Sexual violence as a weapon of war terror: what Ukrainians go through when raped by Russians
In today's world, war and armed conflicts have become part of real life, and one of the most inhuman and shocking crimes is sexual violence in conflict. Since the beginning of the war, 274 such cases have been registered in Ukraine and are being investigated by the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine. Sexual violence during war has become a tool of terror, sometimes of control and punishment for disobedience, or simply a sign of aggression towards Ukrainians. The increase in the number of documented cases indicates that victims are gradually willing to speak out and testify. This sad statistic reveals the darkest sides of human nature and requires urgent and effective measures to overcome them. During war, sexual violence is perpetrated against women, children, and even men. Over the course of two years, nearly 32,000 Ukrainian women received individual consultations from psychologists and social workers on the SafeWomenHUB project platform. The platform received a total of 911 calls from violence victims, most of which were related to domestic violence, with over 100 calls reporting sexual violence in war. Each number in this sad statistic represents a human fate...
Client stories
37-year-old Tatjana comes from the Zaporozhye region. She is a vivid example of a beautiful, brave Ukrainian woman who, as a mother of three minor children, became a volunteer and helped women and children to leave during the invasion.
Once she was returning through an enemy checkpoint. The occupiers became interested in this woman. When she realized their intentions, she started to run away. But in vain... the soldiers chased after her, caught her in the woods, dragged her into a car and raped her one by one in the back seat of the car. The rapists then simply threw her out of the car and drove away.
One of the platform's psychologists is currently working with Tatjana. After the horror, the young woman barely slept, lost weight and weighed only 48 kilograms, and is 176 centimeters tall.
For psychologists who work with such traumas, a huge challenge is posed - how to turn trauma into strength? Rape, forced prostitution, sexual slavery and other forms of violence leave deep wounds on souls and bodies, depriving people not only of physical health, but also of moral stability.
Sexual violence knows no age and, unfortunately, anyone can find themselves in such a situation. Experts provide help, focusing on the request, not on the age, so children and teenagers, as well as older women, turn to them.
Katerina is 21 years old and comes from the Zaporozhye region. During the occupation, the girl was left alone in the apartment, and her mother was just in the hospital after an operation. Occupiers often moved into empty apartments whose owners fled the conflict. And enemy soldiers moved into just such an apartment next to the apartment where Katerina lived.
Once, Katerina decided to go to the hospital to visit her sick mother. As soon as she crossed the threshold, they grabbed her by the hair on the stairs, pushed her back into the house and raped her in the hallway. Then they said "sorry" and left. Katerina packed her things and moved in with her relatives the same day. Later, the girl found out that she was pregnant. The fighting in the town intensified, and she and her mother decided to leave, and Katerina had an abortion.
After the trauma, Katerina developed discoid dermatitis, stopped sleeping and withdrew into herself. The girl revealed this secret only to a psychologist, and now she is recovering with the support of specialists.
And another client who consulted with the psychologists of the platform is a mother of five children from the Kherson region. After the Russian soldier raped her, the woman broke his jaw, broke free and miraculously escaped from the temporarily occupied territory.
Dozens of stories. Everyone who comes has experienced terrible events. Of course, it is done confidentially, all names in these stories have been changed, painful details remain behind the scenes, but hundreds of stories are forever written in the history of people, in the history of war crimes against Ukraine.
Women are afraid to tell, and at consultations they say: "I don't ever want to mention it, erase my memory to make it easier for me! It hurts me a lot, and so do my relatives! We don't talk about it in the family, none of us wants to mention it".
After surviving sexual violence, victims often tell specialists about depersonalization, social isolation, lack of desire to communicate with people, anxiety, sleep disorders or night terrors, obsessive thoughts about death, feeling of uselessness and exclusion from life, misunderstandings in the family, excessive emotionality, fear of dating, feelings of guilt, shame, rejection of the body, pain and fear, suicidal thoughts...
All this is so painful that they do not directly connect the symptoms with the rapes, they deny the events that happened.
The consequences of sexual violence in war are very serious. Victims experience physical and psychological trauma, including trauma to the reproductive system, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, suicide and other mental disorders.
Sexual violence can result in infection with HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections, unwanted pregnancy as a result of the violence, forced abortions and other medical complications.
The problem is painful and has become apparent in the last two years of war, but there are ways to overcome conflict-related sexual violence. No matter how hard it is for the victims to experience it, war crimes need to be recorded. You can't keep quiet about it!
All those guilty of war crimes, including sexual crimes, must be punished. This requires the efforts of the international community, judicial authorities and human rights groups. Second, those who have been sexually abused should have access to medical, psychological and social support to help them recover and overcome their trauma.
Violence in war is inevitable, and with the right measures, including the application of international law, peacekeeping and human rights, it can be significantly reduced.
In the light of the humanitarian and moral values of the modern world, sexual violence in conditions of war must be recognized as unacceptable.
Faced with this humanitarian challenge, each individual can play a key role in supporting and restoring the dignity of victims, striving for a world where sexual violence has no place.