It will take months, if not years, before the extent of the scourge is known. But already, chilling testimonies are emerging. A group of 25 women and girls aged 14 to 24 held captive in a basement in Boutcha to be repeatedly raped by Russian soldiers. A woman in the suburbs of kyiv, raped with a gun to her head, after her husband was executed. Her neighbour, who died drained of blood after being raped and stabbed with a knife. And a total absence of condemnation from the Russian general staff and the government of Vladimir Putin.
It was not until the Russian troops left the Kyiv region that the Ukrainian organization La Strada’s hotline started ringing. “We had nine calls concerning the rapes of women aged 12 to 50 committed by Russian soldiers,” said Yuliia Anosova, lawyer for La Strada. But there are surely many more cases. »
Cases that it is impossible to report to the authorities in Ukrainian cities that have fallen under the Russian yoke – particularly in the south and east of the country. Or even cases that some victims prefer to remain silent in the face of the scale of the drama that is befalling their country or even for fear of being stigmatized.
“At this stage of the war, survivors are generally not ready to speak,” says Volodymyr Shcherbachenko, director of the Eastern Ukrainian Center for Civic Initiatives, which produced a report documenting sexual violence committed in 2014 -2015 during the first Russian invasion in eastern Ukraine.
Rape used as a weapon
The victims were then mainly men and women perceived as enemies by the Russian army. “The main place where sexual violence was committed at that time were illegal detention centers, and also checkpoints “Reports the man at the head of the Ukrainian NGO.
Sexual violence was “clearly” used there as a weapon of war, he continues. “Several objectives were sought: to break people, to bring down the resistance, and to threaten them, both them and their loved ones. A tool of torture thus used to force people “to do what they don’t want to do”. “And in many cases, it works,” drops Volodymyr Shcherbachenko. (In 2014-2015, cases of sexual violence perpetrated by Ukrainian military personnel were also documented.)
During this second Russian invasion, this time on a large scale, the situation changed. It is no longer just the Ukrainian military or activists who are targeted by the sexual assaults of the Russian military, but the population in general.
The cases that have been reported to date in La Strada have all been committed in private homes. “In most cases, more than one soldier participated. Sometimes some participated and others watched,” says Yuliia Anosova.
An instruction?
So is there an instruction given to Russian soldiers to use sexual violence to enslave the population? Hard to say, but reported cases suggest that the military hierarchy was aware. “There is this case of soldiers who wanted to rape a pregnant woman, but their commander told them no,” says lawyer Yuliia Anosova. So it looks like instructions not to touch pregnant women. »
And this other case of a woman who works for the municipal administration of an occupied city in the south of the country. “She was raped several times, and the Russian soldiers threatened to do it again if she didn’t cooperate with them,” says Volodymyr Shcherbachenko. It is therefore not a private initiative of the soldiers, even if we do not know exactly the level of command involved. »
But even if, in some cases, rape has not been used as a weapon of war or as a tool to break resistance, “the Russian soldiers who came here represent the Russian state, which is responsible for their actions”, insists the director of the Eastern Ukrainian Center for Civic Initiatives.
Already, the Ukrainian Commissioner for Human Rights, Lyudmila Denisova, and various Ukrainian organizations are hard at work documenting cases of sexual violence. Essential work to hope that one day, justice will be done, and to increase awareness of this hidden aspect of war.
Domestic violence
This violence committed by Russian soldiers is in addition to other violence suffered by Ukrainian women since the beginning of the war. Yuliia Anosova reports on this subject the case of a Ukrainian, refugee in an underground shelter, who was sexually harassed by a Ukrainian civilian.
Or the numerous cases of conjugal violence which have not ceased to exist since the outbreak of the war. “More cases that have been reported to us involve the use of firearms, since they have become much more accessible [depuis le 24 février] “, she notes.
The La Strada helpline has also been called upon by several parents at their wit’s end. “Since the beginning of the war, the parents have been stressed, the families have been hidden in underground shelters. Parents commit violence against their children and call us for help,” reports Yuliia Anosova. For many parents, it was the first time they raised their hands on their children, adds the lawyer.
Internal policy
Beyond condemnations in the public square, Volodymyr Shcherbachenko hopes that Ukrainian parliamentarians will make concrete gestures to improve the lot of victims of sexual violence.
“I really hope that the efforts of our politicians will not be limited to drawing international attention to this scourge,” he slips. In Ukraine, there is no specific support mechanism for survivors of sexual violence. Victims are instead redirected to resources supporting victims of domestic violence. “It’s a recurring request that we’ve had for several years,” said the man. We would like the government to offer more support to victims of sexual violence. »
Yuliia Anosova also recalls that Ukraine has not ratified the Istanbul Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence. “We don’t have to wait for the end of the war to ratify this convention,” she says.
The lawyer deplores in the same breath that the Ukrainian government did not negotiate earlier the establishment of humanitarian corridors to protect women and allow more civilians to flee besieged cities. “The Ukrainian delegation at the negotiating table was all-male. Maybe if there had been women, the humanitarian aspect would have been taken into account more from the start…”