Ukraine: Women and girls experiencing escalating levels of violence with no adequate protection as situation worsens ‘by the day’

February 24, 2023

Women and girls affected by Ukraine invasion are experiencing escalating threats of sexual and gender-based violence as conflict continues.
ActionAid says the protection of women has been ‘forgotten’ after concerns over glaring gaps in mental health support and safeguarding.
The international human rights charity calls for the needs of women, girls, young people and marginalised communities to be prioritised and their leadership to be put at the centre of the response.

ActionAid is deeply concerned that the rights of women and girls affected by the Ukraine conflict are being failed. They aren’t receiving the protection they desperately need to safeguard them physically and mentally from abuse. Threats of sexual and gender-based violence are increasing. And so, ActionAid is calling for the needs of women and girls to be put first and not forgotten.

Women and children displaced from conflict in Ukraine

There are almost 8 million Ukrainian refugees across Europe, and another 6 million displaced inside the country. It’s estimated 90% are women and children.

ActionAid, working with partners in Ukraine and surrounding countries has seen worsening levels of sexual and gender-based violence on women and girls both inside and outside the country.

Large numbers of people are displaced in Ukraine. This has added to the vulnerability of women and girls. Out of those who have moved into shelters two-thirds are women (65%) and a quarter (25%) are children. Women and girls are always disproportionately impacted in a crisis. Women and girls are reporting being forced to carry out transactional sex in exchange for food and survival. In addition, there are reports of women and girls ‘disappearing’ and trafficking is a major risk.

Concerned about the safety of women and girls

Triona Pender, Senior Emergency Manager for the Ukraine response at ActionAid, said: ‘‘Women and girls are most at risk in the Ukraine conflict where gender-based violence and exploitation has soared. We’re deeply concerned about the safety of women and children living in Ukraine and those who have fled, there’s a severe lack of services in place to protect them and provide them with much needed support. An increase in violence means there’s much more demand for mental health services and at the moment this isn’t in place.

“The situation is already desperate and with no way of knowing how long this conflict will last, we need to prioritise the safeguarding of women, girls and marginalised communities urgently.”

Vulnerable while travelling to safety

Women and girls are highly vulnerable to abuse while traveling to safety. In addition, they aren’t receiving the necessary protection after they reach other destinations in Europe. And existing barriers in neighbouring countries are preventing access to sexual and reproductive healthcare which makes the problem worse. For instance, Poland has some of the strictest abortion laws in Europe.

ActionAid’s response in Ukraine

ActionAid have 40 partnerships across 4 countries (Poland, Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine) supporting more than one million people (1,063,189). Our response inside Ukraine started on 1st August. We are working with a range of grassroots-based feminist and young-people-led organisations, umbrella organisations and networks. We are supporting immediate humanitarian needs such as GBV prevention and support, psychological and legal support, and the provision of shelter, food, and medicines. Additionally, we are supporting people to access their rights throughout this crisis.

One of ActionAid’s partner organisations, Girls, provides a safe space for survivors of gender-based violence offering psychosocial support for girls and women affected by the conflict in Ukraine.

Yuliya Sporysh, founder of NGO Girls says ‘‘Having experienced the horrors of war, women and girls deserve care and protection. Women and their kids can heal and regain their independence in a secure environment like ours. Many of Ukraine’s war-affected women have survived acts of violence caused by the war. And many of the women we work with have managed to escape domestic abuse. It is quite worrying the increasing on the number of consultants that we have received related to gender based violence and sexual violence in the last months”.

If you would like to know more about how we responded to the Ukraine war – ActionAid, with 28 of our partners working on this response today released a report about the incredible work of women’s rights organisations, women-led organisations and young people’s groups in supporting refugees and people displaced within Ukraine.

Prioritising marginalised communities

ActionAid is calling for the response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine to prioritise women, girls and marginalised communities. This means making sure that all decision-making processes include women and girls, young people, and marginalised groups like the LGBTQIA+ community to guarantee that their leadership, rights and needs are at the centre of the humanitarian response and its aftermath.

Irish Emergency Alliance

ActionAid Ireland raised funds for its Ukraine emergency response as part of the Irish Emergency Alliance.

Image caption: Oksana (not her real name) was supported by Girls (Divchata) NGO an ActionAid partner

Protestors at COP 28 in Dubai. Photo: Konrad Skotnicki.

Belfast Climate Change March, 2019. Photo: Trócaire.

The Profit Driving the Crisis

Despite their overwhelming contribution to global emissions, fossil fuel companies continue to attract significant financial backing—driven by their enduring profitability. This is starkly illustrated by the case of ExxonMobil, the top fossil fuel investment held by asset managers based in Ireland. In 2023, ExxonMobil reported €33.63 billion ($36 billion) in profit. That is almost twice the GDP of Botswana (€18.1 billion) and nearly three times Namibia’s GDP (€11.5 billion).

Ireland plays a hugely disproportionate role in facilitating investments into fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil. In 2023, the investments made into fossil fuel companies by investment managers based in Ireland generated an estimated 72.5 million tons of CO2e. This is more than the CO2e emissions for the entire country of Ireland—and more than ten times that generated by Sierra Leone.

The Global Human Impact

The climate crisis is here, now, and it is causing disproportionate harm in the Global South. In Bangladesh, rising sea levels and increasingly severe cyclones are displacing coastal communities, with projections indicating that 17% of the entire country could be underwater by 2050. The legally binding Paris Agreement on climate change explicitly acknowledges the importance of tackling private finance. Its three overarching goals are: keeping below 1.5C of warming; increasing adaptation and making finance flows consistent with low emissions and resilience.

This gives a clear mandate for action: both tax reform and corporate regulation are needed to tackle financial flows, and both nationally in Ireland and at EU level, ‘polluter pays’ taxes are lacking and regulation of the financial sector remains weak and fragmented. While EU regulation exists, it is designed more to nudge investors toward more sustainable investment practices by increasing transparency and reporting levels than to enforce strict standards. And it is moving in the wrong direction: the recently passed EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive excluded investments; and now the EU Commission’s Omnibus legislative proposal threatens to undo the limited gains made on climate plans, as well as blocking future attempts for stronger action at national level.

The Risk of Inaction

Fossil fuel investment is too profitable to remain weakly regulated. If Ireland continues with its current strategy of encouraging FDI at all costs, and relying on weak EU regulation, we are headed for catastrophe. The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change has repeatedly warned that every fraction of a degree beyond 1.5°C brings irreversible consequences: collapsed ice sheets, vanishing coral reefs, and extreme weather events that will make vast regions of the planet uninhabitable. And yet, companies are developing oil and gas fields that could push global warming beyond 2°C.

Our research found that 91% of the investments made into fossil fuel companies by investment managers based in Ireland were to companies that have plans for fossil fuel expansion like these. Ireland cannot afford inaction on this issue.

About This Research

The figures in this report regarding investment from Ireland are based on new research commissioned by ActionAid Ireland and Trócaire. In the paper, we uncover the scale of fossil fuel investment through Ireland, who the investors are, and in which fossil fuel companies they are investing. We analyse the current regulatory framework and explain why it is inadequate—and moving in the wrong direction. And we make specific recommendations for change, which are summarised below.

Summary of Recommendations

Regulate the private financial sector
Ireland must end its outsized role as an enabler of destructive fossil fuel investment. Ireland should introduce a strong gender-responsive national human rights and environmental due diligence framework which includes the regulation of investors with respect to human rights and the environment and climate. The transposition of the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive could achieve this if downstream activities are included and the Omnibus proposal is rejected. Ireland should prohibit investments in fossil fuel expansion and require investors to implement climate transition plans consistent with a 1.5°C climate limit.

Endorse the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty
Ireland should endorse developing a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty to curb fossil fuel expansion and commit to a fair and funded phase out of fossil fuels.

Support tax justice
Ireland should support bold and fair new global tax rules through the UN Framework Convention on Tax, should adopt all OECD BEPS measures, and should conduct an updated and comprehensive spillover analysis of its tax policy. Ireland should take coordinated action globally, at the EU level and domestically to introduce a range of new taxes to mobilise finance needed for climate justice, based on ‘polluter pays’ and social equity principles such as wealth taxes for the highest earners, climate damages tax on investors, fossil fuel production taxes and levies on aviation and shipping.

Finance a just transition
Ireland must also meet its fair share climate finance obligations under Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement, and pay our ecological debt to the Global South. Ireland should support conditionality-free debt cancellation for countries on the front lines of the climate crisis, commit to a new UN Framework Convention on Sovereign Debt, moving debt negotiations from the IMF to the UN, and to a debt workout mechanism that is fully representative and fair.