The global humanitarian community is failing women and girls displaced by the Russia-Ukraine war who continue to face a dire and deteriorating situation inside Ukraine and across the region, a new report shows. The report, Waiting for the Sky to Close: The Unprecedented Crisis Facing Women and Girls Fleeing Ukraine, was supported by HIAS and developed by VOICE, a feminist organization dedicated to eradicating gender-based violence (GBV). VOICE’s 10-member team conducted a 4-week in-person assessment of women’s rights organizations, frontline workers, local NGOs, United Nations-affiliated groups, and refugee populations in Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia, and Ukraine. Since the invasion of Ukraine by Russia on February 24, 2022, more than 14 million people have been displaced from Ukraine (as of May 24); 90 percent of those fleeing Ukraine are women and children. The team gathered evidence of sexual exploitation and trafficking, exploitative labor, failed cash assistance programs, and widespread discrimination against already marginalized groups. (…) The report notes that in armed conflicts men’s violence against women and girls “increases rapidly and stays elevated long after the fighting stops.” Women’s rights organizations throughout the region have been responding to the needs of forcibly-displaced women and girls since the war began, according to the report, and these groups are best-positioned to help. But VOICE claims international NGOs and the UN are failing to meet their own commitments to empower local organizations.
via hias: Global Humanitarian Community Failing Ukrainian Women and Girls
