Prosecutor General of Ukraine Iryna Venediktova stressed that rape during wartime is also a war crime.
Venediktova said on Facebook that Ukraine has an international protocol for the investigation of such war crimes. “We have to execute expert examination of the women murdered to check the alleged rape”, said the Prosecutor General.
Iryna Venediktova said that by acting together with the law enforcement agencies and civil society sector organizations, the prosecutor’s office will develop an “efficient algorithm to help victims physically, morally, and legally”.
“The civil society organizations will be of big help as from our experience in counteraction to home abuse we know that they enjoy more trust of the victims. And we will act in synergy: from them will come safety and therapy, from us – protection of the victims’ rights and punishment of the guilty”, stressed the Prosecutor General of Ukraine.
Venediktova told that the russian servicemen carried out sexual violence on Ukrainian women and men, children and elderly people.
“We regularly receive operative information on the facts of such violence, social media are shouting out loud about such facts. But the victims remain silent. It is their choice. And it is easy to understand: fear, pain, despair, complete mistrust toward everyone... Journalists always ask for the statistics related to such crimes, and the number of cases opened. These numbers change daily, but they do not mirror the real situation. The people who suffered such terrible violence in most cases do not want to become statistics. The law enforcement agencies learn about such instances more often from open sources or third persons and not from the victims themselves. In some cases, such information is not confirmed”, said the Prosecutor General.
She stressed that when working with the victims of such violence “one should avoid repeated traumatization of the victims and not make them live through the horror of the sexual violence again when they are asked to repeat the same to doctors, investigators, prosecutors, journalists, again and again”.
We remind that the Security Service of Ukraine intercepted conversations of the occupants during which the invaders were telling that they raped a minor girl, and started eating dogs.
The prosecutor’s office in the Brovary region announced the suspicion of raping to a russian serviceman.