Understanding Diverse Needs for Justice: The Role of NGOs in Advocating for Victims/Survivors of Wartime Sexual Violence in the Occupied Territories of Ukraine

Abstract

Since Russian armed aggression against Ukraine began in 2014, conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) has been systematically employed against the Ukrainian population, yet the institutional response has remained structurally misaligned with what survivors actually need. This thesis examines how NGO-based service providers and survivor-led networks (SLNs) in Ukraine conceptualize and respond to CRSV survivors’ justice needs, and what their accounts reveal about the failures of the state’s retributive approach. Drawing on ten semi-structured interviews with representatives of Ukrainian NGOs and SLNs, alongside critical discourse analysis of institutional documents, organizational reports, and government forms, the thesis identifies three interconnected findings. First, the bureaucratic architecture through which the Ukrainian state recognizes CRSV survivors functions as a mechanism of institutional betrayal: survivors are required to translate their experiences into administrative categories designed for different forms of harm, and the formal CRSV survivor status adopted in November 2024 has yet to produce any viable pathway to support. Second, Ukrainian civil society organizations have become the primary providers of care in the space the state has failed to fill, but their donor-dependent, fragmented structure cannot substitute for sustained state provision. The emergence of SLNs represents a qualitative shift in this fragmented landscape of care, as survivors move from beneficiaries to rights-holders demanding meaningful participation in policymaking. Third, survivors’ self-defined understandings of justice diverge significantly from the retributive model the state prioritizes: rather than punishment as an end in itself, survivors seek acknowledgment, transformation from passive victim to active agent, and holistic support that addresses present material and social needs. Together, these findings advance a survivor-defined model of justice that reframes the demand for state accountability not around prosecution outcomes but around recognition and reintegration on survivors’ own terms. The thesis contributes the first empirically grounded analysis of Ukrainian CRSV survivors’ justice needs developed through a feminist sociolegal framework and interview-based methodology, filling gaps that both domestic criminological scholarship and Western feminist legal critique have left unaddressed.