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  • Istanbul Convention and combating violence: Ukraine’s steps

    Istanbul Convention and combating violence: Ukraine’s steps

    Why does Ukraine need the Istanbul Convention?
    One of the international treaties around which numerous myths and stereotypes have been born, and manipulations have continued, is the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (hereinafter referred to as the Istanbul Convention).

    In my opinion, this is due to the fact that this document is valuable and holistic. It contains norms that oblige states to review established practices in combating violence against women and domestic violence, and primarily to eradicate gender stereotypes. After all, stereotypes about the “desirable” or “acceptable” behavior of a woman or a man in Ukrainian society are not just harmful, but also lead to tolerance of violence and human rights violations against those who, in our opinion, behave “not in accordance with the rules”, or against those who have less power, protection opportunities, etc.

    In her book “How to Understand Ukrainians: A Cross-Cultural Perspective,” Maryna Starodubska explores our national mentality, culture, and values, which explain our attitude and perception of certain processes in the country. The author notes that at the personal level, the most important value for Ukrainians is freedom (83.9%), but at the same time, justice (72.5%) is lower than freedom, and the demand for dignity (60.4%) and equality (56.5%) is decreasing from year to year.

    “It is not surprising that under such conditions, it is so difficult for people from different communities (we often call them “bubbles”) to negotiate, because everyone strives for maximum freedom of choice and benefit for themselves and does not think about its fairness or accessibility for others.”
    We have gone through this path of heated discussions, debunking myths, and have come to the conclusion that we still need to ratify the Istanbul Convention, because the country really lacks tools to combat domestic violence and violence against women.

    We have faced new challenges generated by Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine; after all, we are the ones confidently moving towards the EU, and therefore, we must not only bring our legislation into line, but also work to systematically change approaches to working with victims of gender-based violence in practice.

    I started working with victims of domestic violence in 2007. At that time, we had the old Law of Ukraine “On the Prevention of Domestic Violence” in force. The practice of applying this law has shown that we do not have enough tools to respond to violence, that the very concept of “domestic violence” significantly limits the circle of persons who can be held accountable.

    For example, at that time, it was impossible to hold a former husband or wife, who did not live together and did not have a common life, liable for violence, since this was not included in the definition of “family” within the meaning of the Family Code of Ukraine. There were also no tools to isolate the abuser from the victim. Law enforcement agencies often complained about the insufficiency of mechanisms for stopping violence and removing the abuser, the ineffectiveness of existing administrative measures, etc. Until 2017, there was no such crime as “domestic violence” in the Criminal Code of Ukraine. And if the victim did not suffer any physical injuries, the abuser could only be held administratively liable, even if the violence had lasted for years.

    In 2016, there was an attempt to ratify the Istanbul Convention and, in parallel, to adopt a new Law of Ukraine “On Prevention and Combating Domestic Violence” and make relevant amendments to the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

    The Convention was not ratified, but the law was adopted and in parallel with this, amendments were made to the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

    So, since 2017, the Law of Ukraine “On Prevention and Counteraction to Domestic Violence” has been in force in our country, Article 126-1 Domestic Violence has appeared in the Criminal Code of Ukraine, as well as in Articles 152 of the Criminal Code and 153 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, which relate to sexual violence, the concept of “voluntary consent” has been introduced, the absence of which means that rape or sexual violence not related to penetration of the person’s body has been committed.

    It is also very important that in the case of committing any crime against a spouse or ex-spouse or another person with whom the perpetrator is (was) in a family or close relationship, this will be considered an aggravating circumstance, which gives the court the right to apply a more severe punishment.

    Thus, Ukrainian society has changed its approach to investigating domestic violence cases at the legislative level, which have become crimes, not just administrative offenses.

    It would seem that why should we ratify the Istanbul Convention, if we have already adopted a new law, made amendments to the Criminal Code and can work without the Convention.

    However, this turned out to be not enough. In practice, problems began to arise with the investigation of domestic violence cases, while we have not learned to identify and investigate sexual violence, because it is difficult for us to understand what the concept of “voluntary consent” is.

    And here we return to the fact that Istanbul The Istanbul Convention is a valuable and holistic document. A system aimed only at applying a formal approach cannot work. It is not enough to adopt a law.

    It is important for us to understand the spirit of the Istanbul Convention, because it is not for nothing that it speaks of a comprehensive, systemic and coordinated approach to combating violence against women and domestic violence.

    The 4P formula, embedded in the content of the Istanbul Convention:

    Prevention

    Protection

    Prosecution

    Coordination policies

    All these four areas must develop in parallel, otherwise we will not achieve results.

    Regarding values ​​and understanding of the problem, the Istanbul Convention outlines in its preamble the main roots and deep understanding of the phenomenon of violence against women and domestic violence, namely emphasizing:

    the realization of de jure and de facto equality between women and men is a key element in preventing violence against women;
    violence against women is a manifestation of the historically unequal balance of power between women and men, which has led to the domination of women and discrimination against women by men and to the prevention of the full emancipation of women;
    the structural nature of violence against women as gender-based violence, as well as the fact that violence against women is one of the main social mechanisms through which women are forced to occupy a subordinate position compared to men.
    Joining the states that strive to “create a Europe free from violence against women and domestic violence”, in June 2022 the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine voted to ratify the Istanbul Convention.

    This important document was adopted in the year of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It is worth noting that in its preamble, the Convention emphasizes that states, by ratifying it, recognize “the ongoing human rights violations during armed conflicts that affect the civilian population, especially women, in the form of widespread or systematic rape and sexual violence, as well as the possibility of an increase in gender-based violence both during and after conflicts” and, in this regard, agreed to implement measures to prevent, protect and prosecute such crimes and to build a coordinated policy.

    Implementation of the Istanbul Convention: the state of affairs at the beginning of 2025
    Despite the full-scale war, work on the implementation of the norms of the Istanbul Convention continues. All key parties, namely the Government, Parliament and civil society organizations, continued to work on the analysis and amendments to the legislation and, in parallel, on changing the approaches in the work of all responsible entities.

    It is important to note that the time since the adoption of the Law of Ukraine “On Prevention and Combating Domestic Violence” (2017), the amendments to the Criminal Code of Ukraine in the area of ​​domestic and sexual violence have shown us to this day what gaps have arisen in terms of application practice and what is important to take into account both in the work on bringing the legislation into line and in the work on forming approaches in practice.

    It is necessary to realize and understand that laws are living documents that are polished by the practice of their application.

    Since the ratification of the Istanbul Convention to this day, there have been a number of legislative and other initiatives aimed at implementing the norms. I will mention some of them in this publication, on which the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the National Police of Ukraine, a number of deputies, including Maryna Bardina, Inna Sovsun, the NGO “La Strada — Ukraine”, the Association of Women Lawyers of Ukraine “YurFem”, the judicial and scientific communities worked.

    On December 19, 2024, the Law of Ukraine “On Amendments to the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offenses and Other Laws of Ukraine in Connection with the Ratification of the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence” came into force.

    We can highlight the following changes introduced by this law:

    Article 173-7 of the Code of Administrative Offenses provides for administrative liability for sexual harassment, including in the field of electronic communications, as well as in relation to a person who is in material, official or other dependence. Before the adoption of this law, there was no separate article in the legislation of Ukraine on liability specifically for sexual harassment. In practice, such actions were classified as gender-based violence in the Code of Administrative Offenses or as sexual violence in accordance with Article 153 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
    Gender-based violence has been removed to a separate article 173-6 of the Code of Administrative Offenses. So, we now have Article 173-2 Perpetration of domestic violence and a separate article on gender-based violence. This makes it possible to correctly qualify and collect data on the commission of an offense.
    Separately, Article 269 of the Code of Administrative Offenses emphasizes that if “domestic violence and gender-based violence were committed in the presence of a minor or underage person, such a person is also recognized as a victim, regardless of whether the damage caused by such an offense, and it is subject to the rights of the victim, except for the right to compensation for property damage.

    Also, on December 19, 2024, the Law of Ukraine “On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine on Improving the Mechanism for Preventing and Counteracting Domestic Violence and Gender-Based Violence” came into force.

    Among the many important provisions of this regulatory document, I would like to highlight the amendments to the Family Code of Ukraine, namely to Articles 110 and 111, which give the right to apply to the court with an application for divorce during the wife’s pregnancy and in the event of a child under one year old, and also prohibit the court from applying reconciliation during divorce in cases of domestic violence.

    It would seem that very simple norms on the most important principle of “voluntariness of marriage”, but at the same time extremely strong resistance from the legal community, including from the side.

    Before the adoption of these changes, spouses (either only the husband or only the wife) could not even apply to the court with an application for divorce if the wife was pregnant or had a child under one year old. If such an application was filed, the court refused to open proceedings on formal grounds. That is, in fact, the husband and wife lost the right to access justice. And what is more important, in the case of domestic violence, it was the perpetrator, who tried to keep the victim under control, who used this norm as one of the ways to make it impossible to dissolve the marriage, and therefore, to depend on him.

    And, of course, abuse of the right to reconciliation was also often used by the perpetrator as a way to put pressure on the victim, so in view of this, in the case of divorce in the presence of domestic violence, such reconciliation cannot be applied.

    Of extreme importance is the draft law, registered on December 9, 2024, No. 12297 “On Amendments to the Criminal and Criminal Procedure Codes of Ukraine to Ensure the Full Implementation of the Provisions of International Law on Combating Domestic and Other Types of Violence, Including Against Children”.

    The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, the National Police, JurFem and La Strada have been working on this draft law since 2022. The draft law covers a wide range of issues that need to be resolved in view of the challenges that exist in practice and the requirements of the Istanbul Convention.

    The draft law, in particular, proposes to resolve the following important issues:

    To define the concept of “criminal offense related to domestic violence”. Yes, since 2017, our Criminal Code has provided for a separate article on the commission of domestic violence (Article 126-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine), but this is not the only article under which one can be held criminally liable for domestic violence. For example, the perpetrator may inflict bodily harm on the victim for the first time or commit beatings or torture, or other crimes that will be related specifically to domestic violence and liability for which will be provided for in other articles of the Code. Therefore, in order to emphasize the commission of crimes related to domestic violence, it is important to provide for the concept of “criminal offense related to domestic violence” in the Criminal Code. This is important not only for statistics, but also for the rights of the victim and avoiding pressure from the perpetrator, who will try to force the victim to close the case. After the innovations, it will be impossible to close a case when a criminal offense related to domestic violence occurs, even if the victim refuses to file a statement.
    Explain what should be understood by the “systematic commission of domestic violence”, which gives grounds to talk about criminal liability. After all, in practice, different interpretations of systematicity have arisen.
    It is very important that this draft law proposes to provide for criminal liability for stalking, namely, intentional, twice or more illegal surveillance, imposition of communication, other illegal direct or indirect intrusion in any way into the personal or family life of the victim against their will, including using electronic communications, which causes them to fear for the safety of their life or the health of their loved ones.
    Special attention in the draft law is paid to the use of restrictive measures in cases not only regarding domestic violence, but also sexual violence.
    An extremely important issue, which has already been tried to be regulated by other draft laws, is the exclusion of cases of domestic violence, rape, sexual violence from the list of cases of private prosecution. This means that it is not necessary to place responsibility on the victim for initiating criminal proceedings by means of a corresponding appeal. This will mean that if law enforcement officers become aware of such crimes from any sources or from any persons, they are obliged to initiate criminal proceedings and investigate them.

    From the moment of registration of the draft law to the time of its adoption, as practice shows, it can change significantly: some norms can will be removed, and others will be added. However, in its current form, this bill addresses a significant range of issues that arise in practice and are extremely necessary for effective protection and investigation of cases of domestic and sexual violence.

    On February 4, 2025, the Committee of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on the Integration of Ukraine into the European Union issued its conclusion, according to which this bill meets the requirements of the Istanbul Convention, does not contradict EU law and international obligations in the field of European integration.

    What still needs to be done
    Two and a half years since the ratification of the Istanbul Convention, significant steps have been taken to implement it in wartime. Of course, much work remains to be done both at the legislative level and in practical implementation.

    Regulatory documents are the basis, but they are applied by people working in law enforcement, judicial, social spheres, public organizations, etc. Therefore, in parallel with legislative initiatives, it is necessary to implement victim-centered approaches, especially to ensure the localization of those approaches and documents that have been formed at the national level.

    Comprehensive assistance to the victim, avoidance of re-traumatization, communication with society and destruction of stereotypes that lead to victimization and stigmatization of victims are what we need to work with.

    For the past two years, JurFem, in partnership with the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the National Police, with the participation of the Ministry of Social Policy and the Free Legal Aid System and public organizations, has been holding an annual conference “Justice Focused on Victims of Gender-Based Violence”. Based on its results, we always form the next steps together with the community. In particular, in 2023, we set ourselves the task of preparing, together with the UCP, standards for pre-trial investigation of domestic violence cases using victim-centered approaches. Such standards were prepared and presented to the community at a conference in November 2024.

    In addition, three blocks of recommendations were identified that outline our next steps.

    The first block is the issue of institutional changes. During one of the workshops, Judge Vira Levko noted that initiatives are based on individual people, but it is important to build institutional memory, strengthen effective interaction, cooperation, which includes not only the law enforcement sector, but also forensic experts, social workers, the free legal aid system, and public organizations.

    There should be a cross-cutting inclusion of a victim-centered approach. It is important to remember about human resources that are being depleted, so we need to think about how to maintain the mental resource.

    The second block of recommendations is approaches and internal policies in work. Everyone is talking about unification, standardization of approaches, procedures, documents on needs assessment and more. We need to standardize and at the same time look for approaches to each person, because each person is an individual.

    The third block is legislation. Introduction of the institution of a lawyer by appointment for victims of gender-based crimes, expansion of the range of sanctions, the concept of criminal proceedings related to domestic violence, systematicity. These issues are on the agenda and are being resolved.

    In the implementation process, it is important to remember that all changes are made by people for people. Therefore, if we proceed from this principle, we will be able not only to formally fulfill the requirements for the implementation of the Istanbul Convention, but also to adopt its spirit and form victim-oriented mechanisms and services.

  • “My water has broken! Put me on the table immediately, I’m giving birth!”: What’s wrong with childbirth in popular culture

    “My water has broken! Put me on the table immediately, I’m giving birth!”: What’s wrong with childbirth in popular culture

    Myth one: the waters have broken, labor will begin now


    The breaking of the waters is the first sign that “it has begun.” This was the case with Rachel Green and Phoebe Buffay — the characters who formed the supporting structures of my teenage identity.

    But in reality, which is supposedly depicted in mass culture, the waters do break in the first stage of labor, which lasts (in primiparous women) up to eighteen hours. Oops! Sometime during this period it will happen. Or not. Or a week passes between the breaking of the waters and the delivery — this also happens, although not often. Just as infrequently as the epic breaking of the waters popular in the movies.

    For most women, labor begins with (drum roll) the realization that labor has begun. The woman feels contractions, and she needs to understand whether these are another training or “combat” contractions.

    And contractions don’t look epic in the movie: my friends, my pregnancy podcast listeners, and I, while going through contractions, walked in parks, picked up packages from the post office, or routinely conducted live broadcasts. And you know what we didn’t do? We didn’t grab our bellies, bending over sharply and shouting: “I’m giving birth! Help! Hurry up!” The beginning of labor is mostly boring.

    Myth Two: Childbirth is a quick process


    The influence of movies and TV shows on my expectations of my own childbirth was so strong that I knew for sure: ten minutes would pass between the start of contractions and “I see the head,” just like in the movies. Scientific information and the chorus of doctors didn’t sound as convincing as scenes from my favorite TV shows. Danielle from “Desperate Housewives” barely had time to get home from the house next door before she heard the cry of a newborn. Am I worse?

    After three hours of painless contractions, I banged on the door of the maternity ward as defiantly as if they were illegally holding the baby inside me. But the truth is that both the medical records and the statistics were true. Childbirth for most people is not only boring, but also long.

    Here’s a story about war-life balance and birth timing. My friends are preparing for a twin birth. She’s in Kyiv, and he’s in the Ukrainian Armed Forces 400 kilometers away. When she realizes that labor has begun, he has to come to the hospital immediately. This plan is realistic, because 400 kilometers is five hours of travel. Most first births don’t fit into this timing.

    This, of course, breaks a lot of scenarios. From the latest, “Train on December 31”, where a pregnant woman during an eight-hour journey from Kyiv to Lviv manages not only to spend time without any signs of labor activity, but also to give birth and rest after giving birth in a dining car.

    Myth three: giving birth is lying on her back and following the doctor’s commands


    This is how childbirth is in the movie “Annette”.

    The “gold standard” of mass-culture childbirth is lying on her back and screaming. Some, like Rachel Green or the pregnant woman from the movie “Train on December 31”, lie down even during contractions and attempts. There is much more harm in this stereotype than it might seem at first glance.

    At least because this position is the most painful for a woman. And so, when you give birth, it can be more painful and less painful. To do this, you need to move and find what is best for you at each stage. This is not my opinion – this is the advice of modern medical protocols. And my practice.

    For millennia, women gave birth in positions that were most comfortable for them. This began to change in the 18th century, when births began to take place in hospitals, and male doctors gradually replaced traditional midwives. Women were not allowed to attend medical schools. It was believed that a man without a penis could not understand childbirth. Of course, where would he get one!

    Men declared themselves the main ones in matters of birth: medical interventions (such as the use of forceps) became a priority, and the natural course of childbirth was often ignored.

    A woman was transformed into an object from which doctors extracted a child. These are unexpected “achievements” that, among other things, were brought to us by the development of medicine. It was only in the 20th century that women began to receive medical education, and with it the right to subjectivity in their own childbirth.

    Modern medicine advises doctors to encourage women to move during labor. We could learn this from movies, but the male cult is still guided by the 18th century standard: a confused and frightened woman on her shoulder blades and a hero-savior who “gives birth” to her.

    That’s exactly what happened in “The Train on December 31,” where the woman in labor was placed on her shoulder blades on the table of a dining car. Imagine yourself on your back on a table in a dining car with your legs spread. Comfortable? Now add the movement of the train and the effort. Incredible, right?

    The only thing worse is that the woman is heroically saved by a man who calls three other men. Of course, no one asks women who have children about childbirth.

    Continuing the thought experiment, I will assume that childbirth on a train could go like this: the girl would stay in her compartment, a person would come there to help her, and the woman in labor would hardly climb onto the table if there was a bed.

    Why is it important to show the subjectivity of a woman during childbirth
    And not just intimidate with fear and pain, from which women are heroically saved.

    Let’s start from the opposite: for what purpose should we intimidate women? To show how a person instantly loses all control, hoping that someone will tell her how to save herself. For what? Fear is adrenaline, it slows down labor activity. Isn’t it better when a woman, crossing the threshold of the hospital, is not intimidated, does not expect horror, but has the opportunity to think: should/can I be comfortable during childbirth? How? Do I have the right to move, drink, eat (labor can last 20 hours, after all)? Whose needs during childbirth are the main ones – mine or the doctors’?

    The answer to the last question is key: if the main ones are the doctors (or those who take the birth), then I may have to obey them, even if they commit violence against me (shout, interfere with the birth without my conscious consent, press on my stomach, forbid me to move, determine the way in which the birth will take place against my will). This is all obstetric violence, a violation of the rights of the woman in labor, unacceptable behavior of medical personnel. And it is also important to know about this “beforehand”.

    I believe and know that the woman is the main one in childbirth, because, after all, she is the only person without whom the birth will not take place. Everyone else is present only to facilitate her experience, support, help. And save in those rare situations when it is really necessary.

    Such childbirth, by the way, is also shown in TV series.

    For example, This Is Us. Due to force majeure, the heroine Beth gives birth at home. She finds a comfortable position (miraculously, not on her back on the dining table, unlike Piper Halliwell, for example). And no one heroically saves her, she is supported by another woman and her husband.

    What to do. Consulting for the film industry and beyond
    Mascult must recognize its influence on the formation of women’s ideas about childbirth and stop exploiting emergency births and outdated practices. This will allow us to understand that the stereotypes about a helpless woman who needs rescuers-doctors only reinforce the culture of fear and increase the tolerance of obstetric violence.

    Screenwriters and directors should research the topic before writing and filming childbirth scenes. There are consultants in forensics, medicine, and martial arts in cinema, so why is childbirth still “drawn” from a TV series template? Take advice from midwives, doctors, doulas, watch documentaries about the medicalization of childbirth, and ask ChatGPT which stereotypes about childbirth are not true.

    Viewers also have a voice. We can share our own childbirth stories. It seems like a drop in the ocean, but each story can become a brick from which another woman can build her confidence. We can comment on and analyze childbirth scenes in films and TV series, ask why the heroine is screaming in pain and is not offered pain relief, why doctors act as if she has no voice. Demand creates supply.

    Mascult doesn’t just reproduce reality — it constructs it. So if we don’t want to see intimidated women ready for violence in maternity wards, then maybe we should show more than just the horrors of childbirth? Fear blocks childbirth. But it helps restore a sense of security, one’s own strength, and peace. Good words to describe childbirth, dear creators of mass content.

  • “We were. We are. We will be”: how Ukrainian businesses supported LGBT+ people during Pride Month

    “We were. We are. We will be”: how Ukrainian businesses supported LGBT+ people during Pride Month

    In June-July 2025, “Gender in Details” within the framework of the Human Rights Academy 2.0 by Gender Stream project, with the support of the Center for Disaster Philanthropy, implemented the project “We Were. We Are. We Will Be” – a campaign to support LGBT+ people and provide visibility to their achievements and daily challenges. We united a number of Ukrainian businesses around the idea of ​​​​end-to-end support. This was an attempt to show: Pride is not just a march or a one-time action, it is everyday life, and LGBT+ people exist, create, fight, love in this everyday life, without having basic rights like other people.

    Why this idea?
    The name and, accordingly, the slogan “We Were. We Are. We Will Be” became the basis of the campaign, because it speaks of continuity. LGBT+ people have always been a part of Ukrainian culture, history and art. They are also creating Ukrainian history today – on the front lines, in business, in volunteering, next to everyone. They will be in the future that we are building together.

    In times of war, when part of society is being pushed out or marginalized, it is important to remember: visibility and support are not luxuries, they are a matter of dignity and the right to life.

    How did businesses get involved?
    Several Ukrainian businesses joined the campaign — and it was more than just a partnership. At a time when open support for LGBT+ people in Ukraine still requires courage, each of these companies took an important step: they told their customers “you are not alone.”

    For example, together with the publishing house “Laboratory”, we talked about books that create space for research, including yourself. The publishing house “Laboratory” consistently supports the idea of ​​equal rights both in Ukrainian-language publications and in translations, so their selection of books has become extremely diverse. Among others, we can mention the cooperation with the project “Agents of Blood”, because “Blood is not about gender, blood is about life”, and together with them on Donor Day we will analyze stereotypes and prohibitions on donation for transgender people.

    All these posts, collections of information, and even laconic symbolic publications together became signs of safety and support for LGBT+ people who are looking for a space where they can breathe freely every day.

    What did we get?


    This campaign became not just a few posts or collections – it became a symbolic sign of the times. “We were. We are. We will be” resonated with both those who belong to LGBT+ people and those who simply want to see Ukraine open and strong. People recognized familiar brands and logos, and this gave them a sense of security: if even a business dares to say it out loud, it means we are moving forward.

    On social networks, the campaign received many warm words – comments, messages, reactions. For some, it was the first reminder that Pride Month exists even during war. For some, it was an unexpected moment of support from a favorite company. For the businesses themselves, this was an important experience: to publicly declare solidarity, despite the risks and possible hateful comments.

    Such steps are not always measured by reach figures or thematic sales statistics. Their real result is in changing the atmosphere and attitude, in the feeling that LGBT+ people are visible and welcome in the public space. And this is the greatest value: the campaign opened the door to a conversation that seemed too risky yesterday.

    The conversation continues
    We created practical tools that remain after the campaign ends:

    A brand book with visual recommendations that helps businesses talk about Pride and LGBT+ support in a modern, stylish language, without clichés and banalities, and also allows companies to unite in joint communication. All our joint posts were prepared in this style. You can read the recommendations at the link.
    A text brandbook that provides ready-made step-by-step recommendations on how to write about LGBT+ people respectfully and correctly, avoiding stereotypes and offensive formulations, as well as demonstrating end-to-end support. This is not just a set of tips, but a kind of tone map that allows businesses to join the conversation confidently and without fear of making a mistake. You can read the recommendations at the link.
    A general map of friendly businesses in Ukraine, where those who have already openly declared today: “We are with you” are gathered. This map is more than a list of addresses of bookstores or other stores. It is a network of safe spaces that form a new geography of solidarity. You can view friendly businesses nearby at the link.
    Thus, “We were. We are. We will be” became a project that went beyond Pride Month. It gave people the feeling that change is possible, that even a few brave businesses can launch a public discussion. We are not stopping there: the brandbook, texts and map remain tools that will continue to work and are available for constant use in the coming years, because Pride is not a date on the calendar, but a value that we embody every day.

    The project “We were. We are. We will be” was created as part of the Human Rights Academy 2.0 project by Gender Stream with the support of the Center For Disaster Philanthropy. The content does not necessarily reflect the views of these organizations.

  • Was Ivan Franko a Feminist?

    Was Ivan Franko a Feminist?

    The Male Background and Early Allies

    When reviewing the historical development of the Ukrainian women’s movement, attention usually centers on its notable female founders such as Nataliya Kobrynska, Olena Pchilka, Sofiya Rusova, Ulyana Kravchenko, and others. Yet, behind these early struggles stood significant male antecedents and the active support of respected advocates of women’s issues—including Ivan Franko, alongside Mykola Hankevych, Mykhailo Drahomanov, Mykhailo Pavlyk, Vasyl Polyansky, and Volodymyr Shukhevych. However, this male reception of the women’s movement was sometimes ideologically marked by socialist slogans and lacked conceptual consistency within society. Even among supporters, there was no consensus regarding the nature and methods for addressing women’s issues.

    A telling sign lies in Franko’s correspondence with Mykhailo Pavlyk (circa October 10, 1879), where Franko warned against singling out the women’s question apart from other social issues: “Neither does the women’s question stand out particularly sharply from among other issues…on the contrary, it recedes into the background (public economy, schools, etc.), and talking about it last year possibly did more harm than good.” He further expresses the view that influencing women’s progress in worldview is better done through sciences than through depictions of everyday women’s lives.

    Franko’s Position: Pro-Feminist but Not a Movement Member

    Despite cautious descriptions of Franko as a “pro-feminist”—someone who shares feminist ideas without formal affiliation—there is ample evidence in his work and public life of a genuine commitment to women’s emancipation. Franko was ahead of his time in advocating for women’s education, equality, economic independence, supporting and mentoring emerging women writers, and engaging with noted feminists in correspondence, journalism, and literary works. Interestingly, Franko did not use the term ’feminism’ directly, instead employing related terms such as “women’s question,” “women’s cause,” “emancipation,” “equal position,” and “equal rights.”

    Early Engagement and Influence

    Franko’s interest in women’s emancipation began in the mid-1870s while still a student—the period of his socialist inclinations. He discussed the “women’s question” with his close friend and fellow supporter of equality, Mykhailo Pavlyk, and together they even planned to translate John Stuart Mill’s influential manifesto “The Subjection of Women.” In their letters, they reveal concerns about women remaining passive and the necessity for women to assert their own voices and identities.

    Franko’s respectful attitude towards women was formed from childhood and regarded as a feature of the national mentality. In his literary memoirs, he noted the “spiritual superiority over men” of women in artisan families, who, by managing household economy, raising children, and guiding their husbands, “acquired the traits of household leaders.” He recalled: “I had the impression that women in these families, if not ruling, then at least shared an equal position with men, distinguished by intelligence and energy, and above all by a sharp and tireless tongue.”

    Engagement Through Literature and Activism

    Franko’s relationships with numerous women writers—including mentoring, correspondence, editorial support, and critical engagement—were crucial in the genesis of Ukrainian women’s literature and the feminist movement. He played a decisive role in the founding of literary and advocacy societies, the editing of women’s almanacs, and supporting women’s public organization, while also sometimes offering strong editorial critique.

    Modern Perspective

    Franko occupies a unique position in the history of Ukrainian feminist discourse. His analytical approach, public activity, and creative work contributed significantly to gender sensitivity in national literature and social thought. While he did not explicitly call himself a feminist, his outlook and actions align closely with modern understandings of feminism—particularly in his vision of women as full participants in society, advocates of their own rights, and creators of their destinies.

    Summary: Ivan Franko is widely recognized not as a card-carrying feminist by today’s definitions, but as a profound supporter and enabler of feminist ideas in Ukraine. His progressive stance included advocacy for women’s rights, education, and equality, as well as mentorship for the emerging generation of women writers and activists. Franko’s work and collaborations placed him among Ukraine’s most important early male allies to the women’s movement, leaving a multifaceted legacy still discussed in feminist and literary scholarship today.

  • Violence that is usually ignored in Ukrainian literature

    Violence that is usually ignored in Ukrainian literature

    Around the time when public torture and executions in the West were gradually losing their popularity (not among the common people, of course, but among those in power who set the tone) and giving way to closed trials and imprisonment, a new Ukrainian literature was emerging. Declaredly oriented toward the mass reader and popular format, it serves as an encyclopedia of social moods and customs. With one important caveat: sometimes these moods and customs are products of the populist imagination of the intelligentsia — invented first, and only then offered to the reader.

    Literature in the Service of Ideology

    Frankly, this remains true to this day — the only difference being that the position of that part of the cultural sphere which “strays from the path” and strives to create primarily “art for art’s sake,” and only secondarily to influence the value system of ordinary citizens, has been gaining strength.

    However, aesthetic progressiveness in literature does not automatically translate into the promotion of democratic values and the principles of gender equality and tolerance. Even the classics sometimes contain things that are appalling by today’s standards. And our contemporaries also often cross the line of established norms of ethics and democracy. The boundary between public accountability and censorship is, in fact, quite thin. We may raise our voices around the most outrageous cases — but we should not aggressively overuse this approach. Neurotic self-censorship among the most vulnerable artists is hardly the goal of feminist critique.

    A civilized discussion of what, from the standpoint of basic values, requires a new approach — and the marking of gross violations of equality, human rights, and freedoms — appears to be the most effective tool in the long run.

    There is much to work on. For instance, Ukrainian literature of the past two centuries abounds with violence of all kinds and scales. We are used to thinking of our culture as patriarchal, yet it is simultaneously filled with images of flower-like girls, gentle and unhappy maids, and courageous, noble — though often equally unfortunate — men. Serfdom was abolished long ago, which means the path to happiness for the heroine of Ukrainian classics seems shorter now: all she has to do is escape the village stove, get an education, find paid work, and secure “a room of her own” — and, ideally, avoid drowning herself in despair over unrequited love or an unwanted pregnancy.

    If you think that’s all there is to it, you’re underestimating Ukrainian literature — and its role. In a literature-centered culture, the influence of popular texts is enormous. Those in power — both the deeply concerned moral majority of the community or nation, which guards ethical values, and those who shape domestic policy — know this and seek to keep it under control.

    The Male Gaze: Alleged Sympathy

    Traditionally, the origins of modern Ukrainian literature are traced back to Eneida by Ivan Kotliarevsky. Such a cheerful poem — where could there possibly be violence? Here, for instance, Aeneas begins an affair with the queen Dido, starved for male affection: joy, adventure, eroticism — everyone’s happy. But as soon as the “brisk young man” sets off toward his destined goal, the widow immediately commits self-immolation.

    Flames blazed all around her,
    The dead woman was no longer seen,
    Smoke and fumes rose from her pyre! —
    So deeply did Dido love Aeneas
    That she burned herself alive
    And sent her soul straight to hell.

    Thus, she herself becomes the object of condemnation — and, being the source of power in her own kingdom, she also becomes the one who punishes herself for violating the unwritten law of adultery: she betrayed the memory of her dead husband and surrendered to a foreign prince. The worst part is not even that she will be condemned — it’s that she will be ridiculed. The moral violence of public judgment still lies ahead, but the queen chooses not to live to face it. Or rather, the author chooses to tell us the story this way — for he would like widows who have found comfort to end just so.

    And what about Aeneas?

    Though he hurried to sail away from Dido,
    He wept bitterly, inconsolably.
    And when he heard she’d burned in the fire,
    He said: “May she have eternal glory,
    And may I have long-lasting power,
    And soon find another widow too!”

    “Aeneid”, illustrated by Anatoly Bazylevich, 1968

    But the “fallen woman” Kateryna — the most famous heroine of Taras Shevchenko — actually lived to see public condemnation. And she must have regretted it a thousand times: when her parents cast her out of the house (“Had I known, I would’ve drowned myself before sunrise,” her mother says in farewell, advising her to look for a mother-in-law in Moscow), when she wandered with her child, begging for food. Eventually, Kateryna meets her unfaithful lover again, but he wants neither her nor their son. The heroine drowns herself in grief, and the child, growing up as a beggar, later becomes a blind minstrel’s guide.

    Shevchenko writes about Kateryna with compassion and tenderness — he truly pities her. The poem remains wildly popular even today: countless readers and listeners have wept over it in every Ukrainian home; now it is recited at cultural centers during commemorative events. Yet no one ever defends the girl’s right to raise an illegitimate child. It is worth noting that in reality, not all “fallen women” shared Kateryna’s tragic fate — yet classical literature has cemented precisely this image as typical.

    In schools, the traditional reading of this sentimental story is still used for moral instruction: Kateryna is condemned for her recklessness and naivety, while her tragic end evokes sympathy. The seducer is a clearly negative figure — that point is never debated. But the parents’ actions remain unquestioned: as captives of harsh folk morality, they simply “couldn’t do otherwise.” A lesson on Kateryna could become an opportunity for an open conversation between teachers and students about the evolution of moral and ethical norms and sanctions — after all, two centuries have passed since Shevchenko’s time!

    And of course, Kateryna is a Ukrainian girl — one of “our own.” But non-Ukrainian women fare even worse: they become objects of revenge, forced to atone through suffering for the sins of all oppressors of the Ukrainian people — and their children, too. The scene of infanticide in the poem Haidamaky is shocking: Honta publicly slaughters his own sons because they are Catholics, like their mother. National identity comes second, as do paternal feelings. The children stammer, “We are not Poles.” Later, under cover of night, Honta buries them according to Cossack custom — yet he must remain loyal to his oath and kill the little “Catholics” with a consecrated knife.

    A Woman’s Cruelty Toward Another Woman

    No one describes a woman’s cruelty toward another woman as truthfully as a woman herself. Mariia Vilinska — an emancipated writer who told stories of young women leaving their parents’ homes, earning their own living instead of perishing, and later marrying for love by their own choice — began her literary career with Ukrainian-language Folk Tales under the pen name Marko Vovchok. There she outshone everyone in depicting the brutal life of female serfs. Sadistic masters and mistresses prick their maids with needles, crush their hopes for love and marriage, scold, and beat them.

    From the school curriculum, we remember Horpyna: a serf mother so overworked that she doses her baby with poppy extract to keep it quiet — and the child dies. The mother has no right to rest, no medical help, no shred of compassion from her enslavers. The culmination of this period in the writer’s work is undoubtedly The Boarding School Girl (Instytutka).

    Violence inflicted by a woman upon another woman — or upon a man, or her subordinates — appears unnatural and tragic, more repulsive even than that committed by men. The educated young lady in The Boarding School Girl ostensibly pursues a noble goal — to reform and “optimize” the management of her estate:

    “…she found hard work and bitter misery for everyone. The crippled and the children, even the tiniest ones, were not spared. The children swept the gardens, herded turkeys; the cripples sat in the vegetable patch, scaring away sparrows and other birds.”

    She has also learned well that the serfs are her property, her enslaved labor force — and that she not only can but must train and beat them:

    “At first she would only pinch or push lightly… and then blush like fire, ashamed of herself. But once she got used to it, settled in — that’s when we truly learned where in this world evil lives.”

    The cruelty reaches its climax:

    “I looked at her — she had become so terrifying my legs gave way. She grabbed me by the neck with both hands! Her hands were cold as snakes. I tried to scream, but the breath was knocked out of me — I fell by the apple tree and came to only after being splashed with cold water.”

    The writer leads the reader to the conclusion that the problem lies not in the inhumanity of one individual, but in a social order that itself requires reform.

    The drama of society is best illustrated through the example of the family. Ivan Nechui-Levytsky’s The Kaidash Family — seemingly comic — is, on closer inspection, deeply tragic: it depicts a struggle among several women for power within a single household. The men try to stay out of these domestic quarrels and instead divide the world into female and male spheres. The house belongs to the women, who literally divide the shared space — sweeping their respective halves of the entryway in turns. The distaff becomes a symbol of domination: both the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law need it, and rather than obtaining another, they fight over it, ending in a physical scuffle.

    Nechui-Levytsky loved to converse with ordinary women “from the people,” observing their speech and behavior. In his depictions of the Kaidash family, as well as of old women like Baba Paraska and Baba Palazhka, we see the fruits of these observations — vivid sketches “from life.”

    It is evident that under different circumstances, an intelligent, strong-willed, and passionate woman could have achieved far more than victory over her mother-in-law. Even the marriage of two equally strong personalities — Karpo and Motria — could have been a partnership of potential rather than conflict. Yet, confined within the domestic space, the family, and the village, these women gossip, scheme, reproach their husbands, and draw them into their local battles.

    The Feminism of the Champions of Human Equality

    A few decades after Shevchenko’s Kateryna, male moralizing resurfaces in Panas Myrny’s The Loose Woman (Повія). This Ukrainian “sister of Carrie” (written several years before Dreiser’s Sister Carrie) reveals the author’s clear intent to punish a woman who dared defy social morality. Khrystya Prytyka escapes her village for the city, first becoming a maid, then the mistress of a wealthy man. After her lover’s death, she is forced into prostitution, ending in humiliation, disease, and death. The scene in which Khrystya’s nose falls off deserves a place among the most horrifying moments in Ukrainian literature.

    The stories of Khrystya’s friends are no less shocking. For instance, Mar’ya recounts how a landowner raped her, kept her chained for resisting him, and how, after escaping, she lived with another gentleman who blackmailed the first for money in exchange for silence — only to keep most of it for himself. When Mar’ya became pregnant, he neither wanted the child nor marriage:

    “…the next day he came home from work with a little bottle. Something yellow, almost red, inside. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘drink it — it’s just wine.’ I didn’t know anything, of course, so I drank it. At first — nothing; I even had lunch. Then I started to tidy up, and suddenly the pain struck — sharp, unbearable. My eyes went dark. I fell and remembered nothing. When I woke up, I was lying in a pool of blood… such a puddle! My heart hurt so much… I wished I’d died right there. But he stood over me: ‘Clean it up,’ he said, ‘and bury it in the garden.’ I couldn’t bear it — ‘Clean it yourself, if you caused it!’ Then he stomped his feet: ‘I’ll throw you out on the street! I’ll show you!’ So I gathered it all in a broken bowl, waited for evening, and buried it in the garden.”

    Later, the girl was imprisoned and sent to a convent — punishment for her “crime.”

    Panas Myrny does not condemn his heroines or their thinking — he condemns the social order that gives peasant girls, many born into serfdom, so few options. Was Myrny a proto-feminist? Undoubtedly yes — as is every author who sympathizes with the oppressed. In his other works, he shows the same empathy toward men: for him, the root of human tragedy lies in class position, poverty, limited opportunities, and low social mobility — the real sources of suffering.

    The consciousness of these unfortunate heroines is quite simple: they are uneducated, accept suffering as fate, believe it impossible to resist, are unaware of their rights, and their dreams of the future are limited in imagination. It is Panas Myrny who understands that beating and rape are wrong; his ill-fated heroines — Khrystia, Mar’ya, Maryna — like those of Marko Vovchok and Taras Shevchenko, can only hope that in the next episode, luck might finally favor them.

    It would be difficult to accuse Ivan Franko of violating women’s rights. Yet his feminism is but a natural extension of his socialist worldview — and nothing more. Recall his backhanded compliment to young Lesia Ukrainka: “This sickly, frail girl is perhaps the only real man in all of modern Ukraine.” Torn from context, this phrase has followed the writer ever since — even after her death.

    Lesia Ukrainka’s works often depict the suffering of those who differ from the dominant majority. In The Forest Song, for instance, both Lukash’s mother and his brisk, red-cheeked peasant wife Kylyna — a woman made for fieldwork and housework — torment the fragile Mavka, who is “not of this world” and capable of something far beyond reaping rye. Instead of finding her a fitting domestic task or simply leaving her in peace, the village women mock the girl for her otherness. The fact that their beloved Lukash loves Mavka is no reason, in their eyes, to accept her into their community.

    A similar pattern appears in Boyarynia (The Noblewoman). Thrust into a foreign society with entirely different customs, the Ukrainian Oksana finds herself unable to survive there: she is far too emancipated for Muscovy. She is shocked to learn of the local tradition — marriages arranged through matchmakers, without courtship or affection. The ritual itself horrifies her:

    “You will bring them a tray of honey,” says her mother, “the lady will arrange it all as required — you bow, and the boyar will kiss you on the lips…”

    At first, Oksana refuses to take part, but her husband Stepan insists:

    “You only need to greet them and return to the women’s quarters.”

    He reasons pragmatically:

    “I never told you there’s freedom here. But if we didn’t bow our backs here, the Muscovite voivodes would have bent our family thrice over back in Ukraine. You faint from disgust that some old man may touch your lips — but when I must call myself ‘Stepka the serf’ and kiss their hands like a slave, is that not worse?”

    Oksana has no choice but to suppress her pride and play along — for the sake of the family’s survival.

    In the end, she dies — crushed by the unbearable weight of social pressure. The domestic comfort of home, even her husband’s support, cannot save her from the suffocating atmosphere around her. (Similarly, Princess Yevpraksiya, the heroine of Pavlo Zahrebelnyi’s novel of the same name, perishes after being married off to a foreign land. We see again how a woman — especially a foreigner, young and inexperienced — remains powerless in a patriarchal world, where noble birth offers only illusory protection.)

    In The Stone Host, Lesia Ukrainka’s drama about Don Juan, the enamored Dolores sacrifices herself to atone for his sins, while the widow Donna Anna must remain faithful to the husband Don Juan has slain. Yet the Commander’s statue punishes the seducer, not the “unfaithful” woman: woman here remains an object, a possession. Slaves are punished only when they begin to think for themselves — when they cease to be slaves.

    War, Revolution, and the Woman

    When it comes to war, violence reveals itself most starkly.

    Woman is, traditionally, the unprotected being. And if there is an opportunity to access her body without consequence — it is usually taken. Does Valerian Pidmohylny condemn the rapist in his story The Third Revolution? After yet another anarchist raid, “in a corner of the bourgeois house, Ksyana lay sprawled, her head thrown back, her knees bent — a grotesque heap of violated flesh.” Earlier that day, she had planned to surrender herself willingly to Makhno himself. Pidmohylny’s disgust is evident.

    But does he condemn his protagonist Stepan Radchenko, when Stepan rapes Nadiyka? The answer is less clear. Stepan is intelligent, strong, ambitious — a charismatic scoundrel. His brilliance and promise seem to eclipse his crime. Readers — and even critics — often forgive him in silence, focusing instead on his rise in The City, as if the assault were a minor footnote on his path to success.

    If Pidmohylny, Khvylovy, and Yanovskyi treat violence in the Civil War with moral anguish — feeling it as both personal and collective trauma — then later, in canonical works about World War II, the tone changes. Soviet authors, though ostensibly humanist, always know exactly how things “should” happen and how readers should feel about them.

    Oleksandr Dovzhenko’s Ukraine in Flames is a prime example of male fantasy disguised as patriotic tragedy. Olesia gives herself to the first passing soldier — to ensure that she is deflowered by a Ukrainian, not a German — and then remains eternally faithful to Vasyl Kravchyna, whom she may never see again. Her friend Khrystia, however, makes no such gesture (perhaps the idea simply never occurs to her?). She becomes the lover of an occupier — though an Italian, not a German — and perhaps for that reason, the author ultimately forgives her, but only after forcing her to repent with the same intensity as Shevchenko’s Kateryna.

    And indeed, portraying a woman as an object of violation is a perfect tool of propaganda meant to stir aggression in the humiliated male who is convinced that this woman, left on occupied territory, belongs to him.

    Yet things are no better for women at the front. In Oles Honchar’s “The Standard-Bearers,” Shura Yasnohorska is the darling of the entire regiment—so much so that when her fiancé is killed and she later falls in love with another man, the brotherhood at the front must approve her choice (recall Dido and Donna Anna!).

    Later, Oles Honchar would write “The Cathedral,” where Yelka, raped by a village brigade leader, is tormented by the loss of her “honor.” It then becomes clear that the problem exists only in Yelka’s own mind. She need not repent, nor keep silent; rather, she should not fear publicly naming the unworthy act of another woman’s husband.

    Marusia Churai: a woman, a killer, an artist

    It is difficult to name a male Ukrainian writer who has portrayed a woman-killer as a sympathetic heroine—not merely attractive or charismatic, but genuinely positive.

    Such is Marusia Churai in Lina Kostenko’s eponymous poem: strong, proud, talented, she did not kill out of baseness. And in any case, she poisoned—she did not stab. A classic, typically feminine method. Yet men judge her without allowances for her sex, and the verdict of the public court is stern and “just,” as expected—public execution. In the end, she is pardoned by a special hetman’s decree, but the broken poet is no longer fit either for creativity or for love.

    Marusia is loved and respected for her “artistic merits”—at the time, typically masculine ones, hence the authorities’ keen attention to her case. What kills the artist in her—society’s attempts at censure, however tinged with sincere sympathy, or her own convictions about a single love for life and a notion of femininity incompatible with killing her beloved with her own hands? Marusia places first the dream of family life with a specific man, and when that dream shatters, all other possible options—from marrying someone else to focusing on her art—prove unacceptable.

    Violence and erotica in the struggle against Sovietness

    The anti-official literature of the last thirty years became a space for experiment and innovation. The performative masculinity of Andrukhovych’s characters, the demonstrative eroticism of Pokalchuk’s and Vynnychuk’s prose, the feminist essays of Yevhenia Kononenko… Descriptions of violence—physical and moral—are scattered generously throughout these texts.

    Authors often resort to this deliberately: such details more easily hook or move the reader—or catch them with “juicy bits,” if we are speaking of mass literature. In men’s prose, erotic scenes became one of the standard devices for creating mass-market fiction (amid the oft-declared shortage of contemporary Ukrainian popular reading) and/or an outrageous means of shattering the prudery of Soviet literary norms.

    Which of these books have become classics? First and foremost, Oksana Zabuzhko’s “Fieldwork in Ukrainian Sex.” Violence here is dissected and meticulously described. Bad sex? It’s there. An attempted rape? Of course. Need a character with a damaged psyche? The father, the lover, the heroine herself, people in her milieu… indeed, everyone. Want something larger in scope? The drama of violence against an entire nation unfolds before you, and the love story of a writer and an artist turns out to be only a pretext.

    Yevhenia Kononenko’s “Without a Man” is a classic of Ukrainian feminist essay writing. The narrator recounts her private biography—from a mother’s and grandmother’s admonitions about the image of a “decent woman” to several romances and matrimonial attempts of various kinds. One man turned out to be impotent; with another, premarital sex was marvelous, but marital sex less so, because “for most men, getting married means buying a live mattress on the cheap”; yet another was fine in everyday life but did not understand the writer’s literary ambitions.

    And then the heroine sighs ironically:

    “A feminist must be married, and happily married. (Happily not in the patriarchal sense—i.e., well provided for—but happily in the sense of established partnership with a beloved man.) This is necessary less in the interest of the feminist herself than of feminism as such. Because the people still perceive feminism as the cry of an under-satisfied female. The people cannot decide which is worse: under-satisfied or over-satisfied.”

    Against this backdrop, Andrukhovych’s earlier alcoholic epic, in which Otto von F. engages in “an unlawful sexual act with a citizen of the Malagasy Republic, Tatnaketea. The poor girl still believes she was visited by Ananmaalhoa—the spirit of fertility, horticulture, and procreation,” and breaks the heart of Halyna K., seems to belong to a different category: too much irony, too little authorial tragedy.

    By contrast, Maria Matios’s prose—beginning with the novella “Yuriana and Dovhopol”—is an expressionist portrayal of Ukrainian (more precisely, Bukovynian) history through the prism of suffering and violence. The culmination so far appears to be “Moskalyt­sia”—a novel about the daughter of a Bukovynian peasant woman and a Russian soldier who came to the village during World War I; her origins fatally determine the heroine’s fate.

    Violence as revenge: a return

    The first swallows of the newest “war literature” are not particularly encouraging. There are no new Khvylovyi or Pidmohylny yet. Instead, third-rate authors under the brand of combatants… well, no, they still do not enter contemporary Ukrainian literature proper, but their editions are present on bookstore shelves and at major book fairs.

    For example, the poetic fantasy about “winning a Muscovite woman” on a White Sea shore (Borys Humeniuk) has already become a classic example of an inappropriate patriotic call. And the story about a veteran hero who asks a prostitute to sing the anthem of the Russian Federation—and their sexual act becomes more intense because of it (Vasylisa Trofimovych)—is striking in its realism. We are not discussing artistic merit here, so the questions are for publishers and editors, who could have noted such points in the manuscript stage and set their own limits of the permissible.

    The collection “Against Violence” as a conscious gesture

    In light of all this, the collective project “Against Violence” stands out—where a group of Ukrainian writers deliberately undertakes educational work with the broadest audience and provides their texts, which in one way or another address domestic violence, for publication. If previously violence in literature was analyzed by critics (mostly feminists), now we have an anthology in which short stories by well-known Ukrainian authors are dissected by professional psychologists. The appendices include annotated legal provisions, and templates for properly drafted petitions for divorce and child support.

    It is unprecedented that writers have voluntarily agreed to have their texts accompanied by commentary—not literary scholarship, but analysis that examines characters and actions through the lens of human psychology, moral-ethical norms, and current law. In fact, this is the very approach long resisted, since a short story is an artistic work and ought to be discussed aesthetically rather than ethically.

    The commentators, of course, do not intend to condemn the authors; they focus on the events described and the characters’ motivations. But here lies an obvious danger: will an unprepared reader who needs clarification of her rights in a relationship with a man grasp this fine, still-unpassed boundary? Will it affect her perception of contemporary literature and her attitude toward individual writers? The claim that ordinary readers do not influence the literary process much is irrelevant.

    It is precisely ordinary people who write letters to newspapers, purchase most of the print runs, and become tools in the hands of the organizers of pogroms. Although the choice of authors—Yurii and Sofiia Andrukhovych rather than the headliners of women’s pop-prose, Liuko Dashvar and Iren Rozdobudko—targets philology graduates more than most residents of bedroom suburbs, philology graduates also become victims of violence and are left without child support no less often; this observation only adds value to the project.

    Using the anthology “Against Violence” as an example, we see how skillfully and knowledgeably contemporary Ukrainian writers depict hurts, traumas, and blows. If the continuity of the Ukrainian literary tradition has survived anywhere, it is precisely here: the developed language of prose and the richness of expressive means are realized to the fullest when the task is to turn one’s soul inside out—one’s own and another’s. For example, Marianna Kiyanovska’s story “She Who Is Dying” about an eight-year-old girl who works as a model and dreams of getting cancer so she can rest. Or Serhii Osoka’s “The Bitter Smell of Father”: the boy’s father is replaced by his mother’s new husband, who tries to raise a “real man” through military-style violence and drill; in the end, the broken teenager provokes the hated stepfather into a particularly brutal beating, and the mother divorces him—no one in this story inspires sympathy.

    Conclusion. Two Ukrainian literatures

    “…the impression is that there are two Ukrainian literatures. The first is represented in textbooks and monographs, by both Western and Ukrainian scholars, in literary histories. The second exists in real texts that seem entirely unread. And these are not marginal works, but canonical ones,” wrote Solomiia Pavlychko in a proposed study of the discourse of violence in Ukrainian literature. She explained this by noting that for centuries Ukrainian literature was a literature of revenge—and this, precisely, was its political pathos. Beyond revenge against invaders, colonizers, foreigners, and those of other faiths, there is also much seemingly causeless violence, especially against women, along with the hysterical self-hatred of those who wield it (“Violence as Metaphor,” in Solomiia Pavlychko’s collected works “Theory of Literature,” p. 591).

    Violence against members of a given sex begins to be recognized and marked from the modernist era onward; whereas nearly a century of literature before that mirrored stereotypes and brandished sabers in all directions: the divisions among Poles, Russians, Jews, and Ukrainians, between masters and serfs, mattered more.

    In the newest period — counting either from 1985 or from 1991 — the situation is complicated by the disappearance of the single common enemy who could unite even the most irreconcilable dissenters. Everyone chooses their own object of hatred (most often descending into opportunism or banal domestic squabbles). A few years ago the common enemy returned, almost in the same guise, and it turned out that writers of middling rank have advanced little beyond fantasies about “winning a Muscovite woman.” And men insufficiently affirmed on the field of real struggle try to do so in the family (or on paper—each to his capacity).

    The line of what is permissible — this is not about shock value or experiment, but about propriety and the promotion of certain values in artistic works, about rules of good taste and moral-ethical standards in daily life — still stretches farther than it ought in our progressive era, when human rights and freedoms are declared and ought not to be contested.

  • How Ukrainian Feminist and LGBT+ Organizations Work during the War

    Translated from Ukrainian by Natalia Volynets.

    “Being asked “What kind of a feminist am I now?” I say I am a practical one.

    A situationally-practical one.”

    Svitlana Dubina, Vis

    The escalation of the war and the beginning of the Russian Federation’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has changed the daily lives of every one of us. From Kharkiv to Lviv, from Kyiv to Mariupol, from Zaporizhzhia to Vinnytsia — we are forced to quickly change our plans, daily activities, and usual worldview.

    NGOs, feminist organizations, and communities dealing with LGBT+ issues involve people who constantly counteract violence, inequality, and discrimination.

    The war has intensified these issues while revealing new obstacles and creating new challenges.

    We talked with Ukrainian feminist and LGBT+ organizations to hear about what they are doing now and how they can be supported.

    Feminist Workshop

    Western Ukraine has become a refuge for many people. Evacuation trains carried the most vulnerable population groups, covering thousands of kilometers to get them from constant explosions and rocket attacks to relative safety.

    Hospitable Lviv, which is usually associated with old buildings and the Rynok Square impregnated with the aroma of coffee, seems to have been centered around the train station during the war. People came here from the east of the country, from here they went to Poland, and here volunteers met people with hot food.

    The Feminist Workshop has been operating in Lviv since 2014. This non-governmental organization (NGO), which enhanced the formation of the feminist community in Lviv, is now widely known. In peacetime, its employees were involved in educational activities among teenagers, filmed a video blog, and organized fem schools.

    Back in 2019, the Feminist Workshop started a dialogue on the complexity of the militarization perception through a feminist lens. The “(ir)relevant” project analyzed and criticized various forms of violence and its counteraction options under total militarization. Today, this position remains relevant, and the activists focus on direct assistance to women with children and elderly women, and joined the information war.

    First of all, this means providing housing for women facing difficulties, as well as for feminist activists who were forced to evacuate to Lviv. Finding housing for a long time period is very difficult as the city is crowded, but the women working at the Feminist Workshop created a fem-apartment, where one can live for free for up to six months.

    Ivanka, one of the volunteers who recently joined the team, helps take care of children. It is psychologically difficult for women to pay enough attention to their children and, at the same time, not to be in constant stress. In addition, they need to address numerous issues that arise during resettlement — finding housing and work, paperwork, and humanitarian assistance, all of which is much easier to do when there is someone to leave your children with so that they are played with and taken care of.

    The Feminist Workshop also pays attention to older women, which is another vulnerable group with more disabilities. Age gradually affects them and they may have limited work options (if any) or face health issues, and, hence, they need medications and care. The elderly are physically unable to stand in long queues for humanitarian aid or similar things; therefore, through cooperation, the women organized to provide elderly women with necessary items. In addition to food, this includes daily support, if needed, networking, and emotional support.

    These busy activities require constant support. If you want to join as a volunteer, you can write to the team. You can also donate to support the projects and humanitarian aid by following the link.

    Women’s Perspectives

    Another team that has always operated in Lviv is Women’s Perspectives. Registered in 1998, this was one of the first feminist organizations in Ukraine. During the entire period of its work, it has implemented over 30 projects and assisted more than 5,000 people.

    The organization’s priorities include gender equality, combating domestic violence and human trafficking, and supporting women’s and human rights organizations. The priorities have not changed since the beginning of the full-scale war, unlike the forms of their manifestation and organization.

    Almost immediately at the beginning of the war, the team found a large room, provided by business owners. The typical office center has turned into a shelter for women and children. They can spend the night here before going further, or stay longer, if needed. They can get medicines and food or psychological counseling (for both adults and children). Importantly, children have one more option: non-formal education classes. The team realizes that a large number of people staying in one place are difficult not only for the hosts, but also for the displaced people themselves. Therefore, the team redirects them to safe regions in Ukraine that are not as densely populated as Lviv, and transfers them to a shelter for internally displaced persons.

    As the war progresses, the number of shelters seems to decrease. It is becoming increasingly difficult to find humanitarian aid or housing. Although some cities (such as Kyiv) have become safer compared to February, a large part of the country is still a dangerous combat zone. Dnipro, Kharkiv, Kherson, and Mykolayiv are frequently shelled, and it is unsuitable to return there, especially for those with children, and many people have no home to return to. Aware of these new war challenges, which will not simply disappear, Women’s Perspectives wants to create two more shelters. They will differ from the existing one in that they will function not as temporary shelters, but as long-term and comfortable shelters for women with children who cannot return home.

    The organization requires facilities, appliances, and medicines for displaced people. To donate, please follow the link.

    Lviv is now crowded and busy. Organizations, associations, and entire cultural projects are being relocated here; humanitarian goods pass through Lviv; and people rest here before crossing the border and try to plan their further lives.

    Insight and “Marsh Zhinok”

    The NGO Insight and the Marsh Zhinok (Women’s March) initiative are also active during the war. Insight has always supported the LGBT+ community, which is its major task that is still relevant today. However, before the war this was mostly with an informational support blog; now there is a whole set of issues on the organization’s Facebook page, including searching for shelter, medical and psychological assistance, and so on. There was established cooperation prior to the war, like support with trans-transition, but now all these processes face new challenges.

     Marsh Zhinok has never positioned itself as a volunteer organization, but exclusively as a feminist initiative about women and for women. Its work relies on this principle and now, though many consider assistance a volunteer activity, the representatives themselves talk about it as something that they simply must provide.

    From their first days, the organizations have been working at a crazy tempo. Two lines were set up to provide help and psychological support: one for the LGBT+ community and the other for women. They offer crisis psychological assistance and psychological consultations, for which they created simple application forms, as well as consultations on legal issues, including regarding lost housing, paperwork, going abroad, etc.

    “From the first days of the war, we started looking for a place for shelters in the west of Ukraine, where people could spend a night or stay longer, get necessary things and medicines. Currently, there are three such spaces, two in Lviv and one in Chernivtsi,” Taisiya Gerasimova says.

    There are seven people on the team now and, in addition, 12 volunteers who constantly help with organization, finding housing, coordinating people, and providing humanitarian assistance.


    Photo of a shelter in Lviv

    “Organizing humanitarian aid is a serious challenge. There are a lot of requests, especially from women with children, elderly women, and those who are not able to buy essentials.

    These are people who were evacuated from dangerous areas and who lost their jobs and homes. Every day, a team of volunteers sends 100–130 shipments to different parts of Ukraine, where delivery service is available.

    We tried different approaches to collecting applications for help. For some time, the application form was constantly open, and we could receive 3,000 applications a day. We could not handle such an amount, neither financially nor physically. So now we have come to the point when we open the form for a limited time. In the 40 minutes that the form is open, we receive about 150 applications.

    I would also like to talk about the humanitarian hub volunteer team — almost 60 people! Almost all of them moved to Lviv because of the war. Most found the organization via our social media pages or our shared posts about searching for female volunteers, while some came with a friend, and several people live in our shelters.”

    Organizing humanitarian aid is a small world, where everyone has their own tasks: find people to help with procurement, packaging, or delivery; people who process and distribute applications; and people who take care of others. Some people do this in Ukraine and some work from abroad. Everyone has faced new challenges.

    Taisiya Gerasimova notes that their focus on supporting transgender people still has a clear mechanism, despite becoming more difficult due to the war. This includes providing medicines that cannot be bought in pharmacies, advice on crossing the border, and assistance with other medical and legal issues that arise in the process. Gradually, in all spheres, things are getting back to normal in Ukraine, but this was not the case in the first weeks of the war, since there were many questions and applications that needed to be urgently addressed.

    Despite a higher level of European tolerance, LGBT+ people face numerous challenges. These are both general, such as finding housing and work or paperwork, and more localized issues, such as registration (living together may be not allowed if people are not officially registered as a couple), receiving specific medical care (for example, for trans people), and psychological support. The Insight team helps with all these issues in cooperation with European organizations that joined during the war and are using their own resources.

    Insight and Marsh Zhinok operate at their own expense. Finding funding for rental housing and to purchase items is a separate challenge. In the first month, private donations from Ukraine and around the world helped a lot. However, as time passes, the global community’s interest is also gradually declining — they do not realize the scale of the humanitarian crisis, which is now pervasive in Ukrainian society. If you would like to join and help, you can donate to Insight and Marsh Zhinok here and here.

    Sphere and Kharkiv Pride

    Sphere and KharkivPride operate similarly to Insight and Marsh Zhinok. They also have two activities: women and feminist optics, and the LGBT+ community.

    Currently, the team consists of 11 employees scattered not only throughout Ukraine but also around the world. There are those who remained in Kharkiv despite daily shelling, and there are also those who were forced to leave; hence, most of the projects are organized remotely.

    Many projects that started before the full-scale invasion were reformatted as the war escalated. Some of the ideas seem less relevant now, while others require significant funding. The budget has been redistributed considering urgent needs, and funds have been allocated for humanitarian aid. The humanitarian assistance provided by these project teams includes essentials and remittances that cover the cost of basic goods for women and LGBT+ community members.

    During the war, LGBT+ chats were created and eventually identical groups appeared for women. All this is realized in the “equal-to-equal” format as the main trigger that is being worked out is war. Prior to the full-scale invasion, psychological assistance was one of the work areas and did not actually stand out among others, but now it is the main task. The only thing that support groups and professional psychological counseling do not work with is rape in war.

    One of the humanitarian aid areas that has already been provided is support for women at the front: contraception, menstrual cups, personal hygiene products (including pads, tampons), pregnancy tests, medications, etc. The police and volunteers made it possible to transfer this assistance to female combatants and civilian women in the combat zone.

    Currently, Sphere and KharkivPride are gradually resuming their typical activities. They support their own project-hub, conversation clubs in Ukrainian, speaking clubs in English, psychological support groups, and educational broadcasts on current topics. You can support them by following the link.

    La Strada

    Ukrainian communities work in all areas. Not only physical support (babysitting, bringing some food, provide transportation) is important. Psychological, legal, and informational support are also crucial. That is what La Strada is about.

    Its major activities include informing and counteracting violence, discrimination, and human trafficking. It declares feminist values and works relentlessly. It did not stop working during the COVID-19 pandemic and continued helping in the most difficult times.

    “The war has radically changed our work,” Alyona Krivulyak, director of the Hotlines Department, says. There are two lines: the National Hotline for the Prevention of Domestic Violence, Human Trafficking, and Gender Discrimination and the National Hotline for Children and Youth.

    The war has created new obstacles. Before, the team worked in an office in Kyiv, but now its members are scattered all over the world. It was important to keep the same phone numbers available and make sure that everyone is safe, has a stable Internet connection, and is psychologically able to work. The team could not return to the office since it is dangerous. For the first three weeks of the war, they provided consultations only through La Strada webpages, responding to inquiries and messages. For instance, they created a whole series of publications , providing information on how to evacuate to different EU countries.

    Since March 11, the hotlines have resumed their work and now work 24/7 while involving all possible resources.

    The key issues have not changed: violence, both domestic and gender-based, and protection of children’s interests and rights. However, there is one “but.” During the war, the number of appeals has significantly increased. This is due to the general tension, increase in the number of those having access to weapons, and increase in the number of cases of violence (psychological and sexual). The result is that the hotlines, social networks, and e-mail operate literally day and night.

    Prior to the full-scale war, the National Hotline for Children and Youth operated from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Now it operates day and night since the huge challenges for society and children in need of psychological help should be properly addressed.

    The number of appeals to the Hotline for the Prevention of Domestic Violence, Human Trafficking, and Gender Discrimination has also increased. Women began to experience more violence and more fear due to the increased accessibility of weapons, and if previously a quarrel could end in beatings, now there are even more dangerous threats with weapons.

    Most often, appeals come from war victims. La Strada has had experience with internally displaced persons since 2014, so this is not a new category of people for them; the only change is that the number of their appeals has significantly increased. To date, there are many inquiries about how to evacuate from combat zones, leave the temporarily occupied territories for the territory controlled by Ukraine, register as an IDP, obtain IDP status, get social benefits from the state, safely get abroad and not face possible human trafficking, take children abroad, adapt to living abroad, what status to obtain, and so on — all these issues currently constitute the largest category of appeals.

    However, the issue of domestic violence has by no means become less relevant as the number of respective appeals is still large. There are many concomitant factors that are directly related to the war and negatively affect domestic violence victims. In particular, considering active combat zones, a woman facing domestic violence in her family has almost no one to turn to. She also has no possibility to undergo a forensic medical examination to be able to prove anything later since hospitals are destroyed or used by the occupiers for their own purposes.

    The constant availability of telephone consultations is crucial. This helps to accompany victims at each stage. La Strada strives to organize everything so that a victim of violence does not communicate with the occupying authorities, with the exception of emergency medical care.

    Of course, the war shifts the focus in the country. In particular, military support and protection of territories have become crucial. Other issues seem to be much less relevant, and focus on the external enemy prevents solving internal challenges. Even prior the war, the police did not do their job very well and sometimes ignored women’s complaints about domestic violence, but now the number of such complaints has statistically increased. Female victims themselves also believe that their own security is not so relevant and, during the full-scale war, are ashamed to seek help, appealing to the fact that Ukraine is at war and, hence, all structures should focus on saving the country, supporting the military, and defending from the enemy.

    Another issue is the rape of Ukrainian women by Russian Federation occupiers. So far, there have not been so many such appeals, but there are some. Representatives of organization themselves consider their sample of such cases unrepresentative as not all women survive the rape, not all of them have an opportunity to leave the occupied territories, and not all of them dare to seek help.

    If you want to support La Strada, you can do so by following the link.

    JurFem

    Legal consultations, which are one of La Strada’s activities, are the focus of the JurFem Ukrainian Women Lawyers Association. JurFem was founded as a space for women lawyers, which later turned into a systematic network of female judges, lawyers, and other professionals in this field. The association has its own membership terms, goals and objectives, and charter.

    During the period of the Russian Federation’s full-scale military invasion of Ukraine, JurFem has become one of the largest information spaces. It provides legal advice on a number of the most pressing issues that have arisen during martial law and that everyone has faced in one way or another, including the status and rights of internally displaced persons, border crossing issues (women with children, orphans, and husbands), the difference between refugee status and temporary protection status, and the work of courts, notaries, and law practices.

    The organization covers issues such as violence, sexual harassment, etc. Its website provides articles on what to do if one has experienced sexual violence or witnessed it, how to properly record it, and who to turn to for help. There is also a rape hotline. If a victim of sexual violence can receive legal advice, a professional female lawyer is assigned in the required region, and, if necessary, an individual security plan is drawn up and information on shelters, NGOs, and psychologists in the region is provided.

    There are several ways to help JurFem: share their articles and contacts, join if you are a female legal expert, and donate to support the project.

    Vis

    Another city that has hosted many people is Vinnytsia. It has also been attacked by the enemy, but so far it is relatively calm and one can walk the cozy streets to the playgrounds or along the Southern Bug River, or admire the light and music fountain. Vinnytsia welcomes and gives comfort and peace, but all this is created by female public figures, organizations, and volunteers. One of these public organizations is Vis (Axis).

    Vis has operated since 2010. Its initial primary purpose was to ensure equal rights and opportunities for people to be active and exist in all spheres of life. Gradually, the tasks were formulated more clearly: support for girls and women and their leadership; informational and educational activities in the field of human rights; raising awareness of the problems in combating various types of violence; and developing volunteering and employment assistance for people in difficult life circumstances. The latter task has become one of the priorities during the war.

    Prior to the war, Vis and Women’s Perspectives held a femencamp for girls aged 18 to 23. With support from the Ukrainian Women’s Fund, Vis implemented information projects, such as information and support bots for girls, an anti-violence advocacy campaign, participation in women’s marches, forums, etc. Long and effective cooperation over many years with various NGOs, foundations, and organizations has contributed to the widespread popularity of and support for Vis.

    From the first days of the war, Vis and other local NGOs organized a humanitarian center. One week after the start of the war, donor organizations, which were also previously known for feminist activities, began to offer their help and resources. The humanitarian center, which emerged almost spontaneously, was later systematized. First and foremost, people needed food, medicines, and hygiene products. Vis managed to organize a more individualized approach so people can get what they really need. This possibility to choose also contributes to psychological well-being: instead of constantly standing in queues for a standard set of basic products (which are decreasingly available during the war and, hence, the number of items in a social set is also decreasing), a person can choose what they need.

    Vinnytsia is a big city, hosting many organizations, both governmental and private, non-governmental ones. Almost from the first days of the war, all of them reorganized their activities to provide more substantial assistance to people in accordance with the new needs. However, there are still gaps, some of which have become the focus of Vis.

    For example, humanitarian aid is often provided only to registered IDPs, and until they are registered, they cannot claim help. However, the need for food, medicines, hygiene products, and baby food cannot wait. In addition, many foundations provide one-time assistance. This helps if a person can find a job and arrange a new life for the future, but there are currently few job vacancies and basic needs remain unmet. The problem of housing is also relevant in Vinnytsia. There are few shelters; most people are forced to rent an apartment, and most of their money is spent on this, which makes it impossible to provide for other needs.

    There is a problem of women and children staying not only in cities, but also in various small villages. If cities are already more or less organized in terms of assistance and providing better food and psychological support, such opportunities are simply non-existent in rural areas. Vis wants to focus specifically on this issue as, according to its data, about 170,000 internally displaced persons live in Vinnytsia Oblast now (as of May 16, when Vis representative Svitlana Dubina was interviewed – Ed.). It can also a safe assumption that many of them have not registered. Even with humanitarian aid, the situation is difficult in rural areas: most resources are available directly in cities, and few reach villages. Another problem is psychological support. The only thing left for people in villages is online counseling and psychological support hotlines, but not everyone is aware of such lines or sure if they work. Access to information is extremely important nowadays; therefore, it is currently a highly relevant issue to provide information and psychological support to all possible vulnerable groups regardless of their location. Svitlana and her team plan to go to the villages of Vinnytsia region with this mission.

    As for general informational and educational work, this one of Vis’ major activities prior to the war has slightly decreased now. All the campaigns planned for March 8 (International Women’s Day) were canceled due to the war. However, for example, the team created a feminist calendar, and now copies are distributed to those who care.

    Currently, two issues are particularly relevant. First is organizing specific psychological assistance. Volunteers and team members always communicate with people who coming to them, but this is not enough, as people often need not only support, but also expert help. The second issue is traveling to villages to provide humanitarian, informational, and security assistance.

    “There are resources — we need forces to fulfill them,” Svitlana says. As the war develops, unfortunately global attention decreases, while the number of issues increases. To follow Vis activities and to support the organization, please use the link.

    Ukrainian Women’s Fund

    Among those who helped Vis at the beginning of the war was the Ukrainian Women’s Fund, which supports women’s and feminist organizations. Fund representatives implement both their own ideas (in Ukraine and abroad) and support similar projects. This usually includes funding socially important projects that are somehow related to women: training courses, educational or informational flash mobs and events, and sociological and socio-cultural research. The war has slightly shifted the focus, but did not change the nature of the team’s activities.

    In the first month of the war alone, the Ukrainian Women’s Fund awarded 37 rapid response grants to various Ukrainian women’s and feminist NGOs. This support enabled organizations to provide humanitarian assistance, including food, medicines, personal hygiene products, household items, and children’s items.

    Recipient organizations of the Ukrainian Women’s Fund are scattered across Ukraine. Segmentally, they support women with disabilities, adolescents, women with children, and the elderly. Despite the possibility to leave the country, all the above categories of citizens are vulnerable. A separate group is those female activists who have stayed in their cities and continued working, even despite shelling. For security reasons, the fund does not publish the full list of assisted associations. Representatives of these associations do their job every day. The fund strives to structure its support and provide funds for real needs.

    If you want to support the Ukrainian Women’s Fund, and with it many Ukrainian feminist organizations, you can do so by following the link.

    NGO Girls

    The NGO Girls operates with support from the Ukrainian Women’s Fund, UNICEF Ukraine, and the Heinrich Boell Foundation’s Office in Ukraine. This is a small team running a social and educational project for teenage girls. Currently, it is mainly focused on local assistance to women with children in Kyiv and Kyiv Oblast, in particular, targeted financial support to victims from Irpin district.

    NGO Girls also provides traditional humanitarian assistance while focusing on small children: diapers, wet wipes, and baby food, along with a standard list of food and medicines. All this is provided to children, women, and the elderly. The organization does not purchase or supply military items.

    Prior the full-scale invasion, thanks to Girls, many educational activities were organized and educational lectures were held in open areas, schools, hubs, etc., because the NGO’s main goal is to encourage girls to consciously build their lives, know themselves, their bodies, and their physiology, and be psychologically mature. Currently, the priority is information warfare on social networks and support for those in need.

    You can donate to NGO Girls by following the link or ordering a lecture.

    GenderZed

    There is a significant increase in the number of various organizations located in the west of Ukraine. In addition to those that have always worked there, there are now those that have evacuated and relocated to western regions. However, life is also busy in other parts of the country. For example, unconquered Zaporizhzhia continues living and working, despite the fact that most of oblast is occupied.

    This is where GenderZed is based. It is a human rights organization working on a wide range of issues related to sexual orientation and gender identity, gender inequality, overcoming stigma regarding the LGBT+ community, and overcoming gender inequality and gender-based violence. Special attention has always been paid to women’s rights and feminist values. A separate area of work is in preventing HIV and sexually transmitted infections. The GenderZed space always provides HIV testing and a free health safe box for men, which includes an oral HIV test, condoms, lubricants, and an information booklet.

    In peacetime, GenderZed was an active participant in all events related to the LGBT+ community, including informational support, gradual overcoming of stigma through educational activities, participation in prides, etc. With the escalation of the war, its activities did not decrease but their focus slightly shifted. Since February 24, the whole team has switched to remote work. In the first days, it disseminated information about the invasion and, when possible, provided psychological support to its audience.

    Later, the organization started providing humanitarian aid to LGBT+ people in need. This was enabled by the overwhelming support of the international community, which disseminates information and donates money for the needs of LGBT+ people.

    The whole team now processes applications for assistance in their free time. Hence, the work is almost round the clock, which is quite difficult, both emotionally and in terms of resources. There are a lot of appeals coming from the temporarily occupied territories and regions affected by rocket attacks. The scale of the tragedy is very large, and even if it sometimes seems that it is getting calmer, people’s need for psychological support is only growing, because the war is still ongoing.

    However, the organization has not stopped doing its main work. It continues educating and informing, as well as testing for HIV, syphilis, and hepatitis C. The front line is very close, but the challenges that were relevant before the full-scale war have not disappeared with its escalation.

    Prior the full-scale invasion, the organization had been planning a new project for lesbians and bisexuals called “Girls for Girls.” February 24 put these plans on hold, but now the project has finally been launched, promoting hygiene and understanding the female body, safe sex between women, and the importance of safety. In addition, a Telegram bot has been created specifically for lesbians and bisexuals that provides an opportunity to follow a quest on women’s health, raise awareness, and get a fem-box similar to the one that has existed for some time in the men’s organization.

    On its social media pages, GenderZed publishes information that can be useful during the war, such as seeking shelter, humanitarian assistance, opportunities to help the army, etc. All this is systematized and summarized to ensure quick and easy access at any time.

    If you would like to support GenderZed activities in Zaporizhzhia, you can do so by following the link.

    KyivPride

    At one time, GenderZed joined the organization of the first Pride in Zaporizhzhia. Zaporizhzhia Pride did not manage to become a completely independent and well-known project; however, KyivPride and KharkivPride are currently active in Ukraine.

    Since the beginning of the full-scale war, KyivPride has continued its activities, but has almost completely changed the way it helps LGBT+ people in Ukraine. Of course, information work has remained the most relevant, including through social networks, but now it also involves cooperation with well-known publications and news agencies from more than 15 countries, including BBC News, TIME Magazine, New York Times, GAY Times, and Pink News. Europeans have a lot of stereotypes and even terrible notions about the state of the LGBT+ community in Ukraine, because the issue has never been widely covered. The war and, as a result, the dissemination of information have helped to reduce stereotypes and organize assistance to the community.

    During the war, about 400,000 hryvnias have been spent on targeted assistance, including for food, medicines, hygiene items, other essentials items, and household goods. More than 650 queer people have received assistance and continue receiving it; the application form is still available.

    In Kyiv, together with GAU, KyivPride opened a shelter for LGBT+ people and their families. This is important not only in terms of how many people could have lost their homes, but also in terms of psychological condition. After all, unfortunately, not everyone and not everywhere is ready to rent an apartment to a homosexual couple or settle such people. Besides, not all of them want to stay in the city, especially as it was dangerous in Kyiv for a long time since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. Hence, KyivPride began to organize its own evacuation trips to the west of Ukraine and abroad.

    Another activity is psychological assistance. There are support groups three times a week, involving trained psychologists who have experience working directly with the LGBT+ community.

    KyivPride not only helps in terms of resources, but also focuses on its primary goal. For instance, a joint KyivPride and WarsawPride is planned for June 25. The Prides will unite and hold a joint march for peace and freedom in Ukraine and against Russian aggression. It is not possible to hold Kyiv Pride in the usual format, because this is dangerous, but the Warsaw community is supporting the march against the war and for freedom and human rights.

    “We provide space to the voices that need to sound louder.”

    Support KyivPride by following the link.

    From Kharkiv to Lviv, from Kyiv to Mariupol, from Zaporizhzhia to Vinnytsia — we have all changed our plans and daily activities and abandoned the usual for the sake of the needed. Everyone works tirelessly, providing shelter and basic needs. Anyone in need can apply.

    Support feminist and LGBT organizations in Ukraine

    I need shelter or humanitarian aid

    I need psychological or legal support

  • The history of sexism in the Ukrainian army

    Historically, military structures have been predominantly male institutions, and thus not free from sexism. The Ukrainian army is no exception, but by defending against Russia’s armed aggression, it plays an extremely important role not only in the defense of its own territory, but also in global military, food, and environmental security.

    This requires the army to be as efficient as possible, which includes overcoming prejudices and obstacles that may prevent women in the military from fulfilling their functional duties. In addition, Ukraine is building a tolerant, human-centered society, and gender equality is one aspect. That is why overcoming sexism in the Armed Forces of Ukraine is so important.

    This text is a brief overview of the main manifestations of sexism in the army over a certain period and a presentation of the most egregious cases. The article concludes with recommendations for change that civil society should advocate for.

    The period before Ukraine’s independence

    The specialized website Gender in Detail has already written in detail[1] about the inherited problems of the Ukrainian army, which continue from the Soviet army as its immediate predecessor. Soviet gender policy was only initially aimed at the emancipation of women; it quickly changed to viewing both men and women as a mere resource for an undemocratic state, with few specific differences. In World War II, the USSR actively recruited women as a conscription resource for the war effort, but their contribution is very incompletely reflected in commemorative practices. In general, the visibility of women soldiers and veterans was extremely low.

    Later, in order to stimulate the birth rate and having disguised it as “protection of mothers and children,” women were excluded from any harmful and difficult physical work, including combat positions in the army. This finally cemented the division into “female” and “male” positions and military professions. The Soviet army evolved into the post-Soviet Ukrainian army and existed without significant changes until 2014.

    The historical situation in non-Soviet Ukrainian military formations was not much better. The history of women’s participation in the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen units shows that men’s attitudes toward women who served with them were not fundamentally equal: women were subject to “punishment” and “all sorts of irritating remarks and interference from some male comrades.”

    Olena Stepaniv, the first female officer of the time, admitted that women’s participation in military formations was chaotic, and the role that could be assigned to women consciously remained unclear, given the practical realities of the struggle. By 1919, she herself gradually became opposed to the mass participation of women in combat.[2]

    Later, in the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), women served as liaisons, nurses, typists, scouts, and housekeepers, which were mostly auxiliary, albeit dangerous, roles, and did not directly take part in hostilities.[3] Gender inequality also existed here not only in the distribution of functions: women occasionally became mistresses of their immediate superiors. According to historian Marta Havryshko, this clearly hints that men abused their status.[4]

    Olena Stepaniv
    The district leader of the Ukrainian Red Cross in Yaroslavshchyna, a leader of the women’s network of the OUN district “Baturyn” in Zakerzonnia, Maria Labunka (née Rovenchuk).

    In contrast to the Soviet army, where internal policies were largely dictated from above, members of grassroots armed groups were more likely to reproduce behavioral norms and attitudes that they had learned from civilian life. However, in both cases, there was no real gender equality.

    Sexism before 2014

    Until Russia’s military invasion in 2014 and a little later, the Ukrainian army inherited a predominantly Soviet army with all its problems, including the lack of women’s right to hold most combat and leadership positions.

    The military positions that women soldiers could hold as privates, sergeants, and officers were defined by Ministry of Defense Order #337 of 27 May 2014. Women could only hold positions primarily related to the care and maintenance of positions related to combat, such as nurses, canteen managers, telephone operators, or seamstresses, but could not be grenade launchers, machine gunners, service dog trainers, or even interpreters.

    Changes in this area were achieved only in 2016 thanks to the Invisible Battalion advocacy campaign, which showed the strong participation of women in the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) [the name for the Ukrainian army’s military activities in the east after Russia’s 2014 invasion –Translator) since 2014 without proper visibility, legal and infrastructural recognition, and reward.

    Until 2014, the army had a phenomenon typical of low status jobs: the feminization of poverty. The percentage of women gradually increased, but only because men avoided these jobs. Between 2001 and 2006, the total number of military personnel decreased, while the number of female service members increased in all categories. Most of them were wives, daughters, and relatives of military personnel.[5]

    In 2008, the Ministry of Defense introduced the position of “officer in charge of gender policy,” which was filled by a servicewoman, Natalia Dubchak. In 2010, the position was abolished, and Natalia Dubchak became a pro bono advisor to the Minister of Defense on gender policy.[6]

    Ms. Dubchak talks about the attitude of some of her male colleagues to women’s access to military professions: “We drafted two new Minister of Defense orders (developed by my colleagues in the personnel policy department) approving the list of military professions that can be held by servicewomen. Why are there two of them? Because one concerns women officers, and the other concerns women in contract service… I remember these debates, where some representatives of the General Staff Department were sitting and saying, ‘There is nothing for these women to do there, where they are going, they will not want to serve, they will not want to serve. What, they will go to the front line if necessary?’”[7]

    There is a curious story about how really unprepared the army was to incorporate women. The tie, which is mandatory in women’s military uniforms, was attached to the shirt with a special clasp in the shape of a trident, but the uniform designers did not take into account that women’s shirts are fastened on the left, not the right side, so women soldiers had to wear the state symbol upside down.[8]

    Nataliia Dubchak

    There was also gender discrimination in the Ministry of Defense. For example, a woman who worked as a chief specialist in the military policy department, had eight years of experience in the ministry and the “best specialist” award, was fired along with other female employees by the newly appointed director of the department without any legal grounds. Later, she was offered a new position with half the seniority and wage. The department head explained that the woman could not hold the chief specialist position because she had no military service experience. After that, the woman received a position in the ministry, but in a different department. An internal investigation was initiated against her without any grounds. After the investigation was closed, the department head personally threatened that if the woman refused to resign, he would initiate a new investigation and create impossible working conditions for her.[9]

    The guidebook “Actual Problems of Gender Policy in the Armed Forces of Ukraine” (2011), edited by Borys Andresiuk, notes “the ability of women present in the military environment to culturally enrich, ennoble relations in the military team, and stimulate the social and service activity of men.”[10] The word “ability” here points to an allegedly natural trait that women possess, rather than to socialization in the female gender, acquired over the years. The reference to such “abilities” itself is a classic example of benevolent sexism: the positive qualities of women, which serve the male part of the team, are listed. In the same text, there is a reference to Otto Weininger’s Gender and Character, a classic sexist work that influenced traditionalist thought, including Julius Evola.

    It would be unfair to only criticize without noting the positive aspects. The guidebook simultaneously refers to the need to counteract gender discrimination, particularly such aspects as sexual harassment and vertical and horizontal segregation. It is a positive development that the problem was voiced, albeit no steps were taken to address it.

    Natalia Dubchak also pointed out the need to ensure proper medical care for women in the military by introducing mandatory accounting and analysis of the morbidity of women in the military in order to determine the impact of the service conditions in certain positions on their morbidity and reproductive functions; to study the issue and, if possible, increase the number of women’s wards in hospitals.[11]

    This problem has not yet been resolved. On August 22, 2022, Special Operations Forces soldier Andriana Arekhta spoke at the VI International Veterans Forum “Ukraine. Defenders. The Future”, where she described her rehabilitation experience after a mine explosion. In the military hospital where Andriana was treated after her injury, there was no separate female ward in the polytrauma department, and she could only be placed separately in gastroenterology, which caused additional pain when moving from the ward to the operating room.

    Sexism after 2014

    At the end of 2015, with the support of the Ukrainian Women’s Fund and with the assistance of UN Women, the Invisible Battalion study was conducted, which started the advocacy campaign of the same name for gender equality in the security sector. Since 2015, the campaign has achieved the following:

    • Legislative attention to ensuring gender equality in the military (the Ministry of Defense lifted restrictions on combat positions for women, including officers; amendments were made to the Law “On Military Duty and Military Service” to strengthen gender equality; a mechanism for responding to sexual harassment was developed with the participation of the General Staff);
    • Partially overcoming vertical gender segregation in the Armed Forces (the number of female officers has tripled and several women have been promoted to generals);
    • A gradual shift away from paternalistic state policy towards women (the list of 450 prohibited professions for civilian women was abolished, although the maximum cargo lifting limits for women are still in place);
    • The Armed Forces infrastructure is being adapted to the needs of women (female summer uniform and underwear were approved);
    • A partial departure from sexist rhetoric expressed by public figures regarding women in military (the word “defenders” [of female gender, tr.] was added to the name of the state holiday, Defenders’ Day);
    • A noticeable increase in the media visibility of women in the security sector and coverage of the issues they currently face;
    • Including women in the security sector as target groups in the National Action Plan for the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 “Women, Peace and Security”;
    • Increased subjectivity of servicewomen and female veterans in civil society (in particular, forming the Women’s Veterans Movement).

    However, there were rollbacks and scandals both during the campaign and in the work of civil society and government agencies to develop and affirm new values, despite the general trend toward overcoming sexism and achieving gender equality. In early January 2016, servicewomen and activists had to picket the Ministry of Defense after the commander of military unit A1314, Major General Serhiy Nayev, commanded on December 5, 2015, to temporarily suspend the recruitment of women for military service on a contract basis.[12] The order was canceled as a result of the campaign, but work on the problem of discrimination against women has only just begun.

    In 2017, an all-army competition was initiated with the benevolently sexist name “Berehynia v pogonakh” [“Goddess in epaulettes” – Editor]. The authors of this ill-timed idea were the Main Military Medical Directorate, the Main Directorate for Moral and Psychological Support of the Armed Forces, the Ministry of Defense Communications and Press Directorate, its central print organ, the Narodna Armiya newspaper, and the Ukrainian Military Medical Academy. The competition was held among military medics and included a file in evening dresses, a demonstration of creative talents, and an assessment of professional medical skills and athletic performance.[13] The competition ran until 2020.

    Participants of the “Berehynia (female guardian) in Uniform 2018” competition.

    Not only representatives of rear units, but also ATO participants took part in the contest. Zaxid.net commented on it: “All participants have gone through selection in their units and institutions. The combat girls wrote tests, swam, and sing for two days. Marine Olena did 32 push-ups in a minute. After the trenches of Shyrokyne [actual combat zone – Translator], it’s a cakewalk for her.”[14]

    A meme from the page “X-press officer

    In 2021, Ukrainian social media were outraged by the official announcement of the Independence Day parade, where cadets of the Military Institute of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv were preparing to march in the Prussian step wearing high-heeled shoes, which are part of the women’s ceremonial military uniform. After a lengthy scandal that even reached the rostrum of the Verkhovna Rada, the shoes were replaced with more comfortable ones.[16]

    Cadets in heels

    The problem of sexist attitudes toward women in the Armed Forces persists. The media cite examples such as when soldier Lesia Hanzha, transferring from one unit to another, learned that her future company commander was “totally against women,” and reconnaissance platoon commander Yulia Mykytenko testified that after her appointment to this position, male soldiers refused to serve under a woman. She also experienced unethical comments about her after her husband’s death.[17]

    Yuliia Mykytenko

    The issue of sexual harassment in the Armed Forces of Ukraine is worth a separate remark. This phenomenon occurs in all countries around the world in completely different spheres of life, including the military. As elsewhere, victims are reluctant to speak publicly about this issue, and in Ukraine they are also afraid of being accused of discrediting the army in a country at war.

    Currently, servicewomen who have been sexually harassed can only get help from human rights organizations. As of the beginning of 2023, it is known that the JurFem association of women lawyers is handling four such cases, and the hotlines of the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) La Strada and Legal Hundred have received two and one appeal, respectively.[18] In reality, there may be many more incidents, but the real numbers are unknown. Human rights organizations can only provide legal support, and the quality of the case remains on the conscience of the judiciary, so there is no guarantee that cases will be resolved in favor of the victims, which also demotivates women to seek help.

    Nevertheless, in recent years, two servicewomen decided to speak publicly about this issue. In 2018, Lieutenant Valeriia Sikal reported long-term systematic harassment by Colonel Viktor Ivaniv. In 2021, Lieutenant Colonel Olha Derkach stated that she had long endured systematic harassment by Colonel Oleksandr Kryvoruchko. In both cases, the women claimed that there were other victims. Criminal cases were opened, but due to the full-scale invasion, both cases were suspended.[19] This is not a promising example for anyone.

    There was some progress in combating sexual harassment in the military in 2021. The Gender Advisor to the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the NGOs Legal Hundred, Institute of Gender Programs, and Women’s Veterans’ Movement developed a detailed system for identifying sexual harassment cases, responding, investigating, and officially inspecting. The system provided for creating institutional mechanisms for proper response and assistance. At that time, the only specialized response mechanism was a formal hotline, which did not have established systems for processing and storing the data received and responding to reported cases, or qualified employees to handle complaints from victims of sexual harassment. The developments were presented at the “Army Built on Trust” forum organized by the Armed Forces of Ukraine in October 2021, but the mechanism has not been implemented.[20]

    Since the Armed Forces of Ukraine do not have an effective policy on sexual harassment, there is no policy on sexism as such. As a result, military personnel are free to express sexist prejudices against women privately and publicly, without any warnings or consequences.

    In 2023, the sexism of Third Assault Brigade soldiers on the YouTube channel DVIZH gained public attention. A comedian in civilian life, Vitktor Rozovyi compared women who are fighting to children and dogs. The episode also featured jokes about how women can be useful in the army, with a lot of innuendo. Read more about it here.

    After public outcry from women soldiers, no one from the brigade’s office apologized. Viktor Rozovyi continued to joke on his social media, and the soldiers decided to cement their sexist status in the New Year’s issue of DVIZH. A soldier with the call sign “Bot” advised a girl who expressed a desire to serve in the brigade to cook borscht. He then launched into an angry tirade about the war being “a man’s world” and about women who “have intruded everywhere” and want “quotas” and “equal rights.”

    Shortly after the Third Assault Brigade scandal, Anton Chicha, commander of the Kraken assault company, stated his position. “I am against [girls in the army]. I will not take a girl to my company,” Anton said in the YouTube show Viddushivdushu.[21] The fighter noted that there are females in the army who perform many functions. However, Chicha himself is against females in combat positions, allegedly because of their “unstable psyche.”

    Currently, the only resistance to soldiers’ public sexism is society’s reaction, as the command ignores such cases. This aggravates the situation, because civilians’ critique of the military, even if it is for sexism and misogyny, is rejected altogether by the military itself and by parts of society.

    The issue of gender mainstreaming of veterans’ policy remains problematic due to the almost complete absence of such a policy. On the one hand, the register of female and male veterans, which was at the disposal of the Ministry of Veterans Affairs until 2022, has expired, NGOs that provided services to female and male veterans have largely re-profiled to provide volunteer assistance to the army, and a full return to peaceful life is impossible because Ukraine is at war. On the other hand, the Ministry has not yet proposed even an approximate version of a concept of veteran’s policy that could be used to work on gender sensitivity. In the face of such profound ambiguity, the efficiency of further work in this area is questionable, at least until the situation is clarified.

    Gender consulting. Recommendations

    To summarize, the most pressing problems for servicewomen are unequal treatment in combat positions and promotions, lack of an effective mechanism to combat sexual harassment and sexism, insufficient provision of uniforms, armor protection elements according to anthropometric data, medical services and hygiene products, and the lack of a veterans’ policy as such. However, there are other suggestions for gender policy in the security sector.

    Civil society organizations recommend adopting two draft laws that strengthen gender equality in the Armed Forces. Draft law #5713 aims to regulate issues related to parental leave in connection with the birth of a child; compensation for unused leave for persons with children; providing sanatorium treatment, material and other support; equal access to officer positions; and mandatory official investigations in case of signs of discrimination based on beliefs and grounds defined in Article 24 of the Constitution of Ukraine. Draft law #5714 proposes equalizing the rights of men and women in the military in terms of prosecution for military offenses and crimes by lifting restrictions on penalties and punishments for women, such as detention in the brig and detention in a disciplinary battalion.

    It is also recommended to increase the number of staff positions for gender advisors (currently there are 142 in the Armed Forces, but almost all of them are not staffed), and to train and certify female candidates for this position.

    Conclusions

    The problem of sexism in the world’s armies has always existed. The army of independent Ukraine, and the military structures that preceded it, has not been an exception to this rule. This article only briefly outlines the most egregious cases and the most common problems.

    Only systematic work on solving specific problems can improve the situation, and this article outlines proposals for them. The Invisible Battalion advocacy project and other civil society organizations have been working in this area for a long time.

    However, servicewomen themselves are the main stakeholders in reducing sexism in the security sector, as well as the main drivers of positive change. They are fighting for gender equality and a safe and tolerant state by giving a positive example to women who serve after them and by their daily struggle for equal treatment. And they should be supported as much as possible in this endeavor.

    Illustrations: Wikipedia; Vasyl Havryshchuk’s personal archive / Local History; Natalia Dubchak’s personal Facebook page; Alla Kornienko / Zhyttia Obriyii. Khmilnyk News; X Press Officer; Army Inform; Yulia Mykytenko’s personal Facebook page

    This project is implemented with the support of the Swedish Institute.

    [1] Hrytsenko, Anna. How women have changed the Ukrainian army // Gender in detail. – 2019. – October 10: https://genderindetail.org.ua/season-topic/gender-after-euromaidan/yak-zhinki-zminili-ukrainsku-armiyu-1341190.html.

    [2] Baidak, Mariana. Olena Stepaniv: one of the first Ukrainian women soldiers // Gender in detail. – 2021. – March 30: https://genderindetail.org.ua/spetsialni-rubriki/zhinky-yaki-toruyit-novi-shliachy/olena-stepaniv.html.

    [3] Popeliuk, Roksolana. Support Front: Women in the Ukrainian Resistance Movement // Local History. – 2022. – February 1: https://localhistory.org.ua/texts/statti/front-pidtrimki-zhinki-v-ukrayinskomu-rusi-oporu/.

    [4] Havryshko, Marta. Gender Aspects of Sexual Morality in the OUN and UPA in the 1940s and 1950s // Ukrainian Liberation Movement. 2015 – No. 20 – P. 199-213.

    [5] Dubchak, Natalia. Women in the Armed Forces of Ukraine: Problems of Gender Policy // Strategic Priorities. – 2008. – No. 4 (9).

    [6] “Invisible Battalion”: Women’s Participation in Military Operations in the ATO: (Sociological Research) / Edited by Tamara Martsenyuk – Kyiv, 2015. – P. 19-20.

    [7] Ibid. – P. 17.

    [8] Women in a Time of Change, 1989-2009: Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, East Germany and Ukraine. – G. Böll Foundation in Ukraine, 2012. – P. 114.

    [9] On the brink: addressing discrimination and inequality in Ukraine // The Equal Rights Trust Country Report Series: 5. – London, 2015. – P. 58-59.

    [10] Actual problems of gender policy in the Armed Forces of Ukraine: Educational and methodological manual edited by B. P. Andresiuk – K.: Research and Development Center of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, 2011.

    [11] Dubchak, Natalia. Women in the Armed Forces of Ukraine: Problems of Gender Policy // Strategic Priorities. – 2008. – No. 4 (9).

    [12] Plokhotnyuk, Natalia. We are not cooks, but full-fledged fighters: does not war have a female face?” // Kyiv Vechirniy. – 2016. – January 24: https://vechirniy.kyiv.ua/news/3205/.

    [13] Kornienko, Alla. “Berehynia in uniform” // Zhyttevi obriyii. News of Khmilnyk. – 2018. – June 15: https://gazetahm.org/posts/berehynia-v-pohonakh.

    [14] Herun, Yuriy. In Truskavets, military nurses competed in a beauty contest // Zaxid.net. – 2017. – March 10: https://zaxid.net/u_truskavtsi_viyskovi_medsestri_zmagalis_u_konkursi_krasi_n1420215.

    [15] https://www.facebook.com/Xprofficer/posts/pfbid035K2ZjAt8wRWtikFT4Xffe88eRZ7nFo7BpGBRisfZ3VEAAGLQeyKLXQLrsDXBugjBl?__tn__=%2CO*F

    [16] Vyacheslav Masnyi, Anna Pogrebna. Parade in heels. Servicewomen have their shoes replaced with lower-heeled boots // Suspilne. News. – 2021. – July 2: https://suspilne.media/144081-parad-na-pidborah-nardepi-vimagaut-vid-minoboroni-provesti-rozsliduvanna-gendernogo-skandalu/.

    [17] Sokolova-Stekh, Anna. Women in the Armed Forces of Ukraine: “The desire to serve is perceived as a whim” // Deutsche Welle. – October 9, 2023: https://www.dw.com/uk/zinki-v-zsu-bazanna-sluziti-sprijmaut-za-primhu/a-66995226.

    [18] NB 5.0. Monitoring of Recommendations and Research Results from the Invisible Battalion cycle / Edited by Tamara Martsenyuk. – Kyiv, 2023. – P. 54-55.

    [19] Ibid. – P. 58.

    [20] Ibid. pp. 61-62.

    [21] YouTube channel VIDDUSHIVDUSHU. Chicha / KRAKEN’s reaction to the Farion scandal / How were collaborators caught and Kupyansk liberated?

  • Sexual Harassment in the Armed Forces in Ukraine and Worldwide

    The problem of sexual harassment and sexual violence in the military exists in armies around the world. It affects not only women, although women suffer from it more often. American researchers Valerie Stander and Cynthia Thomsen believe that sexual harassment is facilitated by inherent factors of the military structure, such as the acceptance of violence in general, deindividualization, complete subordination to leadership, and the still widespread male dominance in this leadership.[1]

    Other researchers, such as Carl Castro, argue that well-developed stress resilience results in less reports of violence, and that team spirit puts pressure on victims and makes them think that by reporting violence they are “betraying” their team.[2]

    The institutional pre-condition that makes harassment or violence against others possible is a position of power. The army in general is a hierarchical structure, and the higher the person in this hierarchy is, the more opportunities they have to commit violence without consequences. The “glass ceiling” still exists in this area, so top positions in the army are occupied mainly by men.

    Sexual harassment is also part of broader issues such as misogyny, toxic masculinity, gender discrimination, lack of professionalism, and, in the case of the Ukrainian army, the Soviet legacy in professional culture.

    “It was a lieutenant colonel. At a long lecture that had absolutely nothing to do with gender, he talked about every possible thing and made a remark that ‘when you are in the army, do not bring women in any case… Never bring women to the training grounds or to the ATO [Anti-Terrorist Operation – Editor] because everyone will fuck them except you. Mark my words, I’m telling you, you’re young, inexperienced – never take them to the training grounds, because everyone will fuck them except you.”[3]

    The problem of sexual harassment is accompanied by related negative phenomena, such as homophobia and transphobia, with the use of bullying and violent behavior by men against men.

    The existence of sexual harassment cannot be a reason to discourage women from serving in the military, on the grounds of “protection.” Just as sexual harassment in a civilian job is not a reason to discourage women from earning their own money. However, harassment in the military differs from harassment in the office or at work, primarily because it is not as easy to resign from military service on the grounds of harassment as it is from a civilian job. In addition, the lack of resolving this problem can demotivate women who would like to serve in the first place, and the Ukrainian army needs volunteers.

    The appropriate way to solve the problem is to create effective mechanisms to combat harassment, gender-based violence, bullying, sexism, and discrimination in general. A proper, friendly, trusting atmosphere is the key to effective service for both women and men.

    Exposing the issue of sexual harassment and sexual violence to the public cannot delegitimize the entire Ukrainian army, nor can it delegitimize other armies in the world. This is not only my opinion, but also that of Ukrainian society. In 2020, the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology commissioned the Invisible Battalion project to conduct a national representative survey, implemented by the non-governmental organization (NGO) Institute of Gender Programs. According to the survey, 23% of respondents believed that exposing sexual harassment in the army was worthwhile because it was a problem often ignored by the leadership of the Armed Forces; 24% said it was worthwhile because it was perhaps the only way for victims to achieve justice; another 8% said it was worthwhile because discrimination in the Armed Forces exists. Only 17% of respondents believed that publicity can harm the victims, and only 8% explained that publicizing such problems harms the image of the Armed Forces.[4]

    The problem of sexual harassment has also been recognized at the level of the General Staff of Ukraine. Viktoriia Arnautova, Gender Advisor to the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, publicly stated, “The Armed Forces need to recognize as a civilized institution that this phenomenon exists and respond adequately.”[5]

    Sexual Harassment in the Armed Forces in Ukraine and Worldwide

    5 грудня 2024

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    Hanna Hrytsenko

    Hanna Hrytsenko

    sociologist

    Researcher of gender issues and right-wing radicalism, feminist, translator, editor of “Tovaryshka” website.

    The problem of sexual harassment and sexual violence in the military exists in armies around the world. It affects not only women, although women suffer from it more often. American researchers Valerie Stander and Cynthia Thomsen believe that sexual harassment is facilitated by inherent factors of the military structure, such as the acceptance of violence in general, deindividualization, complete subordination to leadership, and the still widespread male dominance in this leadership.[1]

    Other researchers, such as Carl Castro, argue that well-developed stress resilience results in less reports of violence, and that team spirit puts pressure on victims and makes them think that by reporting violence they are “betraying” their team.[2]

    The institutional pre-condition that makes harassment or violence against others possible is a position of power. The army in general is a hierarchical structure, and the higher the person in this hierarchy is, the more opportunities they have to commit violence without consequences. The “glass ceiling” still exists in this area, so top positions in the army are occupied mainly by men.

    Sexual harassment is also part of broader issues such as misogyny, toxic masculinity, gender discrimination, lack of professionalism, and, in the case of the Ukrainian army, the Soviet legacy in professional culture.

    “It was a lieutenant colonel. At a long lecture that had absolutely nothing to do with gender, he talked about every possible thing and made a remark that ‘when you are in the army, do not bring women in any case… Never bring women to the training grounds or to the ATO [Anti-Terrorist Operation – Editor] because everyone will fuck them except you. Mark my words, I’m telling you, you’re young, inexperienced – never take them to the training grounds, because everyone will fuck them except you.”[3]

    The problem of sexual harassment is accompanied by related negative phenomena, such as homophobia and transphobia, with the use of bullying and violent behavior by men against men.

    The existence of sexual harassment cannot be a reason to discourage women from serving in the military, on the grounds of “protection.” Just as sexual harassment in a civilian job is not a reason to discourage women from earning their own money. However, harassment in the military differs from harassment in the office or at work, primarily because it is not as easy to resign from military service on the grounds of harassment as it is from a civilian job. In addition, the lack of resolving this problem can demotivate women who would like to serve in the first place, and the Ukrainian army needs volunteers.

    The appropriate way to solve the problem is to create effective mechanisms to combat harassment, gender-based violence, bullying, sexism, and discrimination in general. A proper, friendly, trusting atmosphere is the key to effective service for both women and men.

    Exposing the issue of sexual harassment and sexual violence to the public cannot delegitimize the entire Ukrainian army, nor can it delegitimize other armies in the world. This is not only my opinion, but also that of Ukrainian society. In 2020, the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology commissioned the Invisible Battalion project to conduct a national representative survey, implemented by the non-governmental organization (NGO) Institute of Gender Programs. According to the survey, 23% of respondents believed that exposing sexual harassment in the army was worthwhile because it was a problem often ignored by the leadership of the Armed Forces; 24% said it was worthwhile because it was perhaps the only way for victims to achieve justice; another 8% said it was worthwhile because discrimination in the Armed Forces exists. Only 17% of respondents believed that publicity can harm the victims, and only 8% explained that publicizing such problems harms the image of the Armed Forces.[4]

    The problem of sexual harassment has also been recognized at the level of the General Staff of Ukraine. Viktoriia Arnautova, Gender Advisor to the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, publicly stated, “The Armed Forces need to recognize as a civilized institution that this phenomenon exists and respond adequately.”[5]

    International experience

    A 2015 study of NATO member states’ armies found that 80% conducted regular training to prevent sexual harassment and violence in the military, and more than 60% had policies formal procedures in place and trained personnel to prevent and record complaints of sexual harassment of women or men.[6]

    Let’s take the U.S. Army as an example. The problem of sexual harassment is monitored by keeping statistics on complaints received and through an annual anonymous survey of gender and workplace relations. The first number is much smaller than the number of those who report harassment anonymously: according to 2012 data, 6% of American female soldiers filed complaints about harassment, and about a quarter of them were harassed. Among men, 1% reported harassment through a complaint, and 10% reported it anonymously. The 2018 data showed similar proportions; however, because the problem had been exposed, the number of complaints increased significantly.

    The American experience emphasizes the importance of preventive work and the important role of the unit commander, who should lead this work, facilitate complaints, and, in general, be responsible for a healthy working atmosphere in the unit. Where the commander is insensitive to the issue of sexual harassment, the risks increase.[7]

    In 2020, the case of Vanessa Guillen, a 20-year-old servicewoman who disappeared while on duty, gained publicity in the United States. She had previously told her family that she was being sexually harassed by a sergeant, that complaints against him by other female victims had been rejected, but that she would solve her problems herself. Two months later, the remains of her body were found. The killer was U.S. Army Specialist Aaron David Robinson; his girlfriend, Cecily Ann Aguilar, helped dismember the body and hide the remains. Robinson shot himself during his arrest, and Aguilar was sentenced to 30 years in prison.[8] The investigation concluded that the murder was a direct result of leadership failure and a climate of indulgence in sexual violence and harassment at the military unit. Fourteen other soldiers were disciplined.[9][10] As a result of the Vanessa Guillen case, sexual harassment was included as an offence in the Uniform Code of Military Justice in 2022.

    Mural in memory of Vanessa Guillen

    In Canada, about a quarter of female service members experience harassment or violence during their careers, while the figure for men is about 4%. About three cases of sexual harassment or violence occur every day. After an independent study published a report on “a culture hostile to women and LGBT+ people in the military,” Canadian servicewomen and veterans filed lawsuits against the Ministry of Defense for two years (2016-2017). Many of them received financial compensation after a court decision. The problem of sexual harassment in the Canadian Armed Forces was declared a threat to national security. The Standing Committee on National Security and Defense of the Senate of Canada believes that a culture of conformity, hierarchy, unquestioning obedience to orders, and placing group interests above individual ones created an atmosphere conducive to sexual harassment and violence. To remedy this situation, it is necessary to influence this culture, not just increase the number of women in the army.[11] Between 2015 and 2021, Operation Honor was conducted to comprehensively study the problem and look for ways to solve it.

    In 2021, 13 high-ranking officers in Canada were simultaneously suspended, investigated, or forced to retire due to inappropriate sexual behavior. The military police did not disclose the cases on its own initiative, but answered questions from journalists.[12]

    Stories from Ukraine

    According to a study by the Research Center for Humanitarian Problems of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (2011), 10% of women and 5% of men (mostly cadets of higher military educational institutions) experienced sexual harassment in the army.[13]

    In 2020, the authors of the study “Invisible Battalion 3.0. Sexual Harassment in the Military in Ukraine” talked to women who had experienced sexual harassment, sexual violence, sexual violence combined with physical violence, etc. There were cases of offenders damaging personal belongings and even using firearms in retaliation for refusing [intimacy – Editor].

    Sometimes, in cases of sexist jokes or other minor conflicts, the perpetrator might not understand why their actions were wrong, even if they had to apologize to the victim at the request of their superiors. Sometimes the victims themselves did not immediately recognize the unpleasant incidents as harassment or sexism, rather than just interpersonal conflicts.

    This brings us to the need for education on gender equality and anti-harassment. The Invisible Battalion project team developed a training course on Gender Equality and Combating Sexual Harassment in the Military, which is publicly available on the Prometheus online education platform.[14] By the beginning of 2023, more than 23,000 people had registered for the course (90% of them received certificates), and the Department of Military Education and Science of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine recommended that higher military educational institutions and military structural units of higher education institutions include the course in their training plans for cadets.

    However, it is obvious that systematic harassment of subordinates, sexual violence, physical abuse, threats, and harassment cannot be interpreted only as a lack of gender education, but also must be punished accordingly. The researches also documented cases, as well as the fact that it is rather futile for victims to expect fair punishment for the offender. As a structure that was not ready before the war in Ukraine to recruit women into combat positions and provide them with uniforms, the army was also not ready to respond to sexual harassment. Such problems were sometimes not resolved, sometimes ended in physical conflict with the offender, and sometimes led to the dismissal of women from the ranks of the Armed Forces, thus reducing the combat capability of the army by one qualified specialist. The mechanism of resolving conflicts by appealing to the commander does not work when the offender is the commander himself. Victims usually did not consider the option of calling the general “hotline” of the Armed Forces of Ukraine because of the non-anonymity of such appeals and, accordingly, the risk of worsening their situation.

    At the time of the study, only one case of sexual harassment was known when the victim decided to speak publicly and name the offender. In 2018, Lieutenant Valeriia Sikal reported long-term systematic harassment by Colonel Viktor Ivaniv. She stated that when she was serving in military unit A1358, the head of the unit, using his official position, repeatedly tried to force her to have sex. The Main Department of the National Police in Vinnytsia Oblast opened a case of coercion to sexual intercourse. As of early 2024, a verdict had not been reached in the case, and Colonel Ivanov was temporarily promoted and transferred to the Ministry of Defense.[15]

    Among the cases that came to the research team’s attention, sexual harassment was most often perpetrated by higher-ranking individuals and without witnesses; most often, men harassed women, although this was not the only possible scenario. Most of the victims did not tell anyone about the sexual harassment and did not seek help; the project researchers were often the first people to whom the victims confided. If any witnesses were present during the harassment, they usually supported the offender or remained neutral, either by not intervening or by declaring that they could not influence the situation. Women, usually, were not offenders themselves, but they did not always support the offended.

    Illustration to the study ‘Invisible Battalion 3.0. Sexual Harassment in the Military Sphere in Ukraine’

    After the study was published and the topic was brought to the public’s attention, servicewomen began to talk more about this problem. In 2021, Lieutenant Colonel Olha Derkach, an employee of the Chernihiv Regional Conscription and Social Support Center, stated that she had been harassed by her supervisor, Colonel Oleksandr Kryvoruchko, the regional military commissar. As in the case of Valeriia Sikal, a verdict in the criminal case has not yet been delivered.[16]

    Valeriia Sikal and Olha Derkach

    There have also been public statements in which victims did not name their perpetrators but shared their stories. Servicewoman Iryna Bazykina reported to the media that she had suffered sexual and physical violence. After a year of investigation, no criminal offense was found in the behavior of the perpetrator, and the perpetrator absolved himself by saying that “she likes hard sex.”[17]

    In a podcast by the Women Veterans Movement published in early 2024, Svitlana, an aerial reconnaissance officer, shared her story, “I literally got into a fight or a struggle with an officer, a commander, but those people whom I considered friends in that unit, they just left, they came out to let the commander have a good time.”[18]

    Communications officer and simultaneous interpreter Nadiya Haran went further and spoke about sexual harassment in the Armed Forces to the British newspaper The Guardian.[19] According to her, she left her unit because of a commander who harassed female subordinates and told them that if they refused to have sex with him, he would send their husbands, who were also his subordinates, to their deaths. The problem was brought into the international spotlight by Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar, who promised to personally respond to the statements.[20] It was not possible to verify her promise because she was dismissed from her post a month later.

    Commenting on sexist jokes by a soldier in the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade, the Women Veterans Movement claims that “every harassment case goes unpunished.”[21]

    Mechanism for responding to sexual harassment and gender-based violence

    In cooperation with the Institute of Gender Programs, the Women Veterans Movement, and the General Staff of Ukraine, the NGO Yurydychna Sotnia worked to develop a mechanism for responding to sexual harassment and gender-based violence in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

    On October 28, 2021, at the Army Built on Trust forum organized by the Land Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Victoria Arnautova, Gender Adviser to the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, presented a draft mechanism for responding to sexual harassment and gender-based violence. 

    Victoriia Arnautova presents a draft mechanism for responding to sexual harassment

    The mechanism envisages that the victim (or survivor) or a person who has observed inappropriate behavior reports it in person, in writing, or by phone to the hotline. A designated body (department of the Office of the Assistant Commander-in-Chief for Gender Integration), a designated person (gender adviser), or a commander receives the report, which is registered immediately. The next day, the affected person is referred for legal, psychological, and medical assistance (in compliance with personal data protection requirements). Following the report’s registration, an internal inspection commission is appointed, chaired by a representative of the designated body, and the same person also ensures the victim is protected from the influence of the offender. Based on the inspection or investigation findings, a decision is made to bring the offender to justice.

    As of the beginning of the full-scale war, the all the commands had agreed to the mechanism, but it was not adopted and no people were appointed to the gender integration unit positions in the Office of the Commander-in-Chief, who were supposed to perform the relevant duties. As of the beginning of 2024, the situation had not changed.

    Current process of actions

    What should a servicewoman or serviceman do if she or he is suffering sexual harassment right now? The YurFem Ukrainian Women Lawyers Association developed memo with general recommendations that does not replace individual legal advice in each case but gives an overall understanding of the next steps in the event of a threatening situation.[22]

    The first step is to ensure one’s own safety (leave the room, involve witnesses, etc.).

    The second step is to record the date, time, and place of the incident; record the position and name of the offender; and collect other information about the situation and evidence.

    The next steps are to get psychological, medical, and legal assistance, after which you can agree on your next steps with a lawyer.

    According to Article 110 of the Disciplinary Statute of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in case of your rights being violated, you can file a complaint with both the command and law enforcement agencies.

    Sexual violence against servicewomen and servicemen is a military crime and is qualified, depending on the position of the offender, under the following articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine: Article 426-1 “Excess of power or official authority by a military official”, Article 406 “Violation of statutory rules of relations between military personnel in the absence of a relationship of subordination”, or Article 405 “Threat or violence against a superior.” You should consult with a lawyer to determine the crime’s exact qualification, correctly prepare an appeal, and decide on the correct addressee of the appeal.

    NGOs such as YurFem, Charity Foundation Sylni, and Yurydychna Sotnia provide assistance to victims, although, based on the experience of Valeria Sikal, Olga Derkach, and Iryna Bazykina, they cannot theoretically nor practically ensure justice, which is the responsibility of the judiciary and law enforcement bodies.

  • Dealing with violence: the sociology and psychology of the phenomenon

    Dealing with violence: the sociology and psychology of the phenomenon

    “I want a twenty-four-hour truce, during which no rapes will occur,” — these words of Andrea Dworkin make us think about the mundaneness of gender-based violence. Can her dream come true and, if so, when will it happen? In this text, we will try to understand the causes of violence against women. What is the basis of violence? What should be the feminist opposition to violence? And feminist psychotherapy for victims of violence? More on this and other things later in this text.

    Theories about violence

    A certain phenomenon can only be eradicated by understanding its essence. Researchers from various disciplines (sociology, psychology, criminology, philosophy, etc.) have repeatedly turned to studying the root causes of violence.

    Sociology, cultural studies, philosophy, research on power and ideology

    The two most famous sociological experiments of the 20th century are connected precisely with the topic of violent behavior. The first is the Milgram experiment: its participants shocked actors with an electric shock, the strength of which was gradually increased, the percentage of refusal and the duration of “passing” were measured. Although there are critical remarks about this experiment (the participants could predict that they would not be allowed to experiment with real violence, and could consider themselves participants in a prank), the results of the experiment shocked both the public and the researcher himself. A similar one is the Stanford prison experiment, in which a prison was simulated, and volunteers played the role of jailers. In both cases, the actual subject of the study was the violent behavior of the participants in the experiment, and both times the following conclusions were made: the situation set by the experimenter, which inclines the subject to commit violence, affects the behavior of the individual more than his personal qualities. These experiments were a kind of breakthrough in understanding the topic, because until then the problem of violence was considered from a moralistic position, as a manifestation of some malignancy of the individual who commits this violence.

    In the further development of Western sociological and philosophical thought, the works of Louis Althusser are important, who contributed to the theory of the concept of “ideology”. In the context of the topic of violence, we are interested in his statement that any power apparatus and its practices always materially embody some system of ideas, and therefore, the system of power relations and the set of ideas in the minds of individuals who belong to this system of relations do not exist separately from each other, but on the contrary, they are directly related.

    Later, sociologist Johan Galtung introduced the concept of “structural violence”, distinguishing it from “personal” by the absence of a subject who commits violence, instead its causes are structural (economic or political). This does not necessarily have to be a targeted oppression through the imposition of unjust rules – structural violence can be a consequence of the general imperfection of the system of relations. A category of the population that systematically suffers from hunger and disease is a victim of structural violence.

    This same approach is implemented in the classic works on the sociology of violence – the studies of Michel Foucault. Considering power as something inherent not only to certain social institutions, but also rooted in the minds of members of society, Foucault shifts the emphasis from subjects who exercise power over certain objects to the social relations themselves, which are the bearers of power. Foucault writes about prisons and hospitals as institutions that exercise power and punishment, and notes that these models are internalized by the consciousness of the punished or patient, and that the very notions of norm and abnormality are conditioned by the social context. In particular, at the Salpêtrière hospital, he says, it was common to observe insane women who “in none of the periods of their illness showed any distortion of the ability to understand and were possessed only by a peculiar instinct of violence, as if only their emotional faculties were affected.”[1] This quote vividly illustrates the patriarchal prohibition on women from resisting and generally showing any aggression. Similarly, Pierre Bourdieu introduced the concept of symbolic violence as an attribute of power[2] — the latter imposes meanings that are beneficial to it on the subjugated. Thus, the system of power relations is perceived as legitimate and is not perceived as such that it can be changed.

    Thus, violence in modern sociology and political philosophy is considered as a systemic phenomenon, one of the sources of which is social relations. All these theoretical approaches are easily applied to the concept of patriarchy and gender-based violence as its indispensable component. Overcoming patriarchy and moving to a feminist utopia without violence and discrimination is possible if we realize how this system of violence is constructed.

    One of the latest sociological works is “Violence: A Micro-Sociological Theory” by Randall Collins. In this fundamental work, the author examines the micro-level of more than thirty different types of violence, including domestic violence, and analyzes the scenarios in which conflicts occur. Among the forms of partner violence, Collins distinguishes short-term gender-symmetrical violence and long-term male-dominated violence.

    “The difference between casual intimate partner violence and serious abusive relationships is that the former type of confrontation is directed towards protected, limited violence; whereas the latter develops into a pattern of situational tension and sudden release of tension, leading to violent over-acceleration of panic or prolonged use of torture.”[3]

    Psychology

    The structure of social relations does not deprive the individual of free will, and behind each act of violence lies the responsibility of an adult capable person. Therefore, it is important to consider not only the structural, but also the individual level of violence. Psychological research throughout the existence of this science has sought keys to understanding the behavior of victims and aggressors.

    The study of “female hysteria” and the very concept of psychotherapeutic work with psychological problems arose in the 19th century in the works of Jean-Martin Charcot, and then Sigmund Freud[4]. The latter established a connection between childhood psychological trauma and psychological problems in adulthood. However, it is believed that he could not believe the scale of sexual violence against children and women that he discovered, so he renounced his previous theories, and the new explanations he proposed were unsuccessful. However, the work of Freud and his followers laid the foundation for healing psychological difficulties, and psychotherapy emerged and became an increasingly accessible service.

    A patient of Freud’s colleague Josef Breuer, Anna O. (Bertha Pappenheim), was a prominent activist of her time. Her personal resistance to the violence she experienced turned into a long-term political struggle against the abuse of women and girls, and she founded shelters and feminist organizations.[5] From the mid-twentieth century, psychoanalysis began to acquire a feminist dimension. Notable here are Nancy Chodorow, who in her study “The Reproduction of Motherhood” analyzes the mechanism of reproduction of gender-role differences in Western society, and Juliet Mitchell, whose work “Psychoanalysis and Feminism” radically reevaluated the classical version of psychoanalysis.

    Among the modern psychological theories, the most interesting in the context of violence, it is worth mentioning the conclusion that the behavior of the aggressor or the victim can be similar and repetitive. Eric Berne’s research indicates that one of the prerequisites for the repetition of a certain situation (not necessarily violent) is scripted behavior, that is, one that is reproduced according to the same scenario with different people. Knowledge of this reproducibility has brought to psychotherapy the opportunity for the client to get out of the scenario and form new, more constructive ways of behaving. This concept is further developed by the concept of the Karpman triangle – a psychological and social model of human interaction, which assumes that there are three roles in the system of relationships: “Victim”, “Persecutor” and “Rescuer”, and they dynamically replace each other (more on this later)[6].

    Psychologists began to examine the topic of violence and its consequences more closely during and after the Vietnam War, which coincided with the second wave of feminism. Feminists also redefined rape as an act of violence and political control, and surveys have shown the enormous scale of its prevalence.[7] Notable works on this topic include Judith Herman’s books Trauma and the Road to Recovery and Parent-Daughter Incest. They are based on the author’s long-standing work with victims of sexual and domestic violence and present the theory of psychological trauma and the practice of trauma psychotherapy from a feminist perspective. Psychologist Lundy Bancroft, in his book Why He Does It, summarizes his work with men who commit domestic violence. In his view, the problem lies primarily with men and it is they who are responsible for ending domestic violence. The humiliation of a partner, writes Bancroft, is not the result of the dynamics of the relationship, and changing her behavior or trying to better understand her partner does not lead to changes for the better. He insists that in this case it is men who need to adjust, and not their emotions, but their behavior and value system.[8] Michael Kaufman agrees, introducing the concept of the triad of male violence as a set of violence against women, violence against men and violence against themselves. Kaufman recognizes aggression as a toxic part of masculinity, built into the structure of the male psyche by society and upbringing, and suggests getting rid of it.[9]

    Robin Norwood’s book “Women Who Love Too Much” also gained popularity, although it eventually earned a negative reputation among feminists as one that (along with the activities of the author’s support group) caused malignant changes in the lives of affected women.[10] Norwood recognizes the prevalence of the problem of violence and saw its causes in the psyche of women, who, in her opinion, are too dependent on men. The self-help program, developed on the basis of the “twelve steps” program of the Alcoholics Anonymous movement, proposed to change only one’s own perception of oneself as a victim. However, a man, unlike a bottle, is a subject, not an object, ignoring his responsibility for violence and refusing to actively try to demand better treatment from him is not an adequate response to the problem. The woman who attended Norwood’s self-help program remained passive as before, but now she was also strengthened in this passivity ideologically.

  • Harassment in Sports: How the Larry Nassar Case Triggered an Avalanche of Testimonies and Convictions

    Atlanta 1996. I’d long wanted to rewatch those Olympic Games — my first viewing, when I was only three years old, had long faded from memory. Then, during the quarantine, the Olympic Channel decided to delight fans by uploading full recordings of the Games on YouTube, including gymnastics — which, in my personal universe of priorities, is a definite must watch. Not only because of our own Lilia Podkopayeva, but also because of the Magnificent Seven, as the U.S. women’s gymnastics team was famously called.

    Even knowing in advance who won the team final, I still got immense joy from those old broadcasts — until the very last vault. That was when I remembered what would happen next, and who would inevitably appear on screen. In a moment, Kerri Strug would injure her leg, and team doctor Larry Nassar would rush to her aid.
    The same doctor who would later be exposed as a pedophile, who had already been abusing gymnasts — even back then, in the 1990s.

    Trainer Martha Karoli (second from right) and doctor Larry Nassar help the injured Kerry off the platform.
    Trainer Martha Karoli (second from right) and doctor Larry Nassar help the injured Kerry off the platform.

    It was the first of four Olympic Games where Larry Nassar worked with the U.S. gymnastics team. His abuse went unpunished for two decades after Atlanta — and had already been happening for almost ten years before it.

    In 2017–2018, Nassar was convicted of possession of child pornography (60 years in prison) and of ten counts of sexual assault against minors — receiving 175 years for seven of them and an additional 40 to 125 years for the remaining three. The “ten” counts refer only to the official verdict. In reality, as of early 2020, Nassar had raped at least 517 girls and women over the span of three decades — those who found the courage to come forward.

    On June 24, Netflix released a documentary about this largest harassment case in sports history, titled “Athlete A.” The previous year, HBO had released another documentary on the topic — “At the Heart of Gold: Inside the USA Gymnastics Scandal.”

    The Nassar case was not the first, nor the only one — but it became a turning point. At the very least, public discussion and awareness of harassment in sports grew dramatically. Real systemic change will still take time, but the fact that the athletic community is now breaking the silence, acknowledging the problem, and ruthlessly (though not always consistently) removing abusers is already a major step forward.

    According to ChildHelp statistics,[1] 40–50% of athletes experience some form of abuse, and 2–8% face sexual abuse. Research by the Council of Europe within the Start to Talk initiative[2], aimed at protecting children from violence in sports, shows that one in five children experiences sexual harassment. Meanwhile, data from INSPQ[3] indicate that 98% of child harassment cases are committed by coaches, teachers, or instructors.

    Causes: An Atmosphere of Fear and Manipulation

    Undoubtedly, the number one cause is the perpetrator. But why is sports such a fertile ground for their abuse?

    First of all, because the word “violence” is still often used almost interchangeably with the word “sport.” This is especially true in elite sports, where constant competition, pressure, and the chase for medals prevail. When athletes live under constant emotional and physical strain, they become accustomed to it and may no longer recognize it as harmful.
    Yelling, insults, and physical blows are still treated as “normal” — a supposed part of “discipline.” While the global sports world is trying to move away from such methods, they remain widespread across post-Soviet countries, where coaches who began their careers in the USSR — or those trained in that system — still dominate. Progressive voices advocating for change remain a small minority.

    Sexual abuse is often preceded by psychological and physical abuse. The perpetrators may not always be the same people, but a climate of anxiety, fear, and normalization of pain creates the perfect ground for adding yet another layer of harassment — another “sacrifice on the altar of sport” in the pursuit of Olympic glory.

    Another reason is isolation and lack of awareness.
    Athletes spend most of their time inside a closed “sports bubble” — surrounded by people who share the same routines, beliefs, and norms. This community develops its own version of “normal,” and unless someone steps outside that bubble and compares experiences, they may not even realize that what they consider ordinary others see as toxic.

    Children are the most vulnerable in this environment. Many simply don’t know what sexual abuse is because no one has ever explained it to them. From an early age, young athletes get used to the idea that their bodies don’t belong to them — everyone touches them, whether they want it or not: parents, relatives, coaches, doctors. Some of these touches can be painful or uncomfortable, making it difficult for a child to distinguish between what’s medically necessary and what’s inappropriate.
    Only now is society beginning to understand the importance of sexual education and respect for personal boundaries, especially when it comes to children.

    And one of the main reasons: respect — and fear — of authority.
    For many, going against a coach or a senior official is unthinkable. The old mentality of “the coach is the law” still dominates. Their authority is rarely questioned, and they are often supported by other influential colleagues.

    However, abusers are not always openly aggressive. A common manipulative tactic is “grooming” — masking abuse behind care and affection. Such individuals can appear kind, attentive, and charming: they flatter their athletes, bring treats forbidden by other coaches, joke with them, show interest in their lives, and win the trust of parents. This duality confuses children and teens, leading them to doubt their own perceptions: “Maybe they’re not that bad — maybe I misunderstood.”
    And for outsiders, it becomes even harder to believe that such a seemingly kind and friendly person could be capable of violence.

    All these factors appear again and again in almost every new case of harassment in sports.
    And revisiting these stories — starting with Larry Nassar — is necessary.
    Netflix, surely, won’t mind the reminder.

    “How Much Is a Little Girl Worth?” — A Turning Point in Gymnastics

    Larry Nassar took root in sports medicine early in his career — in 1978. Over the years, he rose to become chief physician of the U.S. women’s gymnastics team, which he joined in 1986, and worked as an osteopathic doctor at Michigan State University (MSU) and other athletic clubs and schools. For 18 years (until 2014), he served as the national medical coordinator for USA Gymnastics (USAG) — the governing body for artistic, rhythmic, acrobatic, trampoline, and other gymnastics disciplines. In other words, Nassar had access to and influence over the entire medical system of American gymnastics.

    Most of his assaults took place either in his office or at his home, where he offered some athletes “private treatments.” During competitions — including the Olympic Games — he would invite gymnasts to his hotel room. After performing legitimate medical procedures, Nassar would proceed to what he called his “special treatment methods”: inserting his fingers into their vaginas and anuses, touching their breasts, masturbating in the corner or even in front of the athletes. He often managed to assault girls in the presence of their parents, positioning himself so they could not see exactly what parts of the body he was touching.

    Reports of Nassar’s abuse — both oral and written — had been sent to USAG leadership and individual clubs for decades, but action was only taken after 2015, when Sarah Jantzi, coach of gymnast Maggie Nichols, filed a formal complaint. Jantzi overheard her student discussing Nassar’s “treatments” with a friend and later discovered that the doctor had been sending Maggie inappropriate messages and compliments about her appearance.

    That report finally led to Nassar’s dismissal from USA Gymnastics. Michigan State University followed suit only in 2016, after the allegations gained national attention.

    Larry Nassar in court

    “1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2004, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 — these are the years when we spoke out about Larry Nassar’s abuse.”

    That’s how Olympic champion Aly Raisman began her speech when she and other survivors received the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the ESPYs. Later it became known that reports had been filed even before 1997.

    “All those years, we were told: ‘You’re mistaken. You misunderstood. He’s a doctor. It’s normal. Don’t worry, everything’s under control…’ The greatest tragedy of this nightmare is that it could have been prevented. Predators thrive on silence… All we needed was one adult — just one decent adult — brave enough to stand between us and Larry Nassar,” Raisman said.

    The voice that was finally heard belonged to Rachael Denhollander — a lawyer and former gymnast who, in September 2016, told her story to The Indianapolis Star. Alongside her was the anonymous “Athlete A,” who later turned out to be Maggie Nichols. Their testimonies became the basis of the documentary “Athlete A.”

    Nassar began abusing Denhollander when she was 15. She had come to him for treatment of back pain.

    “Each time I lay on that table, trying to make sense of what was happening, I knew three things,” she said in court.
    “First, it was clear Larry did this regularly. Second, I was certain that some women and girls must have reported him to MSU or USAG officials. Third, I believed that if they knew what he was doing and hadn’t stopped him, then his treatment must have been legitimate. The problem had to be me, I thought. So I kept lying still. I didn’t know it then, but I was right about the first two.”

    In 2016, Denhollander not only spoke publicly but also filed a police report with extensive documentation: legal analyses of Michigan statutes, medical evidence of how pelvic floor therapy should actually be performed (a procedure Nassar used as cover), witness statements, expert lists, and personal journals describing her trauma — which Nassar himself read as part of the case file.

    “Did the leadership of USA Gymnastics and MSU expect this level of preparation from children before believing them?” the article asked rhetorically.

    Even this wasn’t enough for Michigan State University to take the accusations seriously — the institution initially sided with Nassar. One physician, Brooke Lemmen, testified in his defense, claiming there had been no penetration and suggesting the girl had “misinterpreted what happened,” saying:

    “When you’re 15, you think everything between your legs is your vagina.”

    Similar responses were given to other girls who tried to report the abuse.

    Three months after Denhollander’s story broke, Nassar was arrested. The FBI later found over 37,000 child pornography images and videos in his home — including footage of himself assaulting minors.

    Over the following year, more and more athletes came forward to share their traumatic experiences — and to expose the complicity of USA Gymnastics and MSU, which had ignored the abuse happening under their watch.

    Nassar wasn’t the only predator protected by USA Gymnastics. The organization had ignored complaints about William McCabe and over 50 other coaches. Some weren’t even banned — they continued working with children. McCabe was finally arrested in 2016, after a gymnast’s mother reported him directly to the FBI.

    Olympic champion McKayla Maroney revealed that USA Gymnastics paid her $1.25 million to keep silent about years of abuse by Nassar.

    “It started when I was 13 or 14,” Maroney wrote in her victim statement.
    “It seemed like whenever and wherever he had the chance, he ‘treated’ me — in London before we won Olympic gold, before I earned silver there. The worst night of my life was when I was 15. We were flying to Tokyo, and he gave me a sleeping pill for the flight. The next thing I remember, I woke up alone with him in his hotel room — and he was ‘treating’ me. I thought I was going to die that night…
    People need to understand that sexual violence doesn’t happen only in Hollywood or Congress — it happens everywhere. It seems that wherever there’s power, there’s potential for abuse. I dreamed of the Olympics, but what I had to endure to get there was unjustifiable and disgusting.”

    When court hearings began in January and February 2018, the number of survivors wishing to speak skyrocketed. Instead of the planned 88 statements, the court heard 204 testimonies over nine days — some in person, others in writing.

    Many said they found the courage to speak after watching the first brave women confront Nassar in court. One mother read a statement on behalf of her daughter, who had taken her own life after years of depression and trauma. Another father asked the judge for permission to have “five minutes alone in a locker room with this demon” before attempting to lunge at Nassar — stopped only by security.

    After one particularly emotional day, Nassar asked the court to stop hearing testimonies, claiming they were “too hard to listen to” and accusing the judge of turning the process into “a media circus.”
    Judge Rosemarie Aquilina denied his request.

    The last to speak was Rachael Denhollander, whose rhetorical question became symbolic of the entire trial:

    “How much is a little girl worth?”

    “When Larry was sexually aroused — when he found pleasure in our pain — his actions were evil and wrong,” she said.
    “I ask you to render a judgment that shows what happened to us matters. That we are worth everything — the fullest protection the law can give.”

    Rachel Dengollander after her final court appearance

    Consequences of the Nassar Case: Legal Reforms and an Overburdened System

    The punishment of Larry Nassar himself did not mark the end of the case. Lawsuits flooded in against USA Gymnastics (USAG), the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC), the Twistars Gymnastics Club, and Michigan State University (MSU). The entire leadership of USAG — including President Steve Penny — resigned (albeit reluctantly, under pressure from the USOC), as did MSU President Lou Anna Simon. Penny was later arrested on charges of evidence tampering, while Simon faced charges of providing false information to police.

    USAG also suspended John Geddert, head coach of the 2012 Olympic team and owner of Twistars — a close friend of Nassar, known for his aggressive and abusive training methods. One gymnast testified that Geddert once witnessed one of Nassar’s “treatments” but simply left the room after making a joke.

    In 2018, the Karolyi Ranch — the U.S. women’s gymnastics national training center founded by Béla and Márta Károlyi in 1981 — was shut down. It was there, many athletes later said, that the conditions most conducive to Nassar’s abuse were created. Parents were forbidden access, gymnasts lived under a climate of fear and bullying, trained through injuries, and developed eating disorders due to extreme dietary restrictions. Trust was nonexistent. Many survivors claimed that the Károlyis knew about Nassar’s actions, though the couple denied all allegations. Investigations into their role are still ongoing.

    The biggest systemic change came with the passage of the Protecting Young Victims from Sexual Abuse and Safe Sport Authorization Act of 2017. The law requires sports organizations to report all suspected abuse directly to law enforcement and led to the creation of the U.S. Center for SafeSport, an independent body tasked with investigating and preventing emotional, physical, and sexual abuse in American sports. The center also develops training programs and educational materials on athlete safety.

    However, the initiative quickly revealed serious underfunding issues. SafeSport receives an average of 230 new complaints per month, but lacks the staff and resources to handle them all. With a team of 40 employees — 24 dedicated to case management — the center was handling 1,200 active investigations as of early 2020. SafeSport’s first CEO, Shellie Pfohl, resigned in 2019, citing inadequate funding. Her successor, Ju’Riese Colón, continues the work.

    As of 2019, SafeSport’s annual budget was $11.3 million, twice what it started with, funded primarily by the USOC and national sports federations. This dependence has raised questions about its true independence, since SafeSport is tasked with investigating the very organizations that finance it. The only government funds it receives are small grants for educational initiatives.

    In its first three years, SafeSport sanctioned over 600 individuals accused of various forms of abuse. Yet these numbers don’t reflect the full picture — in several cases, courts overturned or reduced lifetime bans, including those against figure skating coach Richard Callaghan, taekwondo athletes Jean and Steven Lopez, and weightlifter Colin Burns.

    Meanwhile, investigations into the institutions that enabled Nassar have dragged on. In February 2020, the USOC and USAG offered $215 million in settlements to Nassar’s survivors in exchange for dropping lawsuits — a move that would effectively shield both organizations and individuals like Penny and the Károlyis from liability. Gymnasts including Simone Biles and Aly Raisman condemned the proposal as an attempt to bury accountability ahead of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics (later postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic).

    A 2019 U.S. Senate report by Jerry Moran and Richard Blumenthal concluded that the FBI, USOC, USAG, and MSU had all the necessary evidence to stop Nassar at least a year before his arrest. The report also proposed new legislation to expand protections for athletes, empower Congress to dissolve the USOC and Paralympic Committee if necessary, and increase SafeSport funding to $20 million per year — a measure still under consideration.

    Moran and Blumenthal with gymnasts at a press conference on athlete protection

    The campaign for its adoption is now being actively led by three-time Olympic swimming champion and human rights advocate Nancy Hogshead-Makar, who herself survived rape at the age of 19. Today, the former athlete heads the organization Champion Women, which advocates for safe sport, gender equality, and the elimination of discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community. Hogshead-Makar supported the creation of SafeSport and collaborates with Child USA, which fights against child abuse.

    In general, according to the SafeSport database, at the time of writing, 1,235 sports professionals had been temporarily or permanently suspended for various forms of abuse. The most bans are in gymnastics (227), swimming (186), and hockey (117). And if the imbalance in cases of violence committed by men surprises or unsettles you, note that in gymnastics, where there are the most cases, 219 of the suspended individuals are men and only 8 are women. This is partly because the vast majority of coaches and sports administrators are still men. According to the International Olympic Committee, at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, 89% of accredited coaches were men.

    SafeSport’s rulings date back to the early 1980s and apply only to the United States. It is also important to note that professional sports leagues such as the NBA/WNBA and the NFL are not under the center’s jurisdiction.

    Other cases: inspired by the fall of untouchables

    The example set by American gymnasts and the #MeToo movement, which peaked during the Nassar trial, inspired other athletes to speak out about the violence they had experienced.

    For Belarusian four-time Olympic champion of the 1970s Olga Korbut, this became a reason to speak again about how her coach Renald Knysh raped her. Korbut first spoke about it in 1999, saying she had felt like a “sex slave.” She was supported by gymnasts Halyna Chesnovska and Liudmyla Riabkova, who were also harassed by the same coach. In an interview with Radio Svoboda, they recalled that after training, Knysh would drive the girls home, and the one he left for last he would take into the forest and rape. During training sessions, he often made sexually suggestive jokes and showed porn magazines and sex toys. They said that everyone knew about it and called them “Knysh’s harem,” but nothing was done to stop it. The girls didn’t tell their parents because they felt ashamed, and the coach was considered an authority figure — if they wanted to compete, they had to obey. Knysh, who died last year, called the accusations slander but also said that it was “natural” for gymnasts to be “fond of their coach” and that each “wants to become his lover or wife.”

    Ukrainian Olympic champion and gymnast Tetiana Hutsu, who now lives in the United States, also spoke out about abuse. According to her, in 1991, when she was 15, the then 19-year-old Belarusian Vitaly Scherbo raped her in a hotel room and ordered her not to tell anyone. Tetiana said that she tried to talk to Vitaly about the incident in 2012 but did not receive an apology. Scherbo sued Hutsu for defamation, arguing that “the greatest athlete in the history of sports” could not be “so mentally unstable and insane as to do such a thing.” The conflict ended with Hutsu and Scherbo agreeing not to comment on each other in the media.

    Former American football coach Jerry Sandusky is serving a sentence for at least 45 cases of sexual abuse of underage boys. This story occurred before Nassar’s and is very similar to it. Sandusky’s victims were participants in The Second Mile — a charity organization he founded at Pennsylvania State College to support underprivileged teenagers and, according to its slogan, to give them “hope.” Even Sandusky’s own son was among the victims. As in the Nassar case, reports about incidents began surfacing long before a full investigation — as early as 1998 — but the university’s leadership covered them up. Later statements revealed that the abuse had been happening since the 1960s. Sandusky was imprisoned only in 2012. He has never admitted his guilt and has tried to obtain a retrial.

    Sandusky image removed from university mural

    A series of harassment allegations has also reached the U.S. national swimming team. Last week, six more athletes filed lawsuits against USA Swimming, claiming that the federation’s leadership knew about the abuse by former coaches and did nothing to stop them. The swimmers said they had experienced harassment from Mitch Ivey and Everett Uchiyama — both already removed by the federation but still free — and from Andrew King, who is currently serving a prison sentence for pedophilia. Suzette Moran stated that the abuse by Ivey began when she was 12, and shortly before the 1984 Olympic trials, the 17-year-old Suzette became pregnant by her coach, who forced her to have an abortion. Years of rape led to depression, panic attacks, and destroyed her love for swimming. Earlier, coach Sean Hutchison received a lifetime ban from USA Swimming after being accused of harassment by world champion Ariana Kukors Smith.

    Although American cases often become the most high-profile and make global headlines, the problem is by no means limited to the United States. Shortly after the first public statements about Nassar’s abuse, the issue of child sexual violence emerged in British football. The scenario was the same: it had been happening for a long time, at least since the 1970s. Thanks to the large number of people who came forward to tell the truth, within a year and a half 300 coaches and scouts suspected of abuse were identified across 340 football clubs in the country. In total, 12 people were imprisoned. Michael Carson committed suicide before his trial began.

    New accusations were brought against coach Barry Bennell, who worked with youth teams at Crewe Alexandra and Manchester City and had already served three prison terms in the United States and the United Kingdom for raping minors. Colleagues called him a “star maker” and admired his ability to spot potential football talents. Bennell, meanwhile, exploited the dreams of young players, promising that “relationships” with him would help their careers. More than a hundred boys suffered from his abuse.

    Continuing with football: last year, FIFA permanently banned the president of the Afghanistan Football Federation, Keramuddin Karim, from all football-related activities. This was due to sexual harassment, physical violence, and threats against members of the women’s national team — in addition to the already deeply negative societal attitudes toward women who play football. Many athletes were afraid to speak out about what was happening, as extramarital sexual contact in Afghanistan can be punishable by death. Moreover, Karim threatened to kill their relatives and spread rumors that they were lesbians, which is also extremely dangerous in that country. The athletes reported the abuse anonymously to The Guardian, fearing for their families’ safety. They also said that Karim had a secret room at the federation’s training base where he lured female players, and which could only be opened with his fingerprints.

    Heads also rolled in figure skating — particularly in the French national team. At the end of last year, suspicions arose that world championship medalist Morgan Ciprès had harassed a minor skater who trained on the same rink. The girl and her parents said that the French skater sent her photos of his penis (according to USA Today journalists who reviewed the messages, the photos came from Ciprès’s verified Instagram account), while coaches John Zimmerman and Silvia Fontana intimidated the girl, urging her to stay silent because Ciprès and his partner Vanessa James were preparing for the Olympics. They also blamed the victim, saying she was “a pretty girl, and men have needs.” Moreover, the girl’s parents said that another coach, Vinny Dispenza, forced her and another student to message Ciprès asking him to send intimate photos in exchange for pizza from Dispenza himself.

    The scandal also led to the resignation of Didier Gailhaguet, the controversial president of the French Figure Skating Federation, who had previously been involved in corruption scandals. Gailhaguet called Ciprès’s actions “stupid” and later resigned over his own misconduct. It later emerged that Gailhaguet had for years covered up sexual abuse by coach Gilles Beyer. Among Beyer’s victims were Hélène Godard and world championship medalist Sarah Abitbol, who wrote about the abuse in her autobiography. Both were minors at the time.

    Last year, after a wave of reports about numerous cases of abuse — especially in short track — South Korea launched a large-scale investigation into sexual harassment in sports. Two-time Olympic champion Shim Suk-hee and several other short track skaters accused Cho Jae-beom and other coaches of sexual and physical violence. Cho was sentenced to 18 months in prison for assaulting Shim but denies the rape allegations. “If I criticize my coach, my career is over. If I accuse him of crimes, I won’t get into university or a professional team. That’s how it works,” an anonymous athlete explained in an interview with CNN. Olympic short track champion Lim Hyo-jun was found guilty of sexual harassment, and a month ago, Olympic judo silver medalist Wang Ki-chun was arrested.

    The Beginning of Change: Breaking the Silence in Ukraine

    And what about Ukraine? For a long time, it seemed that there was complete silence about sexual harassment in Ukrainian sports. Yet a significant — if grim — step forward came with a recent scandal in the climbing federation. Not because it was positive, of course, but because people finally began to speak publicly, pointing out problems and naming those responsible.

    Last year, climber Pavlo Vekla stated that when he was a minor, he had been harassed for years by his coach Artur Pechiy. “In Germany, children are taught in school what pedophilia is. And if there’s even the slightest hint — they go to their parents and file a police report,” said Pavlo, who now lives in Germany. “Unfortunately, in Ukraine, it’s different. I only learned the word many years later, when I was already at university.”

    At the beginning of 2020, Vekla was supported by his teammates — seven athletes, including team leaders Danyil Boldyrev and Yevheniia Kazbekova. They collected testimonies[14] in which they described in detail their experiences working with the coach and succeeded in having him fully dismissed from the federation, where he had remained vice president and continued coaching even after his official suspension from coaching activities.

    Pechiy’s students experienced psychological abuse, blackmail, restrictions on personal life, extortion, inappropriate training loads, and neglect of safety regulations that led to injuries. According to Fedir Samoilov, Pechiy massaged boys and touched their genitals “because it was more convenient for him,” or “inserted a finger into their anus.” He also “asked the boys ten times a day when and how often they masturbated,” gave them advice on how to do it, and described how he did it himself. Samoilov had previously supported the coach but changed his opinion after re-evaluating his experience and publicly apologized to Pavlo Vekla.

    Climbers had reported Pechiy’s behavior to the coaching council earlier — back in 2013 — but according to Vekla, “they were only laughed at.” Pechiy himself, predictably, called it all lies and a publicity stunt and filed a counterclaim.

    After all these stories, it may seem that sport is an all-powerful evil and a source of inevitable danger. The problem is indeed far from being solved: such a deeply entrenched system is difficult to dismantle in a year or even several years, no matter how powerful the effect of these sporting “Weinsteins.” Moreover, trust in law enforcement remains weak, and not all parts of society are mature enough to discuss and take this issue seriously.

    However, it is important that — however slowly — we are beginning not only to see this problem but also to understand and respond to it. The only way to protect ourselves and our children who play sports is to speak out. Speak about our own experiences, speak about the experiences of others. Overcome discomfort and talk to children about their bodies. Overcome fear and shame and talk about the violence we have experienced or witnessed. Support the broad implementation of sexual education in society.

    Ukraine does not yet have its own equivalent of SafeSport, but regardless of the field in which violence occurs, you can contact the police or civil society organizations specializing in this issue, such as La Strada Ukraine.