Ukrainian men are being pulled away from vital humanitarian work and conscripted into the military under new conscription laws, local activists say.
One of the major challenges facing Ukraine’s war effort is a shortage of conscripts, and Kiev hopes that a new law passed in April 2024 aimed at recruiting more soldiers will help it gain a military advantage, especially once the hostilities end. A new wave of attacks From northeastern Russia in May 2024.
Vasil Malikov is the coordinator in Kharkiv. Alliance Global North-east Ukraine. This NGO provides a range of services to the LGBTQ community in the Kharkiv region, including HIV prevention and testing, psychosocial support, medical care and humanitarian assistance.
He told me that most of the men who work for his organisation to provide these services, and their volunteers, are at risk of being called up for military service under the new conscription system.
Russia’s invasions of Ukraine in 2014 and 2022 led to protracted fighting along hundreds of miles of front lines. In August 2024, Ukraine opened a new line of attack, Attack on Kursk in Russia region, Report Estimates Ukraine could commit as many as 10,000 troops to the offensive. Despite widespread use of new technology on the battlefield, much of the war is fought by more traditional means, with large numbers of soldiers armed with rifles defending the country from trenches.
The new law aims to bolster Ukraine’s battered military and lower the conscription age from 27 to 25, although volunteers over 18 will still be accepted.
For a decade, Ukraine has been asking Washington and European leaders for weapons to defend itself against Russian aggression, but getting enough soldiers to use the weapons has been a major challenge.
The initial target of 450,000 to 500,000 new conscriptions has been lowered, but it is unclear what the new figure will be. We report regularly from the frontline in and around the country’s second-largest city, Kharkiv. End Past 2 yearsIt’s clear that the Ukrainian military is short on manpower. personnel.
Malikov said some of the men who work at Alliance Global have already been called up to serve in the military, making it difficult to find replacements. “It’s good practice internationally that many of the services we provide to LGBTQ people are best delivered by social workers and volunteers who come from the communities they serve – peer-to-peer,” he said.
“We do a tremendous job of providing vital social and other support to gay and bisexual men in and around Kharkiv. Trust is key in supporting these communities, and when the men on our team join the military, we can’t find someone to replace them. They are experienced professionals and dedicated to this work.”
Several members of the Alliance.Global team have been exempted from conscription for health or other reasons. Malikov is currently exempt because he is a university professor, but his degree certificate needs to be renewed every three months, which he says is a lengthy bureaucratic process that can mean standing in line for up to five hours at a time.
This new challenge faces the country’s LGBTQ community. Halting progress Despite opinion polls showing that more than 70 percent of Ukrainians are opposed to the introduction of same-sex civil partnerships, say LGBTQ people should have the same rights as other citizens. This is a significant improvement from 2010, when only 28% of Ukrainians thought gays and lesbians should be free to live as they wish.
However, Bogdan Globa, president and co-founder,QUA – LGBTQ Ukrainians in America“Thousands of LGBTQI+ people serve in the military alongside their civilian partners in their home countries. For heterosexual couples, if something happens to a military partner (injured or killed), the civilian partner has access to a range of government benefits, from cash assistance to housing. Same-sex couples remain invisible, unsupported and unrecognized by the government. Civilians don’t even have the right to bury their partners’ bodies,” they point out.
“Any Ukrainian man could join the army within a few weeks, because it is their national duty in wartime,” Malikov says, including the more than 80 men in the Alliance.Global network.
The new recruitment drive brings new challenges to his job in Kharkiv. “It makes planning much more difficult. We don’t know who will be called up and when. It adds an element of unpredictability to an already uncertain future,” he said.
For more information, see Human Rights First’s new report,New conscription: Ukraine’s conscription law threatens humanitarian effortsThis is a book that Maya Fernandez Powell and I wrote.
Brian Dooley Senior Advisor to Human Rights First.
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