The Canadian government’s financing of rape investigations in Ukraine warrants healthy skepticism. A similar initiative in Libya was used to justify violence.
Canadian officials have repeatedly criticized Russian soldiers for raping Ukrainians. Last week a Global headline noted “Ukrainian sexual assault victims need reproductive health care, Sajjan says” while a few days earlier Ottawa put up $1 million for the International Criminal Court to investigate Russian sex crimes and crimes against children. They previously put up $7 million to “support aims to increase security and protection from sexual and gender-based violence for women and girls in Ukraine.” Ten RCMP officers have also been dedicated to gathering evidence of rape and sexual violence by Russians in Ukraine.
People with any historical knowledge of warfare understand that Russian forces have almost certainly raped Ukrainian women. But it’s also obvious that Ukrainian officials have made some outlandish claims.
Two weeks ago, the Ukrainian parliament’s commissioner for human rights Lyudmila Denisova claimed “an infant girl of six months was raped with a teaspoon.” In another incident she said, “twin toddler boys, 2, were sexually assaulted in front of their mother. Five Russian soldiers broke in and four of them raped the toddlers in pairs, orally and anally, while the fifth soldier was holding the mother. Both children died of ruptures and blood loss.”
Denisova’s claims were reported uncritically by several major western media outlets. But Ukrainian media could not corroborate the allegations. As such, dozens of Ukrainian media outlets and journalists signed an open letter criticizing Denisova for releasing unverified information, demanding she “check the facts before publication” and “disclose only information for which there is sufficient evidence.” In response the Ukrainian parliament recently removed Denisova from her post as commissioner for human rights. (more...)
Hard to know the truth when war propaganda is everywhere
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