Week 5

This week I continued my work on Ukraine, researching how CRSV has manifested itself in Ukraine since 2022. I learned that some of my assumptions about CRSV were incorrect.

Some of us might have the notion that CRSV is a gender-based offense that primarily targets women. That might be the case in some conflicts, though accurate counts of CRSV inflicted on men are generally difficult to ascertain since male survivors are far less likely to report such incidents.

Ukraine is one place where CRSV does not clearly bias toward female victims. In fact, between February 2022 and December 2024, the United Nations in Ukraine documented 433 cases of CRSV perpetrated against Ukrainians: 302 men, 119 women, and 12 children. Additionally, while final figures are forthcoming, it is apparent that the majority of participants in GSF’s pilot project were male survivors.

One other aspect of CRSV unique to Ukraine is that it is very easy to find accounts of it online. Survivors have started to speak out, courageously, about this specific kind of suffering that Russian forces have inflicted on them. Furthermore, these accounts are recent. The armed conflict between Ukraine and Russia began in 2014, just over a decade ago, and CRSV has been ongoing in Ukraine since then. Ukraine is, in this sense, a foil to Nepal, where survivors are still reluctant to identify themselves as victims of atrocities from decades ago.

My research this week turned my stomach. Not just because I read, sometimes in graphic detail, about survivors’ experiences, but especially because I realized that these violations will continue until the war ends.

I will admit that this week I felt particularly discouraged about the state of the world. The fact that the war is no closer to a resolution than it was three years ago exacerbates my overall sense of hopelessness. Of course, I remind myself as I sit at my desk in peaceful Geneva that my own frustration is minuscule compared to the horror of Ukrainians actually living the things that I am reading about.

There is not much I can do to console myself. Consolation is probably not the right response to all this anyway. I’m just left with serious decisions to consider: What, in light of my findings and realizations this week, am I going to do? What is my role in alleviating some of the suffering in this world, in mitigating the vices of humanity?

Lofty, lofty words. But as a future lawyer and advocate, I have a responsibility to consider these things.