages to garner understanding and support for the ratification. We also established collaborative spaces throughout the movement to enhance collective intelligence and strategic vision among organizations of all sizes. Our combined efforts culminated in the ratification of the Convention after a ten-year struggle. Here some of our key steps:

• Our journey began with an in-depth research phase in partnership with Ukrainian researchera. Audience analysis and focus groups conducted by MSC, alongside digital research about the Ukraine media landscape laid the groundwork for our strategy.
• We pinpointed key audiences for engagement and inoculation against disinformation. In workshops, called “creative kitchens,” we encouraged content creators and organizations collaboration to craft empathetic stories.
• These messages were tested before their widespread dissemination by over 50 organizations, using tailor-made digital strategies.
• Our Digital M&E allowed both to monitor the opposition online and to see how the campaign impacted the overall media landscape: increasing public interest (important increase in Google Search about IC), change in the balance of supportive messaging and their engagement in social media over opposition and disinformation messages.
• The campaign aimed to raise awareness about violence and highlight the benefits of the Istanbul Convention (phase 1). Then it strategically launched a State petition (phase 2) that quickly amassed the 25,000 signatures prompting a public response from the President

A couple of months after the Istanbul convention has been successfully ratified. Very sadly Ukraine was invaded, leading to war and the displacement of many of our group’s members.  

When

2020-2022.

Contributors

Supported by FICH and OSF and developed within the framework of the Comms Hub strategy.

The feminists organizations in the core were Women’s Fund, Women’s Perspective, Women’s March, La Strada and Territory of Success. The following organizations were our allies: Center of Gender Culture, Zmina, Public Council of Gender issues, International Amnesty, Ukranian Women’s Fund, 50%, Positive Women and Pohava

More info

• Violence Against Women: Ukraine Media Landscape 2019-2021 (PDF), in collaboration with Dina Zaika and Comms Hub.
• Ukraine Media Landscape 2019-2020 (PDF).
• “Las mujeres ucranianas están movilizándose para conseguir que su gobierno luche contra las violencias machistas”