Aisling Swaine, Professor of Gender Studies, University College Dublin, on the ways war affects violence towards women

I haven’t seen any reports yet of conflict-related gender-based violence against women in Ukraine, though obviously that doesn’t mean it’s not happening. What’s really important is that women’s organisations in Ukraine are listened to. What they’re saying is happening is important – and that will come out. 

The way that violence against women happens in conflict is not universal across all conflicts - therefore we need to be sure that we have a clear understanding of what’s happening in this space. There can be sexual violence by armed actors, there’s sexual violence by people known to women, there’s domestic violence.  We know that is the case in our everyday society.

Even without conflict, there’s a level and threat and risk there all the time for women. Domestic violence, sexual violence by strangers and people known to us, exists in the everyday. It’s an everyday reality that our society tolerates. When a conflict erupts, it erupts on top of a society that already accepts certain levels of harm against women. 

In general violence against women can increase during conflict. But what’s important is paying attention to what is happening with gendered violence and not making assumptions that particular kinds of violence will take place. Because not all violence increases, and often there are less overt harms taking place that require recognition and attention. Some violence can decrease, for example in some conflicts like Liberia, where I worked, we had some women saying, ‘I have no domestic violence because my husband is gone, fighting’.

There are, we know, instances in some conflicts, Kosovo and Darfur where I worked, but not all, where armed groups will purposefully perpetrate sexual violence and that has been shown in some cases by international courts to be part of tactical strategy. But that kind of violence doesn’t happen everywhere.

We need to ask, ‘What are the places and spaces that women are moving in, in which risk exists?’ That’s in flight, it’s at checkpoints, it’s at borders, it’s in displacement sites, it’s in travel to other countries in Europe. Governments are making arguments to place people in our homes in our countries, but what kind of home spaces are they? Are they safe? Is there a risk of sexual exploitation and abuse of women who now have no income because they have lost their jobs? Are border guards trained to respect and not exploit people? We need to help and provide shelter and protection to people fleeing, and we need to do so in ways that are safe for them and their children.

Loss often gets overlooked – loss of the home space, which in a very-traditional way is often a space where women do reign.  Women in the Ukraine have lost their careers. Lawyers, doctors, people like that, are crossing the borders. They get labelled a refugee which automatically takes away their agency and professionalism.