As Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is set to begin its fourth year, more than 1.7 million women and girls remain internally displaced throughout the country, according to IOM data. The war has been devastating for all the 3.7 million internally displaced persons in Ukraine – and also imposes gender-specific burdens on women and girls.

“For my business, winter with blackouts is a disastrous time,” said Iryna Fishchuk.

For the first 50 days, I was kept in a torture chamber in Izolyatsia prison,” shared Liudmila Huseynova. “In this place, you become a person without rights. From 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., you stand with a sack covering your head, and your hands in cuffs. You can get beaten for no reason. Your blood freezes as you hear the screams from others held in captivity, thinking maybe you’ll be next.”

The UN Women Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia and the UNFPA Regional Office for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, together with the European Union (EU), started the Phase II of the regional programme “EU 4 Gender Equality: Together against gender stereotypes and gender-based violence”. The programme aims to reduce gender discriminatory attitudes and practices between women and men in institutional and community spheres, including unpaid domestic and care work in six Eastern Partnership countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, the Republic of Moldova, and Ukraine.

This opinion was expressed by Sabine Freizer Gunes, UN Women Representative in Ukraine. She believes that attention to gender equality issues in Ukraine helped the country to respond promptly to the problem of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) and to counter it.

Since the launch of the Russian Federation full-scale invasion on 24 February, 2022, over 2,000 women have been confirmed dead in attacks that have wrecked homes and civilian structures across Ukraine. Total numbers are likely to be much higher: according to the UN Commissioner for Human Rights, women account for nearly 40 per cent of the over 21,000 civilian casualties recorded in 2022. And of the estimated 7.9 million internally displaced peoples in Ukraine, women now constitute at least 90 per cent.

Oleksandra Matviychuk is a human rights activist from Ukraine. Following the “Maidan” demonstrations in November 2013, which led to the ousting of the Government and left many casualties among activists, she created the Euromaidan SOS Facebook page. As head of the Centre for Civil Liberties, she also provided legal assistance to protesters victimized during the crackdown. Together with her team, Matviychuk has documented over 18,000 reported war crimes against the Ukrainian people since 2014. The Centre for Civil Liberties won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022.

Nataliia Novitska 36, is Project Manager at the NGO “Positive Women”, which provides assistance and information to women living with HIV across Ukraine, even amid the Russian invasion. It is among the organizations supported by UN Women's Peace and Humanitarian Fund (WPHF).

Anastasia Perepylytsia, 44, is no stranger to displacement. In 2014, she had a stable job in finance and lived a normal life together with her husband and two children in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine. But when the Russian army invaded her hometown, she had to flee with her family to Zaporizhzhia, a city situated on the banks of the Dnieper River in the south-east.

Nina Cherlenuk is one of the millions of Ukrainians who have been forced to leave their homes since the beginning of the war in February. For women, a new city or country often means career changes – a new workplace, a new company, or an entirely new profession. However, in the context of war, the transition tends to be more complex.

Larysa Denysenko is a journalist, attorney, human rights activist and co-founder of the Association of Women’s Lawyers of Ukraine “JurFem”. Before the war, Denysenko and JurFem mainly advocated for women’s leadership in legal professions, provided mentorship and supported strategic court cases related to domestic violence and gender-based discrimination. Now, this has extended to representing the interests of those who have survived conflict-related sexual violence allegedly perpetrated by the Russian military in Ukraine.