In Paris, Ukrainian victims and associations are denouncing “mass rape” by Russian soldiers in Ukraine, a “systematic policy” they claim is designed to break up the country’s society. Their aim: to “break the silence” so that this “invisible crime” does not go unpunished.
“I’m a survivor and I’ve decided to talk about it”
Originally from the Donetsk region (east), where she lived with her family, the founder and head of the NGO SEMA Ukraine recounts how she was arrested in 2014, after a pro-Russian separatist movement took up arms against Kiev troops.
“I’m a survivor (of rape, editor’s note) and I decided to talk about it because this truth could save other women from terrifying experiences,” says 62-year-old Iryna Dovgan emotionally at a press briefing a few days ago in Paris.
Accused of supporting the Ukrainian army, she was arrested and subjected to “serious violence”. Five women testify before the press. They recount the torture and sexual violence inflicted by the Russian army between 2014 and 2023.
“A desire to destroy Ukrainian society”
Today, they are all helping other rape “survivors” within SEMA Ukraine, who initiated this press briefing alongside the association “For Ukraine, for their freedom and ours” and the “Association for the Defense of Democracy in Poland”.
“In Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, the mass rapes perpetrated by Russian soldiers demonstrate a desire to destroy Ukrainian society”, aimed in particular at ensuring that women no longer have Ukrainian children, these organizations denounce.
“These rapes, which began as early as 2014, number in the thousands, mainly affecting women, but also children and men, civilians and soldiers still held in Russian prisons”.
Detention in “torture centers”
In March, two years after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, UN investigators recorded ever more civilian deaths, torture and sexual violence inflicted on Ukrainians. Lioudmyla Housseïnova, a human rights activist, remained in her hometown of Novoazovsk after the occupation by Russian troops in 2014.
Arrested in October 2019 in Donetsk for her pro-Ukrainian stance, she was held captive for three years and 13 days in various separatist prisons, including a “torture center”, according to SEMA Ukraine. “Imagine being in a room almost all the time in the dark, being held for three years, without seeing your loved ones, without medical help, without hygiene”.
“Dirty hands touching you
“Imagine search operations, dirty hands touching every part of your body,” says Mrs. Housseïnova, 62, via video from Ukraine. “Imagine that one day someone walks into the room and says: ‘It’s you today who’s going to be used by a fighter to give him pleasure’.”
“Right now, all this is going on, in the 21st century, on the territory of Ukraine and Europe…” adds Ms. Housseïnova, released in November 2022 along with other female prisoners, during a prisoner exchange.
“Thousands” of rapes
It is difficult to put a precise figure on the number of rapes, as NGOs “do not have access to the occupied territories”, observes Iryna Dovgan, who mentions “thousands” of cases. For its part, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office says it has recorded 301 cases of sexual crimes “committed by Russian occupiers” since the start of the invasion. Russia is accused of multiple war crimes in Ukraine, which it systematically denies.
The “true scale of sexual violence is hard to imagine”, says Nobel Peace Prize winner Oleksandra Matviichuk, a Ukrainian lawyer and human rights activist. Because “many people still don’t speak out” and “the Ukrainian judicial system is only just beginning to establish laws” on the subject, she notes.
“It’s our cry and our call for help”
In the villages where SEMA Ukraine is raising awareness, there used to persist “a mentality of shame and stigmatization towards rape victims, but we’re seeing changes and there’s more mutual help”, according to Ms. Dovgan. “Women are also more willing to talk because the Russian assault doesn’t end… and other women are at risk of assault: that’s our cry and our call for help,” she launches.
“This sexual violence is not a consequence of the war, but a deliberate and systematic policy that is part of a large-scale campaign of persecution against Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war,” Florence Hartmann stressed at the press briefing.
She was spokeswoman and political advisor to the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda (2000-2006). Citing Germany, which has tried cases of sexual violence in Syrian prisons, she argues that victims should be able to bring cases before national courts in Europe, under existing universal jurisdiction arrangements. “To ensure that this invisible crime does not go unpunished, we must break the silence”, she says.