Rape Is Part Of Russia’s Military Strategy

On October 13, Pramila Patten, Representative of the U.N. Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, confirmed that rape is part of Russia’s “military strategy” and a “deliberate tactic to dehumanize the victims.” She emphasized that “when women are held for days and raped, when you start to rape little boys and men, when you see a series of genital mutilations, when you hear women testify about Russian soldiers equipped with Viagra, it’s clearly a military strategy.”

According to Patten, the United Nations managed to verify more than a hundred cases of rape or sexual assault in Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022. The data obtained to date suggests that the age of the victims of sexual violence ranges from four to 82 years old. The victims are mostly women and girls, but also men and boys. Patten added that “it’s very difficult to have reliable statistics during an active conflict, and the numbers will never reflect reality, because sexual violence is a silent crime.” As such, as she noted, “reported cases are only the tip of the iceberg.”

According to Patten, the first cases were reported just three days after Russia’s attack on Ukraine.

Indeed, the issue of conflict related sexual violence has been raised from early days. For example, on March 4, 2022, Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba, spoke of numerous cases of sexual violence in the week of Putin’s war, during an event organized by the Chatham House think-tank. ” On March 17, 2022, four Ukrainian MPs visiting the U.K. Parliament, Lesia Vasylenko, Alona Shkrum, Maria Mezentseva, and Olena Khomenko, reported that Putin has been deliberately targeting women and children after Ukraine did not surrender. They spoke of this targeting to have included rape and sexual violence. As they told journalists in Westminster, “We have reports of women gang-raped, these women are usually the ones who are unable to get out. We are talking about senior citizens. Most of these women have either been executed after the crime of rape or they have taken their own lives.” In April 2022, the Ukrainian Ombudswoman Lyudmyla Denisova was said to have received 400 reports of rape committed by Russian soldiers. The reports were mostly coming from the temporary occupied territories or recently liberated areas.

In her address, Patten stressed the need for justice and accountability. She added that “There is now political will to fight impunity, and there is consensus today on the fact that rapes are used as a military tactic, a terror tactic.” In Ukraine, investigations and prosecutions of the crime are under way. In June 2022, media reported on the first trial of a Russian charged with rape and sexual violence. The soldier stood accused of raping a Ukrainian woman during Russia’s invasion. Reportedly, “The suspect, Mikhail Romanov, … [stood] accused of breaking into a house in March in a village in the Brovarsky region outside Kyiv, murdering a man and then repeatedly raping his wife while threatening her and her child.”

The evidence of the crime is also being collected and preserved by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry (Commission of Inquiry), a new mechanism established to investigate all alleged violations and abuses of human rights and violations of international humanitarian law, and related crimes against Ukraine by the Russian Federation, and to establish the facts, circumstances and root causes of any such violations and abuses. In its oral update to the Human Rights Council in September 2022, the Commission of Inquiry confirmed the evidence of the use of sexual violence, including “cases in which children have been raped, tortured, and unlawfully confined.”

As more information of Russia’s use of sexual violence is coming to light, evidence is collected and preserved, justice and accountability must follow. However, equally, more needs to be done to prevent this horrific crime from being perpetrated. The pandemic of sexual violence in conflict requires a vaccine and not only a medication to deal with the consequences.