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Ukrainian refugees face Poland's strict abortion laws as rape cases by Russian forces grow
As millions of Ukrainian refugees flood into Poland, Polish reproductive rights organisations are reporting mounting allegations of rape by Russian forces as requests to access abortions and emergency contraceptives grow.
Published 13 July 2022 5:30am
By Jennifer Scherer, Michelle Elias
Source: SBS
Image: Ukrainian refugees are being entangled in Poland's strict abortion laws as cases of rape by Russian forces grow.
This article contains references to sexual violence.
In the months following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, two young Ukrainian women nervously crossed the border into Poland.
They were sixteen and seventeen, and had travelled together from a distant district in Ukraine to seek refuge with a Polish friend in Warsaw.
But what was meant to be a moment of relief quickly changed to one of urgency.
“I was called in the night by a Polish young woman,” Krystyna Kacpura, President of the Foundation for Women and Family Planning (FEDERA), a non-governmental Polish reproductive rights organisation, told SBS Dateline.
“[Her friends] told her that they urgently needed emergency contraception because on the way to the border they were raped by Russian soldiers.”
Ukrainian refugees waiting at the Lviv train station platform to get on a train to Poland. Credit: SOPA Images/Sipa USA
“I met them at the railway station … they were in shock,” she recalls.
“I provided them with the help of gynecologists just to check if everything is alright before they went to the airport [to fly to their next destination.]
“They said after a couple of days that they were looking for psychological help.”
Ms Kacpura says this is not an isolated case, but rather one that is under-reported as millions of Ukrainian refugees cross the border and face Poland’s strict laws.
In Poland, which has a large Roman Catholic population, it is only legal to terminate a pregnancy when it is the result of a criminal act such as rape, or when the pregnant person’s life or health is at risk.
These stringent parameters often paralyse doctors, rendering them unable to assist patients in accessing abortions or emergency contraception out of concern for their own compliance. Anyone who terminates a pregnancy can be imprisoned for up to three years and if the fetus is capable of an independent life, the penalty can be up to eight years behind bars.
People protest against Poland's anti-abortion laws in Warsaw on 27 January 2021. Source: AP / Czarek Sokolowski/AP
“Women are afraid, they don't want to be regarded as the witnesses of war crimes, rapes.”
The Polish government hasn’t shown leniency for refugees from Ukraine, subjecting them to the same abortion laws as the Polish population.
“[Ukrainian refugees] didn't expect such a situation, because in Ukraine, there is a very liberal law on abortion,” Ms Kacpura said.
“It is allowed up to 12 weeks of pregnancy and emergency contraception is sold at the counter.”
Krystyna Kacpura is the President of the Foundation for Women and Family Planning (FEDERA), which is a Polish non-government organisation. Image digitally altered. Credit: Supplied.
Ms Kacpura tells SBS Dateline about a call she had with a middle-aged Ukrainian refugee seeking an abortion.
“There was silence and then [she told me] … I was raped by three Russian soldiers. My face was covered and by the third Russian soldier, I fainted.
“I don't want to go to a police station with a prosecutor. I don't want to be reminded of the story.
“My husband has been fighting in Ukraine. I have three children, and would like to continue a normal life after the war. Please help me to take this out of my body”.
Ukrainian refugees are slipping through the cracks
Hillary Margolis is a researcher from the Women’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch and has spent time on Poland’s border with Ukraine.
She says there’s not enough support for Ukrainian refugee women and girls who are at risk.
“We see a real lack of systematic protections and, and prevention mechanisms, in terms of gender based violence, and protection for women and girls entering Poland from Ukraine,” she told SBS Dateline.
“So that means, for example, a lack of systematic screening measures and identification of people who may be at a particular risk for trafficking and exploitation and gender-based violence.
“We also have seen a lack of a coordinated and robust gender based violence response.”
A refugee camp for fleeing Ukrainians in Medyka, Poland. Credit: SOPA Images/Sipa USA
“When there's a lack of availability of services for survivors of any kind of violence, it leads to a decrease in reporting.”
Sexual violence a common weapon of war
Katherine Fallah, a barrister at Sydney law firm Maurice Byers Chambers with a PhD in international law, says sexual violence is very common across most conflicts.
“In terms of opportunistic sexual violence, this arises out of the conditions of war, general instability, a general climate of violence, people with weapons in positions of power, occupying forces in control of detainees,” she told SBS Dateline.
“International law tends to be more concerned with systemic sexual violence, and so that would include things like sexual violence that's incited by superiors.
“They might, for instance, see sexual violence as a possible tool of genocide. It might be a way to demoralise the population, or to try and undermine opposing forces. Sometimes it's punitive or a form of retribution”.
It is a combination of both forms of sexual violence that Dr Fallah worries is occurring in Ukraine.
“What we're seeing in Ukraine is often a wave of violence as Russian soldiers lose control of a particular territory.
“As they're retreating, there might be a wave of violence, including quite often sexual violence.”
Katherine Fallah is a barrister at Sydney law firm Maurice Byers Chambers and holds a PhD in international law. Image digitally altered. Credit: Shane Lo.
“The issue rose to prominence in international law in the context of the Rwandan and Yugoslavian conflicts,” she says.
“Throughout Syria, in Myanmar, it's really prevalent anywhere where there are large land forces [leading] ground invasions.
“Certainly one of the issues that arose in ISIS controlled territory was that women were often kept us as sex slaves, and married to ISIS commanders.”
A 2016 report by the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria found that IS "sought to erase the Yazidis through killings, sexual slavery, enslavement, torture and inhuman and degrading treatment and forcible transfer causing serious bodily and mental harm."
The report determined that the self-proclaimed Islamic State's abuse of Yazidis amounted to crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The ‘hidden crime’ being committed against Ukrainians
In early June, a senior United Nations official told the Security Council that allegations of sexual violence by Russian troops in Ukraine are growing, describing it as a ‘hidden crime.’
More than 120 reports of sexual violence have been received by the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights, ranging from gang rape to coercion, to watching an act of sexual violence being committed against a partner or child.
But Ewa*, who works for the Polish arm of non-profit abortion rights group ‘Women on Web’ which provides medical abortion pills or contraceptives via mail, says there are hundreds more who are fearful to tell their story.
Since the end of February, the organisation’s output has increased by one third due to the requests from Ukrainian women.
Refugees wait in a crowd for transportation after fleeing from the Ukraine and arriving at the border crossing in Medyka, Poland. Source: AP / Markus Schreiber/AP
“Last week I received a request from a woman from a shelter for [Ukrainian] refugees and she was so stressed because she was alone with two small kids and was living in a room with 12 others.
“She told me that she felt isolated and didn’t want them to know that she wanted to get an abortion … as the Polish people working there were not very helpful and not very friendly.
“She was afraid that the [abortion] pills wouldn’t reach her.”
A Ukrainian refugee rests in a school building in Przemysl, Poland. Source: AP / Petr David Josek/AP
“Sometimes they write, ‘I was raped’ but if they don't give a description we don't ask,” she says.
“It's heartbreaking, because you had your life and you wanted to live it to the fullest. Suddenly, you are pregnant, your partner is dead and you are in a strange location, with no support.”
*Ewa’s surname has been withheld from publication due to concerns over legal consequences in Poland due to the country’s strict abortion laws.
Are you interested in this topic?
Watch Dateline’s documentary Poles Apart, an investigation into Poland's strict abortion laws on
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