Fines for Gender and Age Discrimination in Job Ads and Advertising Take Effect in Ukraine

Violators will have to pay a fine of ten minimum wages.

From 8 January, amendments to Ukraine's advertising law came into force in Ukraine, which provide for fines for specifying a desired gender, age or race in job vacancies, as well as for gender discrimination in advertising. Amendments

Thus, the amendments prohibit advertisements from making claims or using images suggesting the intellectual, physical, social or other superiority of one gender over the other, or stereotyping the roles of men and women.

In this way, lawmakers plan to combat advertising materials that exploit the theme of humiliating and disparaging treatment of people on the basis of gender.

Under the law, it is prohibited to show gender-based violence in advertising, or to use images of a person's body or body parts solely as a sexual object to attract consumers' attention when such display has no connection to the advertised product.

In addition, this applies to employers: job advertisements are prohibited from:

• offering jobs only to women or only to men, except for specific work that can be performed exclusively by people of a certain gender;
• setting requirements that favor a female or male gender (except in cases defined by law and cases of specific work that can be performed exclusively by people of a certain gender).
  

In case of violation, employers will now face a fine of ten minimum wages (65 000 UAH at the current rate).

The fine must be paid within 15 calendar days of receiving a notice from the State Service of Ukraine for Labour Issues.

The law on countering discrimination in job advertisements has been in effect in Ukraine since 1996, but fines for non-compliance with its requirements were only adopted by parliament in September 2020.