The forum ‘Preventing and responding to gender-based violence: challenges and positive examples of cooperation in a humanitarian context’, organised by the UNHCR and the UNFPA, took place on 16 October 2025 in Kharkiv. It was joined by reps from the Kharkiv regional and city authorities, the Office of the Ukrainian Ombudsman for Human Rights in the Kharkiv region, the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, the Kharkiv regional prosecutor’s office, and national and international non-governmental organisations.
Vasyl Malikov, Associate Professor at the Department of Ukrainian Studies, Cultural Studies and the History of Science, gave a presentation at the Forum on preventing and responding to gender-based violence against LGBTIQ+ people. He presented the results of biobehavioural studies of transgender people, gay and bisexual men in the part concerning stigmatisation, discrimination and their experiences of violence, including physical and sexual violence, and summarised the experience of community organisations in preventing, monitoring and responding to GBV and human rights violations based on SOGI, methods of working with LGBTIQ+ people, including educational activities, training videos and methodological developments.
The report sparked a lively discussion on the theoretical and practical aspects of a more inclusive understanding of gender-based violence as harm inflicted on a person or group of persons because of their actual or perceived sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.
