Country Profile Ukraine

General Country Information

Summary

There are two national women’s helplines in Ukraine which are free of charge and available 24/7 but do not offer multilingual support. Other helplines supporting survivors of violence against women are available, including regional helplines. There are 60 women-only shelters for women and children survivors of domestic violence with around 1,035 available beds. There are also women’s centres and services for survivors of sexualised violence in Ukraine although there is no available information on the overall number of such services. Measures related to primary prevention are included in the State Social Program for Prevention and Counteraction of Domestic Violence and Gender-Based Violence. There are however no official documents on primary prevention and there is no state definition of primary prevention. The state does collect data on women’s specialist services and while some statistics on are publicly available on government websites, it is often not concise and accurate. More detailed data on services is available upon request.

Women’s Specialist Services

There are two national women’s helplines in Ukraine. One helpline is the National Hotline for the Prevention of Domestic Violence, Human Trafficking and Gender Discrimination (Національна гаряча лінія з попередження домашнього насильства, торгівлі людьми та ґендерної дискримінації, tel.: +380 800500335 (from landline) or 116 123 (from mobile). This helpline is run by the women’s organisation “La Strada-Ukraine” and has been in operation since 1997. It is free of charge, available 24/7, and offers multilingual support in Ukrainian, Russian and English (upon request). Consultations are also available via online channels such as Telegram and Instagram. The helpline provides support to survivors of domestic violence, sexualised violence, conflict-related sexualised violence, sexual harassment, discrimination, and human trafficking/exploitation. The helpline is funded by international organisations as well as through donations. In 2024, the helpline received 44,805 calls.

The second national helpline is the National Hotline for Combating Violence in Ukraine (Національна лінія з протидії насильству в Україні, 1547) which was opened in 2020. This helpline is run by the Ministry for Social Policy and is also free of charge, available 24/7 and offers multilingual support in Russian. This helpline is financed by the state and provides support to survivors of domestic violence, human trafficking, and gender-based violence. The most common forms of violence reported by callers to both national helplines in 2024 were domestic violence, physical violence, and psychological violence.

In Ukraine, there are other helplines supporting survivors of violence against women. For example, local community organisations often operate local helplines. According to the Ministry for Social Policy, as of December 2024 there were 29 call centres and hotlines available for survivors of all forms of violence. Some examples of available helplines include Jurfem (tel.: +380 681455590, available via Telegram, Viber, and Signal) which is an initiative of the Ukrainian Women Lawyers Association to support survivors of sexualised violence, rape, and sexual harassment as well as survivors of all forms of gender discrimination. Additionally, Marsh Zhinok (Instagram: @Marshzhinok_bot) provides psychological support and support in finding shelter accommodation for survivors. The NGO Divchata also provides helpline support (tel.: +380 734603860 or email: help@divchata.org) such as psychological and legal aid or referrals.

According to the National Social Services of Ukraine, there are 60 women-only shelters for women and children survivors of domestic violence with around 1,035 available beds (equalling approximately 345 family places). It should be noted that the service responsible for reporting on shelter capacity counts bed spaces, while family places (comprising of three beds for one adult and two children) is used to assess compliance with the recommended standards. Some women-only shelters run by NGOs are available 24/7, however, access to government and municipal shelters is more complicated due to complex bureaucratic procedures. Usually, the police can bring a survivor to a women-only shelter which runs 24/7, but such shelters are not available in every town. Women are not expected to pay for their accommodation in women-only shelters, although it can be the case that only basic food items are covered, and the rest needs to be covered by the survivor. The types of in-house services most often provided by women-only shelters are casework, counselling/psychological support, referrals/collaboration with other services, practical advice, and legal advice. On average, women are allowed to stay in women-only shelters up to three months (90 days).

According to data provided by the Department for Compliance with Equality Standards of the National Social Service of Ukraine, as of July 1, 2024, less than half of the available beds in shelters (396 out of 1,035 beds) were occupied. This signifies that shelters are not being used at full capacity and suggests that women do not have access or have difficulties accessing the necessary services. Some women-only shelters can be accessed by and are accessible to women with uncertain residence permits/undocumented women, refugee women, women with cognitive disabilities, women with substance abuse issues, older women (65 years and above), women with children with disabilities, and unaccompanied girls under the age of 18. There are specific shelters supporting survivors of conflict-related sexualised violence. After the full-scale invasion, additional shelters were built for these survivors.
Funding for women-only shelters in Ukraine comes from the state, international funding and religious institutions. Women-only shelters are run by women’s NGOs with a gender-specific/feminist approach, faith-based organisations, and the state. Women-only shelters are located in most regions of Ukraine: six are located in Odesa region, five in Lviv region, four in Zhytomyr, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kyiv and Chernivtsi regions, three in Vinnytsia, Volyn, Mykolaiv, Zakarpattia, Poltava, Khmelnytskyi regions and the city of Kyiv, two in Dnipropetrovsk, Kirovohrad, Kharkiv and Cherkasy regions, and one in Zaporizhia, Sumy, Rivne and Kherson regions. There are no women-only shelters in Luhansk, Ternopil and Chernihiv regions. The main reasons why women-only shelters had to decline referrals were no space/capacity to support the survivor, the survivor being ineligible for support, or the shelter not being adequately equipped for the needs of the women/children. The most common forms of violence reported by survivors to women-only shelters in 2024 were domestic violence.

There are other shelters in Ukraine which can provide support to women survivors of violence and, according to the Ministry of Social Policy, there are 100 crisis rooms providing emergency accommodation for up to 10 days. There are different types of shelters run by the state (also on a local level), NGOs, international organisations, and religious organisations. These include shelters predominantly accommodating internally displaced women (and children and older people), survivors of conflict-related sexualised violence, women with substance abuse issues, women survivors of human trafficking, and LGBTQI+ survivors.⁴

The full scale-invasion has had a major impact on all services including shelters accessible to women survivors of violence in terms of infrastructure. As many shelters were either closed or destroyed, some new ones opened, and a number of shelters also re-oriented their work to accommodate internally displaced people and others who were relocated due to the war. Some shelters which are located in occupied territories were destroyed or damaged in the conflict, were too close to active conflict zones, or have been repurposed to accommodate internally displaced people.

There are women’s centres in Ukraine although there is no available information on the overall number of centres for women survivors of violence or for all survivors. According to the Ministry for Social Policy, there are 101 day centres providing social and psychological assistance, 110 specialised primary social and psychological counselling services for survivors of domestic violence and/or GBV, 715 mobile socio-psychological assistance teams, and 25 other institutions and organisations providing assistance to survivors (such as, social apartments, centres for social and psychological assistance, centres for emergency anonymous medical and psychological assistance). The types of services offered by women’s centres include counselling/psychological support, legal advice, financial and social welfare support/advocacy, housing advice, employment, referrals/collaboration with other services, representation at court/police/social services, and residential support services. Women’s centres also provide support to survivors of sexualised violence in the form of legal advice as well as needs assessment, specialist psychological care, specialist sexualised violence advocacy services, and community awareness and education for prevention.
Some women’s centres can be accessed by and are accessible to women with uncertain residence permits/undocumented women, refugee women, and women with physical disabilities. There also are women’s centres specialised in supporting survivors of trafficking. However, there are no women’s centres providing specialised support to girls under the age of 18.

Before the full-scale invasion, regions in Ukraine received state subventions in order to develop services for survivors of domestic violence and gender-based violence, including centres providing assistance to women. However, the full-scale invasion impacted the situation of services drastically. There are now a number of different centres and services for women, many of which are funded by international organisations. Some centres are run by international organisations, but exact numbers are not available, as well as information on centres run by NGOs. Additionally, the suspension of USAID funding has led to the closure of some services. Funding for women’s centres comes from the state, donations, international funding and religious institutions. Women’s centres are located in most regions of Ukraine.

Ukraine has services for women and girls who have experienced sexualised violence, but there is no available data on the exact number of services. Since the full-scale invasion in Ukraine, more services for women survivors of conflict-related sexualised violence have been established. Some of these have been opened by new actors or those already working in the field who extended or specified their services for women survivors of such violence. Available services include rape crisis centres, sexual violence referral centres and there is a specialised helpline. Support provided by sexualised violence services includes specialist forensic and medical care, needs assessment, specialist psychological care, specialist sexualised violence advocacy services, community awareness and education for prevention, and legal advice. Funding for these services comes from the state, donations, international funding, and religious institutions. The majority of services are for women over the age of 18, some are for minors, and very few are for male survivors of sexualised violence (in most cases for war-related trauma). Sexualised violence services are located in most regions of Ukraine.

The State Social Program for Prevention and Counteraction of Domestic Violence and Gender-Based Violence, in place until 2025, contains a section on the prevention of domestic violence. This includes provisions on overcoming negative stereotypes in Ukrainian society and forming an intolerant attitude toward violent behaviour. There are however no official documents on primary prevention in Ukraine and there is no state definition of primary prevention. The state does fund primary prevention activities, although such funding is limited.⁵ Primary prevention activities are primarily run by NGOs with the support of donor institutions or funding from international organisations.⁶ Such activities include feminist self-defence training, empowerment activities for girls and women, and awareness-raising campaigns or programmes. The Ministry for Social Policy annually publishes information on the implementation of tasks and measures of the State Social Program for Prevention and Counteraction of Domestic Violence and Gender-Based Violence. However, it is impossible to objectively assess the effectiveness and quality of these measures in relation to prevention.

1. The most recent available data on Eurostat is from 2022. ↩︎
2. Ibid. ↩︎
3. This only includes the number of calls to the National Hotline for the prevention of domestic violence, human trafficking, and gender discrimination. ↩︎
4. This information is from the WAVE Country Report 2023. ↩︎
5. Information from the WAVE Country Report 2023. ↩︎
6. Ibid. ↩︎