Ukraine

Protection from sexual exploitation and abuse

The war in Ukraine has intensified vulnerabilities, particularly among internally displaced people and marginalized communities. An estimated 2.5 million people are at high risk of sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA), particularly in rural or front-line areas.¹ The 2025 PSEA Network Action Plan focuses on a multi-pronged approach to prevention, response and coordination. It emphasizes community-based initiatives, government and civil society engagement and operationalizing community-based complaint mechanisms through identified community structures and community-led safe spaces to increase safe and comprehensive reporting and referral mechanisms.

The Action Plan prioritizes prevention through a community-based communications campaign and decentralized structures. In many rural and hard-to-reach areas, access to critical information remains limited, requiring stronger rights-based outreach efforts. The decentralized PSEA Network, now operational in Dnipro, Kharkiv, Lviv, Mykolaiv and Odesa, is essential for promoting localized engagement with vulnerable people.

Awareness-raising initiatives are central to prevention, but significant gaps remain. While 20 million people were reached by the PSEA Network in 2024, only 7 per cent of aid recipients reported effectively receiving SEA information. This highlights the need for more comprehensive community-driven communication and dissemination strategies. Insights from a Ground Truth Solutions (GTS) report on Ukraine shows that stigma, victim-blaming and disbelief regarding SEA are substantial barriers to reporting, with many people fearing retaliation or denial of access to humanitarian aid. Younger people (18–35 years) show greater willingness to report SEA, particularly to law enforcement, suggesting that prevention strategies should be tailored to specific demographic needs.

The 2025 PSEA Action Plan will expand specialized training for humanitarian workers operating close to the front line, including field coordinators, volunteers and hotline operators. These are often the first to encounter SEA cases and need to be equipped with the knowledge and tools to handle SEA allegations sensitively and uphold the confidentiality of survivors.

The GTS report underscores the need for continuous improvement of accessible and safe community feedback mechanisms tailored to local contexts. Community-based organizations, such as youth associations play a pivotal role in informing victim rights and enabling safe reporting. These mechanisms are designed to address barriers to reporting, especially for vulnerable groups like Roma, LGBTIQ+ people and people with disabilities. Moreover, integrating law enforcement into system-wide SEA reporting processes will enhance accountability and legal enforcement of PSEA while contributing to a rights-centred approach based on access to justice for survivors. The decentralized PSEA Network, comprising over 200 members, enhances cross-sector collaboration with guidance from the HCT and the PSEA Steering Committee to monitor the progress of the Action Plan. As indicated in the 2023 PSEA Annual Risk Report,² effective system-wide coordination between humanitarian sectors (clusters), government institutions and CSOs is essential to operationalizing the 2025 PSEA Action Plan and the roll-out of the Victim Support and Assistance Protocol in a comprehensive, localized and coordinated manner. Engaging national human rights institutions and law enforcement ensures a rights-based approach to SEA prevention and response. This engagement aligns with broader accountability mechanisms and strengthens national efforts to prevent and address SEA complaints.

Gender, age, disability and other diversities

Although not a determinant of vulnerability in isolation, gender can be an exacerbating factor in the severity of needs and vulnerabilities, particularly when combined with age, disability and household composition,³ and more especially among other vulnerable groups, including Roma or other ethnic minorities,⁴ LGBTIQ+ people⁵ and people living with HIV+.⁶

Households with the highest needs are those with intersecting vulnerabilities such as women-only internally displaced households and women-only 60+ households.⁷ These households encounter gendered barriers to accessing services, experience increased protection risks and have to grapple with pre-existing inequalities, which negatively affect their ability to cope with shocks. In front-line areas,⁸ families with children or older people, people with disabilities and single female-headed households tend to have the most severe needs.⁹

Women across all age groups experience greater unemployment than men and rely more on humanitarian assistance.¹⁰ The gender pension gap leaves older women more financially vulnerable than older men and more reliant on humanitarian assistance.¹¹ Shrinking social services, increases in single-parent households and displacement contribute to a growing need for unpaid care work, largely done by women and adolescent girls.

This limits women’s ability to generate income and access humanitarian assistance, increasing the vulnerability of female-headed households.¹²

The mandatory military draft does not include women, who constitute only 7.3 per cent of the armed forces.¹³ Higher rates of male enrolment and conscription mean men are more likely to be affected by direct exposure to hostilities and changes in conscription policy hinder men’s access to humanitarian services, employment and their sense of safety.¹⁴

Disability is one of the key drivers of humanitarian needs for the people affected by the war in Ukraine.¹⁵ Households with members with disabilities report severe needs,¹⁶ limited access to humanitarian assistance, including lack of information¹⁷ and increasing use of negative coping mechanisms.¹⁸ Priority needs relate to livelihoods, health, protection and food.¹⁹ Insufficient income and inflation have a compounding impact: people with disabilities are increasingly dependent on governmental social schemes, but the amounts they receive are too low to cover the growing needs. The health-care needs of households with members with disabilities are exacerbated by the high costs of medicine and treatment.²⁰ Children with disabilities and their caregivers face significant challenges such as physical and environmental barriers, limited access to essential services and discrimination that exacerbate their already vulnerable situation. Displacement disrupts access to specialized health care, education and assistive devices, causing stress for caregivers. In collective sites where many severely vulnerable households are currently residing, a high proportion of residents are persons with disabilities.²¹ The existing institutional care system and the increased risk of institutionalization for older people and people with disabilities during crisis further increase protection concerns.

The Age and Disability Technical Working Group and organizations of people with disabilities will coordinate to ensure assistance is delivered in accordance with IASC principles and address the factors contributing to persons with disabilities remaining in front-line areas.

The war in Ukraine has exacerbated vulnerabilities of LGBTIQ+ communities who already encounter structural barriers to essential services. Stereotyping, stigmatization, discrimination and lack of recognition from service providers often lead to exclusion from shelter, health care, legal support, case management and other services. This is further complicated by the fear of disclosing sexual orientation or gender identity, making LGBTIQ+ people hesitant to seek assistance. Compounding barriers such as the lack of accessible services, including documentation for same-sex families and transgender people, leave many of them without protection and crucial resources. Furthermore, LGBTIQ+ communities are frequently underrepresented in needs assessments, impeding accurate data collection and response planning to better address their specific needs.

The 2025 HNRP prioritizes addressing existing barriers to humanitarian assistance, enhancing access to information and raising awareness among stakeholders. Accessibility of interventions is at the centre, in adherence with current Ukrainian legislation.

Integrated approach to Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS)

Beyond the physical destruction, the prolonged war has exposed millions to trauma and psychological distress due to constant uncertainty, fear of attacks and grave protection risks. In 2025, special emphasis will be placed on integrating MHPSS across humanitarian work to address the widespread and increasing trauma inflicted by the ongoing war. The primary focus will be on strengthening coordination of MHPSS activities implemented by actors involved in education, health and protection, including child protection services and the response to gender-based violence. Collaborative efforts such as a joint reporting framework, improved, coordinated referral systems and information-sharing, including on MHPSS response monitoring, will be strengthened to provide quality, safe and inclusive MHPSS services to affected people, while identifying gaps and avoiding duplication (for non-specialized services) and fragmentation of the response.

Community-based approaches and the use of focal points will help to facilitate referrals between different sectors. Intersectoral collaboration at the community level between concerned humanitarian actors and government structures will be fostered, while linking to the wider MHPSS coordination structures led by the Government. The MHPSS Technical Working Group will engage health, education and protection partners, including those involved in child protection and GBV, to provide technical guidance on implementation of MHPSS activities, ensuring affected people receive the services they need, in line with the multi-layered IASC MHPSS intervention pyramid. This approach will help to maximize the outcomes of services provided across humanitarian action. A holistic approach to MHPSS interventions will be utilized by agreeing on technical aspects, unified standards, reporting mechanisms and, when possible, joint project vetting, as well as linking humanitarian response to long-term development priorities led by the Government.