The investigators hunting sex crimes in Ukraine
STORY: This is a team of legal experts from the Hague
gathering evidence of alleged sexual crimes
by Russian forces in Ukraine
The visit has not previously been reported
Locator: Kherson, Ukraine
(Julian Elderfield, International legal adviser at Global Rights Compliance)
“So we’ve been down here for three days now supporting the Office of the Prosecutor General in their local investigations here in Kherson. The team is a conflict-related sexual violence specific team and they’ve been coming down here, they are coming down here to extract and target conflict-related sexual violence.”
The team is from a legal practice called "Global Rights Compliance"
and they're working with local prosecutors
(Julian Elderfield, International Legal Adviser at Global Rights Compliance)
“It is a two-pronged process. There is a need to collect evidence as soon as the crimes occur. But as the conditions improve, that also becomes more amenable for victims of sexual violence to come forward.”
Their efforts are part of a broader international attempt to support Ukrainian authorities
Moscow has continuously denied committing war crimes and rejected allegations of
sexual violence by the Russian military in Ukraine
(Serhii Doroshyn, Deputy head of national police's investigation department in Crimea)
“We personally interrogated approximately 70 people"
(Serhii Doroshyn, Deputy head of national police's investigation department in Crimea)
"It is inhumane treatment. Law and customs of war are not observed at all. None of the Conventions is observed either.”
The scale of the Ukrainian prosecution's task is daunting
with the number of alleged international crimes running into tens of thousands
(Anna Sosnovska, Deputy head of Ukraine's war crime unit for sexual violence)
“Everywhere where Russian soldiers were based and were place they committed war crimes, they committed conflict-related sexual violence cases and they tortured, they murdered. And this is the main line, I think, like a method of conducting war against Ukraine as a nationality.”
Elderfield said sexual violence was not always given the prominence
it should have in national and international investigations
(Julian Elderfield, International Legal Adviser at Global Rights Compliance)
“(It's about) asking the right questions, pursuing unique or different lines of investigation that might otherwise not have been pursued by local investigators.”
Rape can constitute a war crime under the Geneva Conventions
and systematic sexual violence could amount to crimes against humanity
