Efforts are being made to get emergency contraceptives to Ukrainian hospitals as soon as possible as reports of rape continue to mount in the wake of the Russian invasion.
About 2,880 packets of the drug, also known as the morning-after pill, were sent to Ukraine by the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), while a network of volunteers across Europe collected donations of the drug from abroad and shipped it to Ukraine’s hospitals .
“The timeframe for treating victims of sexual violence is really important,” said IPPF’s Julie Taft. “If a woman is seen within five days of an event, she should be automatically given this drug.”
Taft said the IPPF is also sending medical abortion pills that can be used up to 24 weeks of pregnancy.
While emergency contraception was widespread in Ukraine, the war has destroyed local supply chains, displaced patients and healthcare providers, and increased rates of sexual assault.
“There is a demand for emergency contraception, but very rarely from hospitals in the West. It’s mostly hospitals in the east, in Kharkiv, Mariupol, those regions,” said Joel Mitchell of Paracrew, a humanitarian aid organization that delivers food and medical supplies to Ukraine. “Once we got in touch with hospitals in those regions, we had standing orders for those drugs.”
It’s not clear how many of the recipients of the drugs are victims of sexual assault, but a Paracrew volunteer told the Guardian that he delivered emergency contraception directly to a hospital in a town north of Kyiv, where he says hospital staff told him A number of rape victims have been treated.
Ukraine’s Human Rights Commissioner Lyudmila Denisova said in early April that there were nine official cases of women who became pregnant after being raped by Russian soldiers. Reports of rape victims raise concerns about areas in the east that remain under Russian occupation.
Jamie Nadal of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) said cases of violence, including rape, reported in a crisis situation are likely “just the tip of the iceberg”.
The United Nations has previously attached emergency contraceptives in “post-rape kits” to hundreds of women and girls in armed conflicts around the world, including the Bosnian war. In addition to emergency contraception, survivors typically received medication to prevent sexually transmitted diseases such as hepatitis B and HIV. Drug distribution to rape survivors in post-conflict areas remains a UN policy. So far, the UN has sent 40 tons (40,000 kg) of reproductive health supplies to Ukraine and 33 clinical rape management (CMR) and post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) kits to 19 hospitals in 10 regions of Ukraine.
Kristoffer Rolf Deinoff, co-founder of the humanitarian aid organization Paracrew. Photo: Anna Liminowicz/The GuardianDenisova said her office officially documented the cases of 25 women being held in a basement and systematically raped in Bucha, a town north of Kyiv that is now synonymous with Russian war crimes, but the true number of victims could be farther be higher.
A volunteer who evacuated residents from towns north of Kyiv in early April told the Guardian: “What usually happens is that survivors of a rape want to tell their story at first, but then they walk away and it’s only months later that they come.” back to talk.” She said she encountered three women in the region coming out of houses and basements naked. One, who was immediately taken by ambulance, had been badly beaten and fractured his bones.
The Guardian reported this week that post-mortem examinations of bodies in mass graves north of Kyiv have revealed evidence some women had been raped before being killed by Russian forces.
“There are multiple psychological, emotional, and physical health issues that the survivor is dealing with, and the fear of potential pregnancy is really overwhelming for many women,” Taft said. “It can lead to stress and PTSD, so being able to prevent it in the first place is crucial.”
However, the supply of pills in Ukraine was severely damaged by the invasion, and volunteers speaking to the Guardian described several logistical problems delaying attempts to get much-needed medicines into the country.
“Many pharmaceuticals were previously manufactured in Ukraine, but much of that production has been halted or stuck in major cities because of unsafe transportation,” Taft said. “Also the current capacity of healthcare providers and goods [is insecure]especially because we are seeing a lot of destruction of healthcare facilities.”
Aleksandra Weder Sawicka, a Polish activist from Oslo who worked with Paracrew, coordinated a collection of 500 pills from Norway, but drew a scrutiny from the Norwegian Health Authority, which did not condone the informal donation of the drugs. A large pharmacy chain in Norway also refused to supply her with the drug for this reason. She has had to halt further donations while trying to reach an agreement with Norwegian authorities so she can continue the work.
Taft said tight controls on the drugs in some countries along the border with Ukraine, such as Romania, Hungary and Poland, have made obtaining the pills more expensive, challenging and time-consuming. “You can’t buy emergency medicine in bulk in these countries,” she said, “so we had to source it from suppliers in Denmark and the Netherlands.”
Krystyna Kacpura, director of Federa, a Polish organization campaigning for women’s rights and reproductive health, said: “International organizations came forward in the first days of the war and offered to send emergency contraceptives, but we had to advise them to send them directly to Ukraine through the Czech Republic as we could not be seen handling controlled substances.”
This article was modified on April 28, 2022. The IPPF delivered about 2,880 packets of pills to Ukraine, not about 25,000 packets as an earlier version said.