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The Institute of World Policy has held a videoconference with Vaira Vike-Freiberga, ex-President of Latvia (1999-2007). This event is a part of the project “Virtual forum of Global Women-Leaders: Enhancing Discussion on Gender Equality in the Ukrainian Public Sphere”. The project is being implemented with support of Internews.Vaira Vike-Freiberga, the ex-President of Latvia, announced during the conference at the Institute of World Policy that “big politics, and in particular the parliament, has to see an influx of as many women of child bearing age as possible. For this to happen, it is necessary to create conditions for women to be able to have both a political career and a family”. She says that this inability to unite politics and family is what prevents young women from actively taking part in the public sphere and competing for power in post-Soviet countries.

The politician provided an example of Scandinavian countries, where there are special kindergartens, whose services female politicians can use while at work.

Vaira Vike-Freiberga, who was the Head of the Latvian state for 8 years, thinks that her country has not yet been successful in making sure that there is gender equality in politics. Only 20% of their Parliament consists of women. To compare, Ukraine’s Parliament has only 8%. It is predicted that there will be even less women in the next Ukrainian Parliament.