Working alongside investigators and prosecutors on sexual and gender-based crimes is a horrific experience. It involves listening to, reading, and hearing accounts of unimaginable suffering in sickening detail.
To support the work of Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office, Mobile Justice Teams (MJTs) comprised of Ukrainian and international experts were deployed across the country to investigate war crimes and acts of sexual violence. Through these MJTs, we have learned of hundreds of women and men, girls and boys, elders and disabled people across Ukraine who are haunted by sexual crimes committed against them by Russian forces.
At military checkpoints, at formal and informal detention facilities, in their own homes, on their way to find food or visit relatives – neither civilians nor prisoners of war have been spared from the brutal forms of sexual and gender-based violence against which they should be protected under the Geneva Conventions.
A mother of two was raped by Russian soldiers and left in the woods near an occupied village. Her husband couldn’t hold back his tears as he recalled that night, torturing himself over not having been able to protect her despite his disability. The perpetrators have been identified and are now wanted in Ukraine for war crimes.
Andriy Lyubka
An older woman – the mother of a Ukrainian soldier – was dragged out from the basement where she was hiding from an onslaught of bombs and shelling and sexually abused. She provided our investigative team with evidence, offered us a jar of homemade strawberry jam, and asked us whether the International Criminal Court would hold her abusers to account. The investigation into the incident is ongoing; the perpetrators have yet to be identified.
Russian forces detained a middle-aged man after they occupied territory in southern Ukraine. Personnel at a Russian detention center forced electrical currents through his genitalia so many times that he is now no longer able to have children. The investigation into the perpetrators is ongoing.
While the true extent and scale of these violent acts have yet to be uncovered, sexual violence is not an unspoken secret but part and parcel of Russian forces’ conduct no matter where they are. Investigations into these crimes are long-lasting, resource-consuming, and complex.
The obstacles to investigating sexual crimes extend beyond Russia’s war – they also include the trauma suffered by survivors, the stigma surrounding the subject, and the challenges present due to the ongoing conflict. Practically speaking, it isn’t easy to focus on collecting evidence when a Russian fighter jet is flying so low that your primal reaction is to hide in the bushes. Witnesses sometimes can, for obvious reasons, mix up the chronology of events when they see a missile through their window during an interview.
Daniela Schwarzer
Obstacles to justice stem less from a lack of attention or prioritization by Ukrainian authorities than the overwhelming scale of the issue at hand. Accountability may be protracted because of this, but it is by no means neglected or disregarded by prosecutors, police, and the national and international organizations supporting justice for survivors of sexual violence.
Work on sexual and gender-based crimes requires targeted and concerted efforts and, importantly, diligence and care to ensure that survivors are treated with dignity and respect in the justice process. In the words of a Ukrainian prosecutor, “Every survivor deserves our best efforts.”
The Prosecutor General’s Office called for and welcomed technical support and assistance from international bodies and experts specifically focused on sexual violence. A specialized sexual violence division has been in place for over a year now, and there is a clear strategy for addressing such cases, as well as a working group that coordinates efforts between multiple actors to ensure a holistic response for survivors.
However, the quantitative impact of these efforts is not and cannot be immediate: 270 cases have been identified, including 173 involving female survivors and 97 involving male survivors. Thirty-nine perpetrators have been identified so far, while prosecutors have submitted 24 indictments to domestic courts to date.
Josep Borrell
While these numbers might seem low on the surface, progress must be measured in many forms. Progress is measured by the investigators’ and prosecutors’ enthusiasm to learn international standards and best practices of sexual crimes investigations. It is measured by multiple mentorship sessions with 18-hour long workdays and the subsequent improved quality of interviews.
Progress is also measured by taking the time to explain to survivors and witnesses their rights and the justice process, and, ultimately, respecting their decision on whether they are ready to engage with the accountability process. It is also measured by duly assessing their psychological well-being and choosing to wait if proceeding with a case may be detrimental to their mental health.
Two years into the war, accountability actors have uncovered the tip of the iceberg of sexual and gender-based violence. Each case, each survivor’s story, is unique, and, as time goes on, we know that we will unfortunately hear many more horrific cases. With Russia’s gradual withdrawal from parts of Ukraine and the return of civilians and prisoners of war held by Russia, we are all too aware that hundreds of new cases of sexual violence will be registered.
It is my sincere hope that international and domestic accountability actors, civil society organizations, international experts, and the international community in general will be able to support more survivors who come forward with reports of these terrifying crimes. And hopefully, the progress we observe within the domestic criminal justice system will ensure that justice is not just an aspiration but a reality for all those who have endured the unspeakable horrors of war crimes.
Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed in the op-ed section are those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the views of the Kyiv Independent.
