Attachments
ADDRESSING AND PREVENTING GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE AND MENTAL TRAUMA
Since July, more than 3,800 people have received psychosocial support and information in four Survivor Relief Centres in Kyiv, Lviv, Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia.
27 facilities for GBV survivors, including shelters, crisis rooms, counselling centres, the national hotline and 101 psychosocial support mobile teams provide a wide range of assistance to survivors and women at risk of violence. Since the start of the war, over 6,900 people have received psychosocial help from the mobile teams, around 30,000 people have received information on GBV risk mitigation (around 86 per cent women) and over 23,000 people (around 78 per cent women) have been consulted via the national hotline.
A new VONA career hub recently opened in Zaporizhzhia. Since March, UNFPA has opened five offline VONA (in Ukrainian “SHE”) hubs and supported a national platform to provide career advice and psychological support to vulnerable women who have faced displacement and/or violence.
15,000 dignity kits and 6,500 kits specifically designed for pregnant women and new mothers were recently delivered to Ukraine. Distribution of these kits to the most vulnerable women, including those who live in areas that recently came back under Government control or are close to the contact line in eastern and southern Ukraine, is already underway.
Under the EU-funded, WE ACT: Women Empowerment Action programme, a UNFPA-supported local civil society organization, Innovative Social Solutions, is strengthening GBV response and prevention at the community level. Three support offices were opened in Irpin (Kyiv oblast), Zhytomyr and Mykolaiv to provide timely and comprehensive psychosocial support to GBV survivors and others at risk of violence. The offices work in close cooperation with local authorities and take in referrals from municipal institutions in charge of social affairs. It is envisioned that these offices will provide support to 2,000 women by the end of the year.
In October, UNFPA, with support from the Government of the United Kingdom, launched a hotline to provide men with psychological support. Men can call the hotline to discuss any psychological issues causing stress or anxiety that might potentially lead to domestic violence. Since launching the hotline, psychologists have provided 230 consultations.