With and for the women of Ukraine: we stand in solidarity

(9 March 2022) On International women’s day EPSU stands with the women and girls of Ukraine and calls on the international community to ensure adequate safety and protection to women and girls in Ukraine and to the EU member States to provide safe entry into the EU for those fleeing the country.

EPSU recalls that in a resolution adopted in 2008 the UN Security Council affirmed that “rape and other forms of sexual violence can constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity or a constitutive act with respect to genocide”. Systematic and organized patterns of rape and sexual violence as a weapon of war have been internationally recorded for decades and refraining to provide targeted protection to women, girls and the LGBTQI+ community equals being complicit with perpetrators.  We repeat the call of the European and global labour movement: to end the violence immediately; to withdraw the Russian troops and start a process of negotiations that can bring lasting peace and prosperity to Ukraine, Russia and the rest of Europe.

For those women, girls and members of the LGBTQI+ community that are fleeing war, EPSU calls on the EU Institutions and EU Member States to provide safe entry, including by ensuring availability of gender specific sanitary products and drugs. 

For the ETUC women’s Committee statement

For more on EPSU positions on the war in Ukraine