Ashley Judd visited Kramatorsk, Orlando Bloom – Slavyansk…

While politicians are bargaining, negotiating and sitting at round tables, life in the Donbass is going on: people can not stop and wait until the politicians come to an agreement. Already today, they need to rebuild war-shattered region, every day they are in need of psychological and material assistance. The strange thing is that these issues are raised by the foreign stars. Actually, they do not even raise the issues, but come with a concrete help, and not for the sake of publicity stunt.

The conflict in the Donbass region exposed the number of problems that had existed before, but worsened with the beginning of the war. If on the territories controlled by Ukraine the situation with human rights can be at least recorded, we can only guess about the things happening in the “grey” areas. In Ukraine, there is no simple institution for the protection of civil rights during military conflicts, so it's important to work with the UN ambassadors of goodwill.

Ashley Judd, Goodwill Ambassador of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), visited the Donbass to draw attention to the vulnerability of women and girls under the conditions of military conflict. During the visit, the actress talked on equal terms with women and girls affected by conflict, explaining their rights to them. She went to Kramatorsk, Slavyansk and Svyatogorsk, visited the maternity hospital, social centers and shelters for displaced persons.

UN gives the shocking figures: according to the organization, worldwide the level of gender-based violence increases sharply in conflict, and in Ukraine, 22% of women have experienced or continue to suffer from physical or sexual abuse, while two-thirds of them have never asked for help. According to Ashley Judd, this high figure is due to the fact that, firstly, such issues are not used to be talked about in the society. And secondly, Ukrainian women simply don’t have where to address, the country sorely lacks the centers for assistance from any kind of violence. About 80% of Ukrainian women who have experienced violence, never applied for medical services or to law enforcement agencies.

Frankly speaking, I was struck by these statistics. After all, nobody really talks about what is happening in the conflict zone. Dry official reports and information from friends are all the news sources from the Donbass. Meanwhile, the common problems connected with violence in military conflict zones has not been canceled, and every day civilians are in dire need of support. It would be good if not only world famous stars and international organizations, but also local authorities paid attention to these issues.