In the framework of permanent cooperation with the United Nations’ bodies and officials, our Association sent its submission to the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances for the preparation of its General Comment, “The Impact of Enforced Disappearances on Women and Girls.”
The ARC’s submission, prepared by Anna Prykhodko, Olesya Tsybulko and other experts, and published by UN now, reminded to the Committee about women ands girls, kidnapped by Russia–controlled punitive bodies in the occupied Crimea.
The ARC submission stressed that, as the UN reports established earlier, the relevant perpetrators comprised paramilitary groups, such as the “Crimean self-defense” and “Cossack” groups; also as the agents of the Russian Federal Security Service (“FSB”) and other “law enforcement authorities,” including the Crimean “police.”
Perpetrators have used torture and ill-treatment to force women and girls to self-incriminate or testify against others, as well as retaliation for their political affiliation or position; no individual has been prosecuted by Russia in relation to any of the enforced disappearances, as well as torture and ill-treatment, documented by OHCHR, the ARC submission stressed.
The example of such victim was given in case of Chernukha Tamara, paramedic from Chernomorske (Ak-Mechet), stolen by “FSB officials” on February 6, 2025, and held in the incomunicado regime in Simferopol till August, 2026, when the aggressor started for her “official court’s detention” for alleged “high treason”.
The issues of the memorialization of victims of enforced disappearances, kidnapped by foreign forces at occupied territories, especially conjunct with invaders’ hate speech, genocidal calls, politic repressions and with interregional enforced transition of kidnapped person, must be reflected in the General Comment, the ARC’s submission summarised.
