Two and a half years after the start of the invasion of Ukraine, the voices of victims of sexual violence committed by Russian soldiers remain rare. The trauma, coupled with the impossibility of accessing the occupied territories, including by international organizations, makes documentation work difficult. The NGO SEMA Ukraine, which organized a press conference on Thursday June 13 in Paris, recalls that “these rapes started in 2014”, when the war in Donbass began, and “number in the thousands” since the start of the large-scale offensive in February 2022. “They mainly affect women, but also children and men, civilians or soldiers still detained in Russian prisons”specifies the organization, founded by survivors and supported by the Foundation of Doctor Denis Mukwege.
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Oleksandra Matviichuk, human rights lawyer, president of the Center for Civil Liberties of Ukraine and 2022 Nobel Peace Prize winner, has been working to document these crimes since 2014. “Many do not speak, so what we have is only a small part of the phenomenon”warns the lawyer. “We are just beginning to see the extent of this violence committed by Russia”, adds Florence Hartmann, spokesperson and political advisor to the Prosecutor General of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda from 2000 to 2006. To date, only 209 cases have been identified by the Prosecutor General of Ukraine. Other files are currently being analyzed.
In the meantime, these crimes are still being carried out on a massive scale and behind closed doors in the territories controlled by Moscow. “Russia gives the figure of 400 prisoners in the occupied territories. But, according to our data, 2,000 civilians are currently held in captivity, at least 80% of whom are subjected to sexual violence., explains journalist Lioudmila Huseynova, member of SEMA Ukraine. These include “forced undressing, sexual touching, torture by beatings and electric shocks to the genitals, threats of rape and the rapes themselves.” Prisoners are also deprived of hygiene products, water, medical care and legal protection.
“Break the silence”
These rapes are not isolated incidents or the result of individual excesses, but a weapon of war in its own right. “The UN commission of inquiry identified similar patterns in many places and concluded that it was a deliberate and systematic policyunderlines Florence Hartmann. This is part of a campaign of persecution against Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war. » According to the essayist, “These are therefore not simple war crimes. These rapes constitute crimes against humanity or genocide, depending on the intentionality”.
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