NEW YORK: Sima Bahous, the executive director of UN Women, warned the Security Council on Monday that the trauma experienced by Ukrainian women and children since the start of the war in the country could blight a generation.
In particular she highlighted allegations of rape and other sexual violence, along with the risk of human trafficking, as she called for an independent investigation in an attempt to ensure the perpetrators face justice.
“Young women who left their homes at night, families who are separated, the constant fear of the future — this trauma risks destroying a generation,” Bahous said as she urged the international community to continue its efforts to provide support for civilians in Ukraine and advance the cause of peace.
“The combination of mass displacement with the large presence of conscripts and mercenaries, and the brutality displayed against Ukrainian civilians, has raised all red flags.”
Bahous was speaking during a meeting of the Security Council requested by the US and Albania to discuss the effects of the war on women and children, particularly in terms of education and the political participation of women.
The meeting was chaired by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, the UK minister of state for South Asia, North Africa, the UN and the Commonwealth, and the British prime minister’s special representative on preventing sexual violence in conflict. The UK holds the rotating presidency of the Security Council this month.
Monday’s meeting took place amid concerns about the plight of civilians following the intensification of hostilities in the eastern Donbas region and the Khersonska, Kharkivska and Dnipropetrovska oblasts, or administrative districts.
UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Monday that heavy fighting and airstrikes on government- and nongovernment-controlled areas in Luhansk Oblast have destroyed critical water and electricity infrastructure and health facilities, leaving millions of civilians without access to life-saving services and aid.
Meanwhile, Bahous shared with the Security Council the experiences of “exhausted, anxious, fearful” women and children she met during her recent visit to Moldova, which is hosting about 100,000 Ukrainian refugees, the vast majority of whom are women, children or elderly.
She said the risk of human trafficking is growing as the situation becomes more desperate, with young women and unaccompanied teenagers particularly at risk.
Despite all of the horrors and danger, she added, female employees of humanitarian organizations and other aid and support services for women continue to work tirelessly and play a vital role in tending to the needs of the most vulnerable in the country.
“Women make up 80 per cent of all health and social workers in Ukraine and many of them chose not to evacuate,” Bahous said.
“We have seen members of parliament continue to fulfill their duties (while) bombs fell around Kyiv. And we have seen the deputy prime minister engaged in the humanitarian response. I have seen Ukrainian women refugees in Moldova working in the shelters and taking on roles to support each other.”
She called on the Security Council to “continue to use all avenues for peace.” Lamenting the fact that Ukrainian women are largely absent from any ongoing negotiations, Bahous called on the Security Council and all UN member states and humanitarian partners to ensure the participation of women and girls, including members of marginalized groups, in all decision-making, peace, diplomacy and humanitarian efforts.
“Without this, we will not have peace, development or human security,” she said.
Manuel Fontaine, the director of UNICEF’s Office of Emergency Programs, who visited Ukraine last week, said that in his three-decade career in the humanitarian sector he has never seen “so much damage caused in so little time.”
He said at least 142 children are known to have been killed and 229 injured during the war but added that the true numbers are likely to be much higher.
Fontaine condemned the “unconscionable” attack on Kramatorsk railway station on Friday while civilians were waiting to board trains and flee the area. It caused at least 50 deaths and injured 100 people. Fontaine said it was only one of many incidents in which there was a blatant disregard for the lives of civilians. Many of the members of the Security Council also condemned the attack.
Fontaine said that of the estimated 3.2 million children who remain with their families in their homes in Ukraine, nearly half could be at risk of not having enough food. In cities heavily targeted by Russian forces, such Mariupol and Kerson, he said, families have gone weeks without running water, sanitation services, regular supplies of food, or medical care.
Hundreds of schools have been attacked or are being used for warfare, he added, which means that 5.7 million schoolchildren and 1.5 million university students nationwide are being deprived of their education.
“The math is simple,” Fontaine said. “Every day the war continues, children will continue to suffer. As humanitarians, you can count on us to continue doing our work but there is only so much we can do. It is time to end this war. Ukraine’s children cannot afford to wait.”
Council members accused “Putin’s soldiers” of ignoring the basic tenets of the Geneva convention, including the essential distinction to be made between civilians and combatants, according to Lord Ahmad, who said that Russian President Vladimir Putin “fears the constituency of women and civil society.”
Many council members called for all incidents involving attacks on civilians, including the one on Kramatorsk railway station, to be investigated.
However, Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia’s deputy permanent representative to the UN, dismissed the meeting as “Russophobic propaganda (with a) clear intention to present Russian soldiers as sadists and rapists.”
He accused Western nations of distorting and discrediting his country’s “special military operation” and deliberately hiding certain events. He said the information war “unleashed against Russia is as intense as the battles on the war ground,” and that Ukraine and the West have turned into “an agency for the creation of fakes.”
Polyanskiy added that Russia has “irrefutable evidence of (such fake) staging in Bucha” and claimed that the attack on Kramatorsk was staged to “overshadow” this. He called it a “classic false-flag operation by Ukrainian Nazis” who, he said, are planning many further staged provocations, including the discovery of mass graves.
He again compared what he called “Ukrainian nationalist battalions” to Nazis and accused them of “new depths of unbridled cruelty and blind radicalism in line with Daesh.”
