Iryna Shatalova
Ukrainian Women, Victims of Violence in the War, Turn Pain into Creation
TRANSLATED ABSTRACT of original article
In 2014 the photo of Iryna Dovgan went viral all over the world. A photo of a woman chained to a street pole in Donetsk and wrapped in a flag, mocked by passers-by, was published in The New York Times. She spent five days in the captivity of militants and was finally released thanks to the persistence of foreign journalists.
Now Iryna lives in the Kyiv region and heads the public organization SEMA Ukraine. The Ukrainian SEMA has existed since 2019 as part of the global SEMA NETWORK, founded by the Dr. Denis Mukwege International Foundation. It brings together women who have survived captivity or sexual violence during wars.
In July 2023, Iryna and SEMA Ukraine organized an information and charity event “Numo Sestry!” (Come on, sisters!) to provide assistance to victims of sexual violence. Various women’s stories were highlighted at this event.
One of them is about Lyudmyla Huseynova, 60 years old. She spent three years in the Donetsk detention center. In 2014 she became caught up in the war in the Donetsk region. Lyudmyla brought shoes and clothes to the children of a boarding school from the controlled territory of Ukraine. And also Ukrainian books and postcards. In 2019, she was arrested. As she later found out, her acquaintances had reported her. Last year, when there was a “female exchange”, Lyudmyla was released. Since then she has been living in Kyiv.
Another story is about Oksana Myronenko, a doctor from Luhansk region. In 2014 the Myronenko family left home and started a new life in Bucha, Kyiv region. Two days before the full-scale invasion, Oksana’s parents moved to Bucha. Before that, they lived in the Luhansk region. When the Russians started shelling Bucha, Oksana’s parents decided to leave. The occupiers fired at the couple’s car with a grenade launcher. Oksana’s mother died on the spot. Her father survived.
Soon the whole family moved to Prykarpattya. Oksana, her sister and her husband joined the volunteer movement. They are taking care of wounded soldiers and displaced persons. And within a few months, Oksana and her sister Yulia created the charity fund “Nash Sokil” (Our Falcon) in memory of their mother, Natalia Sokolovska. Women are helping people to leave the occupied territories. In particular, they take care of internally displaced persons with disabilities or serious illnesses, elderly people and those with limited mobility.
About the Author
Iryna Shatalova is a film director, screenwriter, and art manager. She is also director and scriptwriter of documentary videos, including a full-length film about women’s participation in local elections, Women’s Path to Politics (2021). Iryna is the writer and presenter of the documentary video series The Right to Success (2016–2017) about the experiences of internally displaced persons adapting to new places.