When we speak from the capital Kyiv, which was shaken by some of the deadliest attacks from the war last week – and after a visit to the front -line area of Sumy – UN Women’s Representative in Ukraine Sabine Freizer Gunes described to FN news Nathalie Minard both the emotional exhaustion and the resilience she had witnessed.
The interview is edited for clarity.
Pakinomist: The situation for civilians in cities is drastic, with peeling and air strikes that sound in days and nights at a time. Could you describe your personal experience of living in a war zone?
Sabine Freizer Gunes, UN women representative in Ukraine: Living in a war zone like Ukraine is, on the one hand, quite challenging, because as the UN official we are not allowed to bring our families hit. So a difficulty is to live far away from one’s family.
Usually, as for the war situation and the attacks, they tend to happen at night. One of the clear challenges is to be able to get through your week when you wake up several times during the night. Sometimes there are attacks on Kyiv for several days in a row. Sometimes it’s quiet for a week or 10 days.
By not knowing when to sleep if you want to be able to sleep for a whole night, or if you have to wake up three or four times if you have to go down to shelter if you have to check the news – I will say it mentally, that’s the hardest thing. It’s not that much fear it’s not knowing what your night will look like.
A resident near the ruins of a residential building in Kyiv watching, while the emergency herds are searching for survivors after a missile strike in the early hours of the morning of August 28.
Pakinomist: You were recently in Sumy, very close to the eastern front line. Many people have left east of safer places, but others have chosen to stay. How does the UN and UN women help them?
Sabine Freizer Gunes: It is quite extraordinary for many Ukrainians to stay in their front -line community. And some of these places have been attacked since 2014. What we see is that people continue to live their lives.
I just came back from Sumy, which is 20 kilometers away from the Russian border and the city is still completely alive. Businesses continue, cafes, restaurants and shops are still open. People are still walking down the street.
This is the situation in Ukraine: From one moment to the next tragedy strike.
Life works quite usually for many hours of the day, but then there is always something that is hidden beyond that. For example, with some of our colleagues, their men may be able to fight on the front line, their fathers or their brothers may have disappeared.
There is always the element that is not visible but is behind the reality of the people who work.
UN women work very closely through local women’s rights organizations. When we have an attack, we ask them what kind of help we can provide.
Very often, it will be sets that are specifically gathered to meet the needs of women, especially older women. It is older women who are generally the last to leave their homes.
They insist on living in their house in their small yards because they think it is a much better result than going to a collective center.
What we are trying to do is give them some basic things so they can stay in their homes.
One thing that I saw yesterday in Sumy saw that women’s rights organizations performed very different kinds of activities. They do cultural activities, activities to support young people, they provide legal advice or psychosocial advice. They help women get new skills to start their own businesses.
On the one hand, there is a humanitarian crisis and we have to provide life -saving support, but on the other in the same city we also discuss improvement and development.
UNFPAS Mobile Psychosocial Support Team travels over Ukraine, including to the front lines, and offers immediate emergency interventions as well as access to long -term help.
Pakinomist: Can you share the story of a woman who especially moved you?
Sabine Freizer Gunes: One thing that really moved me recently talked to six women, each representing another NGO.
We talked about our collaboration and we asked them, “How have we helped you in the last several months?” And they said that one thing they really enjoyed was a retreat that we organized. I thought they would say that they enjoyed material things that we gave them.
Instead, they said what they enjoyed was a retreat organized in western Ukraine, which is generally more peaceful. And we gave them five days to be in a quiet room where they could get to know each other, share experiences, and where to sleep. One of them said, “This is the first time in three years that I got a decent night’s sleep”.
It was very powerful to hear that it can be incredibly powerful to give way, a sense of normality for our partners.
Listen to the full interview:
Pakinomist: It’s been three and a half years since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in full scale. What are the most common effects on women’s mental health you have encountered?
Sabine Freizer Gunes: Virtually everyone who lives in Ukraine and who has lived in Ukraine for the last three and a half years has some mental health problems. There is a clear effect of the war on everyone’s mental health. No matter who we work with with UN women, we always include a mental health component.
In the War-Heared Ukrainian city of Snihurivka, a groundbreaking initiative trains women as tractor drivers-a role traditionally dominated by men.
For example, we are currently training women to be bus drivers, to take over positions that used to be held by men, but now with the men on the front, women are needed to take up these jobs.
Pakinomist: Do you see an increase in gender -based violence (GBV)? What are the specific mental health challenges that female survivors face conflict -related sexual violence; And how do you address them?
Sabine Freizer Gunes: Conflict -related sexual violence is a real challenge in Ukraine. But very often in conflict situations, conflict -related sexual violence (CRSV) is something hidden under the rug.
Here in Ukraine, the government itself has talked about conflict -related sexual violence and really encouraged those who are survivors to talk openly about it and to seek remedies and compensation.
In Ukraine, the High Commissioner Office on Human Rights has documented 484 cases.
But it is expected that it is just the tip of the iceberg that there are many cases that are not known because they occur today in occupied territories, in territories possessed by the Russian Federation, but people also do not feel ready yet to talk about it.
For CRSV in Ukraine, what is interesting is that there are also many cases against men. So out of these 484 cases, 350 cases are men, and 119 cases are women.
This is because the vast majority of these cases are cases that occur in detention. Survivors from conflict -related sexual violence need extensive psychological support.
Pakinomist: What urgent gaps are found in providing support to women in Ukraine today? How does financing cuts affect your activities?
Sabine Freizer Gunes: Financing cuts have a massive effect on the ability to provide support and services to Ukrainian women and girls. What we find out about being the most disturbing is the effect of the cuts on Ukrainian women’s rights organizations.
The UN women conducted a study back in March, about a month after the United States declared its cuts. We conducted a study of 100 different women’s rights organizations.
Thirty -seventh percentage already reported significant disturbances in their operations due to the cuts. 32 percent expected them to suspend their operations in the next 6 months. Seven -seven percentage was already forced to dismiss the staff. And 50 percent expected that there would be additional redundancies.
Most worrying, 60 percent of women’s rights organizations have been forced to reduce or suspend their gender -based violence services.
This directly affects the lives of women and girls. You can imagine that if you were a woman who lived a violent relationship, you know that there is a shelter down the road and suddenly you say, okay, this is too much. You go to the shelter, you knock on the door and no one answers anymore because there is no more financing to keep it shelter open.
