{"id":868735,"date":"2026-04-03T06:26:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T06:26:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/868735\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T06:26:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T06:26:18","slug":"ukraine-confronts-rising-domestic-abuse-euobserver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/868735\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine confronts rising domestic abuse \u2013 EUobserver"},"content":{"rendered":"

Five-month-old Alisa coos on the cushioned floor. She had been born only days after her 35-year-old mother Tetiana Chehubda arrived at the centre for battered women in Dnipro, a large city in eastern Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Now divorced, Tetiana\u2019s ex-husband is a soldier fighting against the Russian invasion.<\/p>\n

She doesn\u2019t like to talk about him, fearing she will be publicly disgraced for any perceived insult to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a horrible man,\u201d she tells EUobserver in English on Thursday (2 April). Her eldest, 11-year-old Anna, sits quietly by her side. Anna, who dreams of becoming an actress, loves to read detective and fantasy novels.<\/p>\n

The family had been evacuated from Krymina during the outset of the war and then temporarily relocated to Pavlohrad<\/a>, a small city some 50km from the frontline.<\/p>\n

Tetiana wants to leave Ukraine and find somewhere safe for her children, away from the fighting and the violence of her ex-husband.<\/p>\n

Domestic abuse has emerged as a nationwide problem in Ukraine, with reports suggesting that some battle-weary soldiers are bringing wartime trauma into their family lives.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At \u201cMama\u2019s Happiness\u201d shelter run by Manya Zemenkova, Tetiana lives alongside 13 other families, including 24 children.<\/p>\n

Zemenkova warns that children are often the first victims of domestic violence and fears the situation will worsen as the war continues.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a huge problem across Ukraine, and it will only grow as more soldiers return home,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cOnce we start the fight, we have to keep going. Don\u2019t back down. I tell everyone: don\u2019t back down,\u201d says Manya Zemenkova, who runs the centre. Note \u2013 portions of image have been blurred to conceal location. (Photo: Nikolaj Nielsen)<\/p>\n

According to Zemenkova, the Ukrainian government is working to address the issue by supporting regional initiatives so that other similar shelters can offer refuge to abused women and their children.<\/p>\n

She also says local police have specialised units that have been trained and sensitised to handle such cases.<\/p>\n

In the first five months of 2025, police received more than 53,000 reports of criminal offences linked to domestic violence, according to government authorities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Five-month-old Alisa coos on the cushioned floor. She had been born only days after her 35-year-old mother Tetiana…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":868736,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[217083,2000,299,218484,218482,218483,657],"class_list":{"0":"post-868735","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-typedefinedterm","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-identifier24","12":"tag-nameukraine","13":"tag-termcodeukraine","14":"tag-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116339356039026201","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=868735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/868736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=868735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=868735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=868735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}