Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Pramila Patten, on a video screen while addressing a UN Security Council meeting on the Russian invasion of Ukraine at UN headquarters in the United Nations. New York City, New York, June 6. MIKE SEGAR / Reuters
Sexual violence in Ukraine, especially against women and girls, remains prevalent and unreported, and the humanitarian crisis in the war-torn country is turning into a “human trafficking crisis,” he said Monday. UN special envoy for sexual violence in the conflict.
Pramila Patten told the UN Security Council that there is a gap between its resolutions aimed at preventing rape and other sexual assaults during conflicts and the reality on the ground for the most vulnerable: women and children.
As of June 3, he said, the UN human rights office had received 124 allegations of sexual violence related to the conflict, 97 of them against women and girls, 19 against men, seven against children and one against unknown genre. Case verification continues.
Mrs. Patten said Ukraine’s attorney general reported during a visit in May that a national hotline reported the following forms of conflict-related sexual violence between Feb. 24, when Russian troops invaded the country. , and April 12: “rape, gang rape., pregnancy after rape, attempted rape, rape threats, coercion to see an act of sexual violence committed against a partner or child and forced nudity “.
He said the history of the conflict shows that “sexual violence is the most constant and massively underreported rape”, adding that it is essential to strengthen prevention and protection and provide services to victims from the beginning of any armed conflict.
Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, categorically rejected and condemned all allegations of sexual violence by Russian troops as “lies”. He said Russian soldiers are subject to strict rules banning torture and violence against civilians.
He said the same rules did not apply to Ukraine’s “nationalist battalions” and said the international community would soon have “the full truth about these crimes, including those of a sexual nature, committed by Ukrainian nationalist units and the armed forces.” Ukrainians “.
Ukrainian Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya said his country’s law enforcement, media and non-governmental groups “continue to report numerous cases of sexual violence committed by Russian troops.”
According to the Interior Ministry, “minors and elderly women were among the victims of Russian rapists” and “fatalities have also been reported.”
U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas Greenfield cited “a mountain of credible reports of atrocities committed by Russian forces against civilians,” including “horrific reports of sexual violence.”
“There are more and more allegations that Russian soldiers are sexually assaulting women and girls, as well as men and boys,” he said. “We have heard from the Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine that Russian soldiers raped Ukrainian women for hours and then killed them.”
Mrs. Patten, who also visited reception centers and border crossings in Poland and Moldova, gave several anecdotal reports of attempted trafficking and expressed serious concern about “the lack of a coherent control of accommodation offers and transport “for Ukrainians fleeing the fighting. He said more than 90 percent of these refugees are women and children.
He said that Ukraine had set up a temporary working group on human trafficking, but that it was equally essential to ensure refugee protection systems in all countries of transit and destination and at all border crossings.
As the humanitarian crisis “is becoming a human trafficking crisis,” Ms. Patten, there is an urgent need for a cross-border response “by humanitarian partners, law enforcement agencies, border forces, immigration officials and political leaders,” as well as a “regional compact.”
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