Today, on June 19, various events are taking place in many countries around the world to mark the International Day Against Sexual Violence in Conflict, UNN reports.
The event was launched by the United Nations in 2015 to commemorate the fact that on June 19, 2008, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution condemning sexual violence as a tactic of war and an obstacle to peace.
Sexual violence is one of the military strategies used to intimidate the population, thus gaining full control, etc.
The Day of Combating Sexual Violence in Conflict aims to draw humanity's attention to this problem, support victims, and thank those who are actively fighting these war crimes.
In Ukraine, the facts of such crimes have been known since 2014, when Russia launched a hybrid war against Ukraine. But after the full-scale aggression, the enemy forces are using sexual violence as a method of warfare on an unprecedented scale.
Currently, about 300 criminal proceedings are being investigated in Ukraine on the facts of sexual violence during the war, the victims of which were women, men, and children.
In 2023, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine recorded 85 cases of conflict-related sexual violence. These crimes were committed against both civilians and prisoners of war.
In particular, the victims were 52 men, 31 women, one girl and one boy.
In most documented cases where the victims were adult men, various forms of sexual violence were used as a method of torture in Russian captivity.