The media is reporting several incidents of sexual assault of women by Russian army in Ukraine as a weapon of war. Various reports suggests that Ukrainian refugee women and girls are also being raped in the places where they sought safety.
Disturbing reports of Russian sexual violence towards Ukrainian civilians have been emerging. As a result sexual assault has remained as a major causality of this war. Women facing risk both from invaded Russian army and also in the refugee camps.
Almost all of the 3.6 million Ukrainians who have left Ukraine since Russia invaded on Feb. 24, 2022, are women and children. Men and boys aged 18 to 60 are required to stay in Ukraine to defend the country against Russian troops.
Desperate to escape Russian attacks targeting civilians, these women and children head primarily to Poland and other European countries with relaxed visa restrictions. Organised crime (including sex and organ trafficking and frequently, slave labour) is not the only menace. Refugees are exploited by individuals too.
A Ukrainian MP has raised alarm about Russian soldiers raping and sexually assaulting women during its invasion, and warned that Ukraine would “not be silent” about the crimes. In a TV interview, Maria Mezentseva referenced one case in Brovary, an eastern suburb of Kyiv, where a woman was raped in front of her child.
A civilian shot dead, wife raped several times
Mezentseva said: “There is one case which was very widely discussed recently because it’s been recorded and proceeded with [by] the prosecutor’s office, and we’re not going into details, but it’s quite a scary scene when a civilian was shot dead in his house in a small town next to Kyiv.”
“His wife was – I’m sorry but I have to say it – raped several times in front of her underage child. After the attack, the soldier is believed to have threatened the child.”
Mezentseva, the head of Ukraine’s permanent delegation to the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe, said that cases needed to be recorded, as “justice has to prevail”. Rape and sexual assault are considered war crimes and a breach of international humanitarian law.
She said cases were being underreported, and added that she hoped that the UK could pass on expertise on how to support victims in the aftermath of crimes.
“There are many more victims rather than just this one case which has been made public by the prosecutor general,” she said. “And of course, we are expecting many more of them, which will be public once victims will be ready to talk about that.
Officials in Ukraine are investigating the allegations of a woman who says Russian soldiers killed her husband and then repeatedly raped her — the first known official investigation into claims of rape by Russian soldiers since Russia invaded Ukraine.
On March 28, 2022, The Times of London published an interview with an anonymous woman, the newspaper identified as being at the center of the investigation. It said she was 33 and had lived with her 35-year-old husband and 4-year-old son near the village of Shevchenkove outside the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.
The woman told The Times that on March 9 she and her husband approached a group of Russian soldiers outside their home and found that the troops had killed the family’s dog. She said the troops later searched the area for gasoline, with one of the soldiers apparently apologizing for the dog’s death.
After dark, she said, she and her husband again heard something outside, and her husband walked out. “I heard a single shot, the sounds of the gate opening, and then the sound of footsteps in the house,” she added.
She said that she and her son ultimately fled, leavieng th home her husband built for them and his body behind. She said she hadn’t yet told her son that his father died. “We cannot bury him, we can’t get to the village, because the village is still occupied,” she added.
She said she didn’t know whether she’d return even if the area were to be liberated. “Memories are hard. I don’t know how I will live with all of it, but I still understand that my husband built this house for us. I would never be able to bring myself to sell it.”
Ukraine’s attorney general, Iryna Venediktova, announced the first rape charges against a Russian soldier. In a Facebook post, she wrote: “Prosecutors of Kiev region have established a Russian soldier who killed an unarmed man and repeatedly raped his wife […] He was announced wanted and arrested concerns have been brought to court.”
Female civilians in Ukraine have also been speaking out about multiple reports of rape and sexual abuse by Russian troops. The latest comes from 30-year-old Anastasia Taran, who managed to escape the town of Irpin after it was captured by Russian forces.
Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba has also spoken about sexual violence amid the fighting in Ukraine. “We have numerous cases of, unfortunately, when Russian soldiers rape women in the Ukrainian cities,” he said in a briefing earlier this month.
He called for a special tribunal to take place to investigate the conduct of Russian troops. According to Dmytro, international law “is the only tool of civilisation that is available to us to make sure that in the end, eventually, all those who made this war possible will be brought to justice.
UN warns risk of being trafficked
The U.N. has warned that children fleeing Ukraine, especially those separated from family, face a high risk of being trafficked for sexual or work purposes. “For predators and human traffickers, the war in Ukraine is not a tragedy,” UN Secretary General António Guterres warned on Twitter. “It’s an opportunity – and women and children are the targets.”
“Women and girls face heightened risks due to displacement and the breakdown of normal protection structures and support,” U.N. Women said. “The contraction of routine health services and restrictions creates barriers to the provision of services and access to justice. In past conflicts, we have seen parties to armed conflict use sexual violence as a cruel tactic of war, terror, torture and political repression in order to advance their strategic objectives.”
Trafficking rings are notoriously active in Ukraine and neighbouring countries in peace time. The fog of war is perfect cover to increase business. There are also reports of Ukrainian teenage girls being abused by residents in their new countries. In Poland, a man was arrested in mid-March in the rape of a 19-year-old Ukrainian refugee.
“She escaped from war-torn Ukraine, did not speak Polish. She trusted a man who promised to help and shelter her. Unfortunately, all this turned out to be deceitful manipulation,” Polish police reportedly said in a statement.
In Germany, two men reportedly assaulted a Ukrainian teenager who was staying in a hotel boat for refugees, also in mid-March. The German government has pledged to “ensure that people who seek shelter here are able to get it.”
Karya Adlar, BBC’s Europe Editor reported that they have found a post on social media from a Ukrainian woman who fled to Düsseldorf in Germany. The man who offered her a room confiscated her ID papers and demanded she clean his house for free. He then started to make sexual advances as well. She refused – and he kicked her out on the street.
Police in Wrocław, Poland, said they have detained a 49-year-old suspect on rape charges after he allegedly assaulted a 19-year-old Ukrainian refugee he lured with offers of help over the internet. The suspect could face up to 12 years in prison for the “brutal crime,” authorities said.
“He met the girl by offering his help via an internet portal,” police said in a statement. “She escaped from war-torn Ukraine, did not speak Polish. She trusted a man who promised to help and shelter her. Unfortunately, all this turned out to be deceitful manipulation.”
Police in Berlin warned women and children in a post on social media in Ukrainian and Russian against accepting offers of overnight stays, and urged them to report anything suspicious.
Tamara Barnett, director of operations at the Human Trafficking Foundation, a U.K.-based charity which grew out of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Human Trafficking, said that such a rapid, mass displacement of people could be a “recipe for disaster.”
Experiencing sexual violence as a female migrant or refugee is not uncommon. An estimated 1 in 5 refugee women and girls experience sexual violence during their journeys from home, as well as in such places as refugee camps and shelters. They are also at high risk for human trafficking – the use of force or fraud to transport people for exploitation and profit.
Criminal networks in such places as Mexico and Libya have also been known to prey upon women and girls along migratory routes. Aid organisations, governments and nonprofits first give refugees food, shelter and other basic services and do not chiefly focus on ways to prevent or respond to sexual violence.
More than 70% of women have experienced gender-based violence in some crisis setting, according to U.N. Women. The Lancet medical journal published research showing women and girls affected by armed conflict are exposed to an increased level of traumatic experiences, which is associated with an increased prevalence of anxiety disorders and depression.
Though it’s too early to know the specific long-term impacts on Ukrainians, experts said the stress of sudden displacement, separation from family members, loss of home and livelihood are taking a toll.
