(Paris) Daria was repeatedly raped by Russian soldiers in 2022, Alissa was raped in 2014 by a Russian officer: these thirty-something Ukrainian women overcame fear and stigma to testify, a “necessity” for “the world to know” and to give courage to other victims.
Contrasting with her small figure and her reserved and very pale face, the strong words of Daria Zymenko, 33, impressed during a press conference organized in Paris a few days ago by the NGO SEMA Ukraine in particular, which comes in aid of Ukrainian women victims of rape committed by Russian soldiers.
“It is very painful to speak… but today I feel it is necessary to explain what I experienced, because Russia continues to torture people and commit sexual crimes on a daily basis in Ukraine,” she said, in Ukrainian translated into French, in an interview with AFP.
On February 24, 2022, when the first explosions rang out in the suburbs of Kyiv and the Russian offensive began in Ukraine, Daria, an illustrator artist, took refuge in Gavronchtchyna, her parents’ village, near the capital. But the Russian army seizes the village.
Soon after, “drunk and armed with guns” soldiers burst into their home, demanding that Daria follow them for “interrogation.” “My family pleaded with them… but they pointed their guns at us, saying if I didn’t leave with them they would kill us.”
She was taken to a house abandoned by neighbors on March 28. The soldiers ask him to undress. “I understood that it would not be an interrogation: they raped me for two hours.”
Back at her parents’ house, when the young woman sees the despair already on their faces, she prefers to “shut up”. On March 29, the soldiers returned “for the same thing…” she whispers, her gaze tormented and her eyes misty. The next day, the Ukrainian army “fortunately arrived.”
“I want the whole world to know, and for people to see me as a living person and not just a statistic! », Launches Daria to AFP, deeming it “extremely important to speak on behalf of people who cannot testify” because they are in the occupied territories or because they fear stigma.
Coming specially from Kyiv, Alissa Kovalenko, 36, has been a member of SEMA Ukraine since the creation of the NGO in 2019. Her serious gaze and combative personality are sometimes illuminated by a frank smile, her warm face surrounded by long blond hair .
A renowned documentary filmmaker, her works have won several awards around the world. She is finishing her latest film, “Traces,” about rape victims who are members of SEMA Ukraine.
“Even today, I would say that 80% of women victims of rape remain silent and do not talk about it…”, estimates Alissa to AFP. “But the 20% who speak, that’s already a victory.”
It was while working on a film in the Donetsk region in 2014 that Alissa, still a student, was arrested by pro-Russian separatists.
“I was leaving [the region] by taxi” on May 15, 2014, “and it was the driver who reported me at a checkpoint with separatists, saying that I had been with Ukrainian soldiers shortly before.”
“I was taken out of the car, and they interrogated me” for several days, threatening to “cut off her ears, her fingers.”
Between May 15 and 18, a Russian officer she said would take her to an apartment in Kramatorsk. “He forced me to take off my clothes, get into a bathtub and then I was raped…”
For years, Alissa only spoke to those close to her about her captivity. They only learned much later about her rape, she says, very moved.
According to SEMA Ukraine, the word is gradually becoming clearer in this country about the taboo of sexual violence.
Daria explains that she “initially decided to forget this terrible experience”, but regularly suffered anxiety attacks. She was then able to receive psychological help through SEMA Ukraine.
She filed a complaint abroad, but prefers not to specify in which country.
Alissa did not benefit from support from the Ukrainian state either, but it was her meeting in 2019 with the founder of the NGO SEMA Ukraine and other rape “survivors” that made her realize “this black spot, this trauma that had remained within me.” She filed a complaint with the Prosecutor General of Ukraine.
“You don’t get cured after such an experience… you can just feel better,” says Alissa, who says she still has nightmares.
Daria says she hopes that “the people who did this to [her] will be judged one day,” but knows that “the perpetrators are currently unreachable, because they are on Russian territory.”
In the meantime, “testifying and helping other women within the NGO helps me rebuild myself,” she confides.
