The World Council of Churches has reacted with horror to a UN report on sexual violence in the Russia-Ukraine conflict and called upon all those guilty of such crimes to be held accountable.
The report, by the UN Human Rights Office, said that just over 1,000 cases of sexual violence had been documented since the escalation of the conflict began in 2022, the vast majority (89 per cent) allegedly perpetrated by Russian authorities, with most of the victims being male prisoners of war.
One of the most common forms of sexual violence in the report was tasering in the genitals. Other prisoners reported being raped with various objects.
While most victims were men, women in occupied territory have also been victims. One told of how she was regularly raped by a Russian soldier who told her that her husband, who had been detained and “severely tortured”, would receive better treatment as a result.
Another told of how her husband was killed by two Russian soldiers. The soldiers then raped her, saying they would shoot her in front of her four-year-old if she resisted.
The youngest documented victim of sexual violence was a four-year-old girl, the oldest an 83-year-old woman, both of whom were allegedly targeted by Russian authorities.
Ukrainian authorities were alleged to have been involved in 11 per cent of the documented cases of sexual violence, again mostly against male prisoners of war. Half of the allegations against Ukraine involved the threat of sexual violence, while the remainder “included cases of forced nudity, electric shocks and beatings to the genitals, electric shocks and beatings to the body while nude, sexually degrading treatment, as well as two sexual assaults and two cases of attempted rape”.
In a statement Peter Prove, director of the WCC’s Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, said, “The WCC condemns sexual and gender-based violence in all contexts, and this report on its incidence in the context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine demands investigation and full legal accountability. Such acts are a sin, a war crime, and a crime against humanity.”
