Anastasia Deeva: Ex-Interior Ministry official wages fight to end discrimination against women, HIV-positive people

Name: Anastasia Deeva
Age: 26
Education: Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv
Profession: Executive director of Network of People Living with HIV charity organization, coordinator of the United Nations Women Ukraine program
Did you know? Deeva follows a sustainable lifestyle: she recycles and doesn’t use plastic bags.

Like many ambitious Ukrainian millennials, Anastasia Deeva joined the Ukrainian government in her early 20s. Unlike many, she started at a high-profile position.

While still working on her master’s degree in political science in 2014, she became an adviser to Eka Zguladze, then deputy interior minister. Deeva was coordinating the European integration and gender policies implementation in the ministry.

Ironically, while trying to stop discrimination and misogyny in law enforcement, she endured a rough misogynistic attack. Soon after Deeva, then 24, was appointed deputy interior minister in 2016, media circulated her semi-nude photos from old artistic photo shoots posted online.

Commentators were merciless, quickly matching the photos with Deeva’s youth and concluding she lacked professionalism to work in the ministry.

“This is a matter of choice. You either cry, trying to stay away from the stigmatization. Or you just continue to do your job as a professional,” Deeva said, recalling the incident two years later.

She chose to work. She is happy with the decision.

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“The Interior Ministry has become one of the first ministries in Ukraine to implement complex gender-balanced policies,” Deeva said.

Many young women face similar and even harder challenges in their careers, Deeva said, among many groups facing discrimination in Ukraine.

“A young woman can face criticism for being too beautiful; an older woman can be named not stylish or not good-looking enough for her job,” she said. “A successful man can be challenged for who his parents were. For me, that’s absurd. We have so many real problems to solve.”

Deeva wanted to work in a field where she could fight discrimination. Since politics never attracted her, she opted for a job in the third sector.

She left the Interior Ministry in 2017 and soon joined the HeForShe campaign of United Nations Women Ukraine.

And in March, she became the executive director of the All-Ukrainian Network of People Living with HIV, a charity organization that helps HIV-positive people in Ukraine get treatment.

“For me, the work in the network is an opportunity to help people who literally fight for their lives every day,” Deeva said.