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Feedback The Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group (KHPG) and the Anti-Discrimination Centre (ADC) Memorial – Brussels have submitted a joint report to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Following its 93rd session, to be held in October 2026, the Committee will draw up a List of Issues for the Russian Federation.
Based on information contained in the KHPG databases, the joint submission addresses violations of women’s rights committed by the Russian Federation in the territory of Ukraine between 2022 and 2026. It covers:
- attacks, destruction and other acts affecting maternity hospitals and obstetric care facilities;
- enforced disappearances of women;
- conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), including violence and sexualised practices in Russian penitentiary institutions and in the temporarily occupied territories;
- unlawful deprivation of liberty and torture;
- persecution for pro-Ukrainian views;
- forced passportisation and conditioning access to essential services on possession of Russian citizenship;
- the use of children and other family members as a means of exerting pressure on women;
- forced displacement and “expulsions”.
The authors point to indications of the systematic nature of the documented violations of Ukrainian women’s rights. The submission examines, among other things, repeated strikes on maternity facilities, the use of FPV drones enabling visual observation of a target up to the moment of impact, and the conversion of maternity facilities into military hospitals for Russian military personnel. These incidents raise questions about the responsible actors’ awareness of the function of such facilities and their particular importance to women in connection with pregnancy and childbirth.
Another example concerns violence, torture and inhuman or degrading treatment in places where Ukrainian women are deprived of their liberty. KHPG’s materials document recurring practices across different institutions and places of detention, including forced nudity, invasive searches, threats of rape and other forms of sexualised abuse. The submission argues that the recurrence of substantially similar practices across different institutions indicates an institutional pattern rather than merely isolated misconduct by individual staff members.
Similar patterns can be seen in documented cases of abductions and enforced disappearances of women. Over several years and across territories hundreds of kilometres apart, recurring methods have been documented, including night-time or early-morning detention by armed persons, searches, confiscation of communications devices, the absence of procedural documentation and refusal to disclose the detainee’s whereabouts to relatives.
In explaining why the subject matter falls within the Committee’s mandate, the authors refer to CEDAW General Recommendation No. 30 (2013) on women in conflict prevention, conflict and post-conflict situations. The submission notes that States parties’ obligations under the Convention continue to apply during armed conflict and extend extraterritorially to persons within their effective control. The authors consider this applicable to the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine and to persons removed to the Russian Federation.