Rape and sexual violence attributed to Russian forces in Ukraine is clearly a “military strategy” and a “deliberate tactic to dehumanize the victims,” ​​said the UN Special Representative for Combating Sexual Violence in Conflict, Pramila Patten, condemning the “horrific incidents and very brutal violence,” reports France Presse.

“All the signs are there,” Patten answered when asked by AFP in Paris about rape as a weapon of war in Ukraine, Agerpres notes.

• “When women and girls are kept for days and raped, when you start raping boys and men, when you see a series of cases of genital mutilation, when you hear the testimony of women talking about Russian soldiers equipped with Viagra, it is clear that this is a military strategy.
• And when victims talk about what was said during the rape, it’s clearly a deliberate tactic to dehumanize the victims,” ​​says the Mauritanian-British lawyer.

Appointed in 2017 as the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Patten was in Paris on Thursday to sign a partnership agreement with the NGO Libraries Without Borders to support victims of sexual violence in conflict.

The UN has verified “over a hundred cases” of rape and sexual assault in Ukraine since the start of the war, but “it’s not about the numbers,” Pramila Patten insisted.

“It is very difficult to have reliable statistics during an active conflict and the numbers will never reflect the reality because sexual violence is a silent crime that is the least reported and the least condemned,” she stressed, raising fears of reprisals and stigmatization. .

“Reported cases are just the tip of the iceberg,” Patten warned.

• Friday’s events regarding the war in Ukraine are broadcast LIVE on HotNews.ro