Ukrainian Women Are Carrying the War on Every Front

Ukrainian women are bearing a burden that is almost impossible to put into words. On top of the horrors of war, they face domestic violence — and at the same time fight custody battles against the very fathers from whom they are trying to protect their children. Some of these men have returned from the front traumatised, their unprocessed suffering now erupting inside the family home. Others use custody claims deliberately — as a legal tool to evade military mobilisation.

This is not anecdotal. A 2025 UNFPA report based on extensive consultations with women across Ukraine documents a sharp rise in intimate partner and domestic violence, driven by increased stress, trauma, displacement, and substance abuse associated with the war. Human Rights Watch likewise reports that domestic violence cases increased by 36% in 2024 and notes concerns raised by women’s rights organisations about violence committed by returning combatants and obstacles to accountability. Research from the Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki further describes what some scholars call the “boomerang of violence”: the risk that patterns of violence cultivated during armed conflict may reappear within family and community life after soldiers return home.

This was made clear today by Marta Chumalo, Vice-Director and psychologist at the NGO Centre “Women’s Perspectives” in Lviv, Ukraine, speaking at the Annual Conference of the Commission for Gender Equality at the Council of Europe. Her message was unambiguous: the system is not adequately protecting many women who experience violence. Women who report abuse may face additional legal, economic, and social obstacles when seeking safety for themselves and their children.

The scale is staggering. An estimated 2.4 million people in Ukraine — predominantly women and girls — are experiencing, or are at risk of experiencing, gender-based violence, according to the UN Population Fund’s Voices from Ukraine report. According to the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, one in four women who fled Ukraine reports having experienced physical or sexual violence since the start of the war.

Women’s right to reproductive self-determination must also remain protected during times of crisis. Since the start of the war, Ukraine has experienced a profound demographic shock: fertility rates have fallen to among the lowest in the world, while millions of people have been displaced — nearly 10 million Ukrainians remain displaced four years into the war, according to UNHCR — and the population has declined dramatically. Some policy voices have proposed pronatalist responses to what they call Ukraine’s “people shortage”. Demographic challenges, however serious, must never become a justification for limiting women’s autonomy over their own bodies and reproductive choices.

This is not a solution to a crisis. It is the continuation of control by other means.

Ukrainian women are holding their families, their communities, and their country together — often at enormous personal cost. They deserve protection, solidarity, justice, and self-determination. Not more burdens.

Sanja Jeraj is Head of our Delegation to the Council of Europe