Sexual violence in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

Sexual violence in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has been committed by the Russian Armed Forces,[1][2] with at least 25 rapes occurring in Bucha during its occupation.[3][4][5] Lyudmyla Denisova, Ombudsman in Ukraine and The Guardian have said that sexual violence was being used by Russian forces as a weapon of war.[4][6] Underreporting was seen as a serious problem in assessing the amount of sexual violence.[7][6]

See also: Women in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine § War crimes and violence against women, and War crimes in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

Context and risks

In its report covering the initial period of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, from 24 February to 26 March 2022, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) listed four types of risks of sexual violence. Increased military presence and activities in civilian areas, the destruction of homes and infrastructure, internal displacement, and high numbers of women and girls leaving Ukraine caused high risks of conflict-related sexual violence and human trafficking.[7] OHCHR stated that reports to the National hotline for the prevention of domestic violence, trafficking in human beings and gender discrimination[8][9] indicated a high risk of sexual violence, and that several factors made under-reporting likely.[7]

Sexual violence took place both in Ukraine and during other conflicts by Russian and Russian lead forces prior to the 2022 invasion. According to the Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict data set there were claims against Russian troops of sexual violence in three of seven years of conflict since 2014 in eastern Ukraine, with a majority of reports occurring from individuals in detention. The US State Departments 2020 Country Report for Human Rights Practices in Ukraine documents beatings and electric shock in the genital area, rape, threats of rape, forced nudity, and threats of rape against family members, by Russian-led forces as a means of torture and punishment. Amnesty International reported cases of gang rape and rape of adults and children of both genders by Russian forces in Chechnya in the early 2000s.[10][11]

Rape by soldiers of the Russian Armed Forces

Verkhovna Rada member Lesia Vasylenko stated in an interview published on 17 March that elderly women, unable to escape from areas occupied by Russian Armed Forces, were mostly either raped and executed or committed suicide. She stated that these cases were underreported because the families lacked the "strength or capacity" to testify.[12]

Notable cases

In late March, The Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Iryna Venediktova, started an investigation into a claim of Russian soldiers shooting a man and then raping his wife. The Times published an interview with the woman on 28 March. She stated that she was from a small village in Brovary Raion. According to her account, soldiers arrived at the couple's house, shot the couple's dog, shot the husband "because he's a Nazi", held a gun to the wife's head, and took turns to rape her while her son was in the boiler room of the house, crying. The two men took a 20 minute break, carried out a second round of rape, and later a third round of rape, by which time they were "so drunk they were barely standing". The wife escaped with her son, and testified to the police, and identified one of her alleged rapists from online social media profiles.[13] Meduza published an in-depth account of the same rape (and of another) in Bogdanivka and of surrounding events.[14] Russian spokesperson Dmitry Peskov described the allegations as "a lie".[1] Venediktova stated that an arrest warrant for a Russian soldier based on "suspicion of violation of the laws and customs of war" had been issued.[1]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported on a 13 March beating and rape of a 31-year-old woman in the village of Malaya Rohan in Kharkiv Raion, controlled at the time by the Russian Armed Forces. Around midnight on 13 March, a Russian soldier entered a school where the woman was sheltering with her family and other villagers. The soldier forced the woman to undress under gunpoint. He shot at the ceiling, and raped the woman. The soldier threatend the woman with a knife, raped her again, cut her neck, cheek and her with his knife, hit her face and slapped her. Around 7 am on 14 March, the soldier released the woman and left the building. The woman and her family walked to Kharkiv and received medical assistance.[2]

On 12 April 2022, BBC News interviewed a 50-year-old woman from a village 70 km west of Kyiv, who said that she was raped at gunpoint by a Chechen allied with the Russian Armed Forces. A 40-year-old woman was raped and killed by the same soldier, according to neighbours, leaving what BBC News described as a "disturbing crime scene". Police exhumed the 40-year-old's body the day after the visit by BBC News. Police chief of Kyiv Raion, Andrii Nebytov, stated that the police were investigating a case on 9 March when Russian soldiers shot a man, two of them repeatedly raped the man's wife, and then the soldiers burnt the house and shot the family's dogs. Police exhumed the man's body.[3]

The New York Times described one woman "held as a sex slave, naked except for a fur coat and locked in a potato cellar before being executed", found after the late March 2022 liberation of the Kyiv region.[4]

Overall scale

Ukrainian member of the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian parliament, Maria Mezentseva, stated that there were "many more victims" of sexual assault than the first Brovary Raion case investigated by the Prosecutor General. She stated that once the victims were "ready to talk", the evidence would become public.[1] Ukrainian lawyer Kateryna Busol also stated that sexual assault during the invasion was much more widespread than the single case announced by Venediktova. She referred to reports of "gang rape, rape in front of children, and sexual violence following the killing of family members". Busol stated that most cases were of female victims, and from the areas of Ukraine occupied by the Russian Armed Forces.[1] HRW stated that it had received three reports of rape, apart from the 13/14 March rape, that it had not sufficiently verified.[2] A Ukrainian volunteer helping Ukrainian refugees in Warsaw stated to The Quint in late March 2022 that the numbers of rapes and sexual assaults of Ukrainian women by Russian soldiers during the invasion had been "massively underreported".[15]

In early April 2022, Lyudmyla Denisova, Ombudsman in Ukraine for human rights, stated that about 25 girls and women had been raped by Russian soldiers in a house in Bucha. Denisova stated that the Russian soldiers had described their intention of raping the women "to the point where they wouldn't want sexual contact with any man, to prevent them from having Ukrainian children". Denisova stated that the overall scale was "impossible" to assess at the time, since most victims calling helplines wanted psychological support, without wishing to give formal testimonies.[3][4] Bucha mayor Anatoliy Fedoruk also stated that 25 rapes had been reported.[5]

On 3 April, La Strada Ukraine, which runs a hotline for helping survivors of human trafficking, sexual assault and domestic violence, stated that rape is underreported and stigmatised in peacetime, and that the cases known to the organisation could be "the tip of the iceberg".[6]

Sexual violence during refugee crisis
Main article: 2022 Ukrainian refugee crisis

There have been at least two separate cases of women and children refugees who were taken advantage of while they were fleeing the violence in Ukraine. A man was arrested in Poland in mid-March for the alleged rape of a 19-year-old refugee who reportedly had sought shelter and aid from the man and two men reportedly assaulted a Ukrainian teenage refugee who was staying in German accommodations for refugees.[16] Prior to the launch of the United Kingdom Governments housing scheme for refugees one women reported a man who attempted to have her stay with him and promised free accommodation, food, expenses and a monthly allowance in return for sex. The woman reportedly tried to rebuff the man, who only stopped after she informed him she was traveling with her mother.[17]

Claims of intent

Following the late March liberation of the Kyiv region and reports of gang rape, gunpoint sexual assaults, and rapes in front of children, The Guardian asserted that Ukrainian women were facing a threat of rape as a weapon of war.[6] Lyudmyla Denisova, Ombudsman in Ukraine for human rights, "speculated" that sexual violence was being used as a weapon of war by Russian forces.[4] In mid-April 2022, lawyer Julia Anosova of La Strada stated that based on the overall number of cases and the frequency of sexual violence against multiple victims, she "assume[d] that rape [had] become a weapon of war" in the invasion.[18]

Canadian and UK Foreign Ministers Mélanie Joly and Liz Truss stated in late April 2022 that sexual violence was used in the invasion by Russian forces as a weapon of war. The described rape as a weapon of war to be "a systematic weapon to exert control and exercise power over women ... as destructive in conflict as chemical weapons or landmines, which are both banned by international conventions, but yet to be treated as seriously."[19][20]

Protests

Women held protests at Russian embassies against rape by Russian soldiers in the invasion. The women protested with bags over their heads, their hands tied behind their backs, and their bare legs covered in red liquid, symbolising blood, with four women protesting on 16 April 2022 in Dublin, Ireland,[21] and 80 women protesting on the same day in Vilnius, Lithuania.[22] On 20 April, a similar protest, by 130 women took place in front of the Russian embassy in Riga, Latvia,[23] and another was held by a dozen women in front of the Russian consulate in Gdańsk, Poland.[24]

See also

Further reading

References
  1. Engelbrecht, Cora (2022-03-29). "Reports of sexual violence involving Russian soldiers are multiplying, Ukrainian officials say". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2022-03-29. Retrieved 2022-04-17.
  2. "Ukraine: Apparent War Crimes in Russia-Controlled Areas". Human Rights Watch. 2022-04-03. Archived from the original on 2022-04-03. Retrieved 2022-04-18.
  3. Limaye, Yogita (2022-04-12). "Ukraine conflict: 'Russian soldiers raped me and killed my husband'". BBC News. Archived from the original on 2022-04-16. Retrieved 2022-04-16.
  4. Gall, Carlotta; Berehulak, Daniel (2022-04-11). "'They shot my son. I was next to him. It would be better if it had been me.' – Bucha's Month of Terror". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2022-04-14. Retrieved 2022-04-18.
  5. Peuchot, Emmanuel (2022-04-13). "Biden Accuses Putin of Ukraine Genocide as Humanitarian Corridors Paused". The Moscow Times. Archived from the original on 2022-04-17. Retrieved 2022-04-18.
  6. McKernan, Bethan (2022-04-04). "Rape as a weapon: huge scale of sexual violence inflicted in Ukraine emerges". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 2022-04-14. Retrieved 2022-04-18.
  7. "Update on the human rights situation in Ukraine – Reporting period: 24 February – 26 March" (PDF). UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine. 2022-03-26. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2022-04-01. Retrieved 2022-04-17.
  8. "First free national anti-trafficking hotline in Ukraine to start today". Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. 2002-11-18. Archived from the original on 2020-02-19. Retrieved 2022-04-16.
  9. "La Strada Ukraine". La Strada International Association. 2021. Archived from the original on 2022-04-11. Retrieved 2022-04-16.
  10. US Department of State (2021). "2020 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Ukraine". United States Department of State. Retrieved 2022-04-11.
  11. Hallsdóttir, Esther (2022-03-24). "Are Russian troops using sexual violence as a weapon? Here's what we know". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2022-04-19. Retrieved 2022-04-11.
  12. Trew, Bel (2022-03-17). "Ukrainian MPs detail 'medieval' tactics and sexual violence of Vladimir Putin's army". The Independent. Archived from the original on 2022-03-17. Retrieved 2022-04-18.
  13. Philp, Catherine (2022-03-28). "'One soldier raped me, then the other, as my son cried'". The Times. Archived from the original on 2022-03-28. Retrieved 2022-04-17.
  14. "'I can do whatever I want to you' Russian soldiers raped and murdered Ukrainian civilians in the village of Bogdanivka". Meduza. Archived from the original on 2022-04-19. Retrieved 2022-04-19.
  15. Parent, Deepa (2022-03-29). "Trauma of Ukraine's Women Refugees: Rape, Trafficking & Poland's Sexist Laws". The Quint. Archived from the original on 2022-04-08. Retrieved 2022-04-19.
  16. Reis, Chen (March 28, 2022). "Ukrainian female refugees are fleeing a war, but in some cases more violence awaits them where they find shelter". The Conversation. Retrieved 2022-04-18.
  17. Bradley, Jane (2022-04-01). "Ukraine-Russia: Homes for Ukraine scheme exploited by men offering shelter in return for sex, Scots charity warns". The Scotsman. Archived from the original on 2022-04-19. Retrieved 2022-04-19.
  18. Myroniuk, Anna (2022-04-20). "'Hide the girls': How Russian soldiers rape and torture Ukrainians". Kyiv Independent. Archived from the original on 2022-04-20. Retrieved 2022-04-20.
  19. Paas-Lang, Christian (2022-04-24). "Foreign minister decries sexual violence in Ukraine; top commander highlights information warfare". CBC. Archived from the original on 2022-04-24. Retrieved 2022-04-24.
  20. Joly, Mélanie; Truss, Liz (2022-04-21). "Sexual violence as a weapon of war in Ukraine – the world is watching". Toronto Star. Archived from the original on 2022-04-22. Retrieved 2022-04-24.
  21. Griffin, Niamg (2022-04-17). "'Rape is a weapon of war': Women protest outside Russian embassy in Dublin". Irish Examiner. Archived from the original on 2022-04-18. Retrieved 2022-04-20.
  22. Balčiūnaitė, Sniegė (2022-04-19). "Protest outside Russian embassy in Vilnius draws attention to Ukrainian rape victims". LRT. Archived from the original on 2022-04-20. Retrieved 2022-04-20.
  23. "Protest against the rape of Ukrainian women by russian army took place near russian embassy in Riga". Rubryka. 2022-04-20. Archived from the original on 2022-04-20. Retrieved 2022-04-20.
  24. "Worki na głowach, związane ręce i poplamione majtki. Protest przeciw gwałtom pod konsulatem Rosji" [Bags on their heads, tied hands and stained underwear. Protest against rape in front of the Russian consulate]. Gazeta Wyborcza (in Polish). 2022-04-20. Archived from the original on 2022-04-20. Retrieved 2022-04-20.


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