At least five women were attacked with pepper spray because of their participation in the march for women’s rights in Kyiv on March 8.
On the same day, six attackers, among them women, spilled red paint on the women who rallied against domestic violence in Uzhgorod, a western Ukrainian city of 114,000 people located 809 kilometers southwest of Kyiv.
See also: Photos from Women’s March in Kyiv
Thousands of people attended marches for women’s rights held all over Ukraine on March 8, the International Women’s Day. Women and men walked the streets of Kyiv, Kharkiv, Uzhgorod and many other cities to protest against domestic and sexual abuse.
The level of violence against women in Ukraine is alarming.
Read also: Ukrainian women still face long march to equality
Some 600 women are killed in domestic violence in Ukraine every year, according to Kyiv-based women’s rights center La Strada. That is three times more than Ukraine lost in combat casualties in Russia’s war in 2017.
Many Ukrainian women conceal the violence they face at home, because of shame or dependence on the abuser. Some 120,000 Ukrainian women reported domestic violence in 2017. But La Strada estimates that the real number is close to 2 million — or 10 percent of all women.
The participants walked through the streets of Kyiv from Mykhaylivska Square to Khreshchatyk Street.
A march for women’s rights and equality takes place in Kyiv on March 8. (Volodymyr Petrov)
Olena Shevchenko, one of the organizers of the Women’s March in Kyiv, told the Kyiv Post that at least five participants were beaten and attacked with pepper sprays or had brilliant green spilled on them near Bessarabska Square and on Khreshchatyk Street.
“According to our information, the attackers were from Tradition and Order and NatsSprotyv (radical nationalist organizations),” Shevchenko said.
Tradition and Order press service told the Kyiv Post they had nothing to do with the attacks. However, on its official Facebook page, the organization reposted an anti-feminist post, full of hate speech against emancipated women.
“Feminism only destroys. It makes the birth rate go down and population ageing,” the message reads.
While in Kyiv women were attacked by pepper spray and brilliant green, in Uzhgorod attackers used red paint to protest against emancipation.
An activist from Uzhgorod Yaryna Denysiuk shares photos of the attackers of the women’s rights march. She identified one of the female attackers as a spokesperson for the Karpatska Sich nationalistic organization.
