The United Nations has released a report detailing a pattern of widespread and systemic sexual violence committed by Russian authorities against Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war. The report, based on confidential interviews with hundreds of victims and survivors, documents over 1,000 cases of sexual violence, including rape, gang rape, and other forms of sexual abuse. The violence was committed in detention facilities, including official and unofficial prisons, and in occupied territory.
The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission, led by Danielle Bell, found that sexual violence was committed at over 164 facilities, spanning every region of occupied Ukraine and 25 regions of the Russian Federation. The violence was committed by personnel from multiple Russian state structures, including the armed forces. The report notes that the frequency of the violence is as telling as the geography, with almost three-quarters of Ukrainian POW survivors and almost half of civilian detainee survivors subjected to sexual violence more than once.
The methods used by Russian authorities, according to the report, are consistent from one facility to the next, and include rape and gang rape, beatings while naked, electric shocks and beatings to the genitals, sexual degradation, and prolonged forced nudity. The report also notes that the violence was not confined to detention, with 95 cases of sexual violence documented against civilians, predominantly women and girls, in occupied territory.
The UN spokesperson, Shabia Mantoo, stated that the youngest documented survivor of rape was a four-year-old girl and the oldest an 82-year-old woman, both cases attributed to Russian authorities. The report also notes that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, is "deeply alarmed" that such acts are almost certainly continuing, and has called for their immediate halt.
The report is not only an indictment of individuals, but also of a system that allows such abuses to occur. The UN notes that prisoners of war and civilian detainees are frequently cut off from the outside world, with basic procedural safeguards absent or ineffective. Medical examinations often fail to identify or record evidence of abuse, and there is little evidence of accountability.
The UN is calling for prompt, thorough, and impartial investigations into the cases of sexual violence, and for those responsible to be brought to justice. The report also notes that the UN Mission was denied access to many of the places where the abuses occurred, which is a major obstacle to documenting and preventing such abuses.
The report's findings have implications beyond Ukraine, with the UN noting that conflict-related sexual violence is a widespread problem in many countries, including those in the Global South. The report's authors argue that the prohibition on sexual violence in custody is absolute in international law, and applies to every state and every conflict.
Key points
- The UN has documented over 1,000 cases of sexual violence in Ukraine, committed by Russian authorities against civilians and prisoners of war.
- The violence was committed in detention facilities and in occupied territory, and included cases of rape, gang rape, and other forms of sexual abuse.
- The report's authors are calling for prompt, thorough, and impartial investigations into the cases of sexual violence, and for those responsible to be brought to justice.
