Svetlana is one of over 47,000 Ukrainians — the vast majority of them women — who traveled to Israel since the start of the invasion but who are not eligible for citizenship under Israel’s Law of Return, according to Israel’s Welfare Ministry. Of these, only approximately 15,000 currently remain in Israel, with the rest having chosen to leave. Not a single Ukrainian fleeing the war has been accorded refugee status by Israel. “This will change the role of women in society,” said Alla Kuznietsova, who spied on the Russians during the occupation of Izium and reported regularly to the Ukrainian side. She added that she bluntly told her interrogator, a Chechen, that she supported the Ukrainian side in the war, winning his grudging respect. “They were not suspecting women,” said a female community leader in the Kharkiv region who defied and misled Russians when her area was occupied. The first Ukrainian championship consisted of 18 teams that were split into two divisions, the Higher League and the First League .
- Headlines about the prominence of Ukrainian women on the front lines of war are misleading, said Jessica Trisko Darden, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at VCU’s College of Humanities and Sciences.
- With the real risk of sexual exploitation or human trafficking, women are trusted more readily when it comes to registering those internally displaced by the war, a number currently put at more than 4.5 million.
- Women are vital in the war effort – but better female political representation will be needed to rebuild Ukraine, argues Trisha de Borchgrave.
- Sultan—she chose the name because she loves Turkish soap operas—is one of three markswomen who have been selected by her country’s special forces for advanced sniper training in the forests of western Ukraine.
- Today, some of the Ukrainians in Israel are holding out hope that the new incoming government will do more to help them.
The cover image, by artist Olga Morozova of Kyiv, depicts a city park dug up by trenches close to the artist’s home. ‘Employers often expect domestic workers to be available https://fracturedstate.net/european-women/ukrainian-women/ 24 hours, seven days a week. The money we get cash in hand is little more than a minimum wage, but the majority are hired without any contracts at all,’ she said. Poberezhnyk, who originally comes from Ivano-Frankivsk in western Ukraine, has been working as a nanny for two decades. Although she has had good experiences with Polish families, she has also spent many years assisting Ukrainian migrants who have been exploited.
Statement by the Secretary-General – on Ukraine
“There are so many vulnerable people who survive in desperate situations and do not get any help,” one NGO worker who does not wish to be identified told The Times of Israel. The alleged rape happened at night, after weeks of lewd remarks, hints and overt suggestions of sex. A few months after arriving, she said, she was raped by the man who wrote the letter of invitation that had gotten her out of the war zone. “I really wanted this area to be liberated,” said Albina Strelets, 33, explaining why she spied on Russian forces and transmitted information to the Ukrainian side. She was arrested and spoke to me above the jail and torture chamber where Russians detained her for 16 days in August. While women can also serve in the Russian military and intelligence service, few women appear to be in Russia’s invading force in Ukraine. But Mariia Stalinska, 41, a bookkeeper whose first grandchild was born a year ago, enlisted in the army after Russia invaded her country in February.
Gender-based violence is also pervasive, but cases continue to be under-reported. “The women hear about these jobs mostly from Israeli men posting in Telegram and other social media channels, jobs that sound glamorous with fantastic salaries. Most of the time, the women know it is sexual work — but even when they know, they don’t really know,” Sabato says, explaining that for the most part, the women she talks to are 19 or 20 years old.
‘Ukraine refugee porn’ raises risks for women fleeing the war
To earn more, I must work more,’ said Natalia Matsiuk, who has been employed for four and a half years by an agency to work in one of Poland’s largest discount chain stores. Her story illustrates some of the difficulties facing Ukrainian women and how the war has changed their lives. In one case, a Ukrainian refugee had been hired to work in hospitality via a temporary agency and forced to work from 5am until 11pm, while her three children stayed in a hostel without adult supervision. ‘Even before the outbreak of the war we had issues with illegal employment and even cases of forced labour. Now given the scale of the crisis, we have a lot of concerns,’ Koćwin said.
Ukraine invasion — explained
Because in the middle of the fighting, Emerald also found love — another soldier, in another unit, who read an article about her and reached out on Instagram. It’s something Anastasia Kolesnyk, who enlisted on the first day of the war, said she has also had to deal with. Chatham House is a world-leading policy institute with a mission to help governments and societies build a sustainably secure, prosperous and just world. With continued Russian military build-up around Ukraine’s borders, the Ukraine Forum speaks to residents of Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine. As Russia is using Belarus in its invasion of Ukraine, experts analyze the role of Aliaksandr Lukashenka’s regime, and its impact on Belarusian sovereignty.
This provides them with the same benefits as Polish citizens, including access to health care, free public education and monthly child benefits. The vast majority are women, as Ukrainian men between the ages of 18 and 60 are banned from leaving their country. According to Kvit, despite gradual changes in the status of women in the military, sexual harassment is not well defined in Ukrainian law, there are still no relevant procedures to deal with it in the army, and it remains underreported. Shortly after the first Russian missiles hit Mariupol, she was ordered to join forces defending the city’s smaller steel plant, known as Azovmash, and then moved on to the besieged Azovstal steelworks. As the Russian troops were leveling the last stronghold of Ukrainian resistance, she was supporting Ukrainian fighters, cooking for them, and caring for the wounded along with other women. With about 50,000 servicewomen — including some 5,000 on the front lines, according to Deputy Minister of Defense Hanna Malyar — the Ukrainian military is one of the most feminized armed forces in Europe. The empty bags were ready to be shipped to Bakhmut, a city in the Donetsk region where deadly fighting has raged for months, said Olena Kharchenko, an employee in charge of the dispatch.
For example, in 2022 Ukraine adopted the national strategy on equality of women and men, covering the period up to 2030. Social attitudes towards women soldiers have also improved a great deal over the past few years. For example, the percentage of Ukrainians who agreed that women in the military should be granted equal opportunities with men increased dramatically from 53% in 2018 to 80% in 2022. Not only have many of these formal obstacles now been removed, but gender advisers and audits have been introduced to encourage a military culture that is more welcoming for women. In families where both parents are serving in the armed forces, parental leave is no longer the exclusive preserve of mothers. According to Ukraine’s deputy minister of defence, Hanna Maliar, by the summer of 2022 more than 50,000 women were employed by the armed forces in some capacity, with approximately 38,000 serving in uniform. Women and girls are disproportionately affected, accounting for 70% of the world’s hungry, according to Plan International.