Four years of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine: Women’s rights organizations hold the line

Date: Tuesday, 24 February 2026

Across Ukraine, women face heightened exposure to violence, displacement, exploitation, loss of documentation, insecurity and poverty. The invasion began while many women’s rights and civil society organizations were still recovering from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

For four years, women’s rights organizations in Ukraine have been doing two jobs at once: responding to emergencies while preventing the long-term erosion of specialist support systems. And for four years, the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women and Girls (UN Trust Fund) has stood alongside grantee partners navigating this dual burden, offering not just funding, but the flexible, sustained support that makes real-time adaptation possible. This model of support is essential wherever women’s rights organizations are holding protection services together under extreme conditions.

Below are insights from the UN Trust Fund’s three grantee partners, actively operating in the volatile context of Ukraine.

A three-panel collage showing different support activities. The left panel shows several people working in a crowded storage room filled with boxes and shelves of supplies. The center panel shows two people seated at a small desk reviewing documents and working on laptops. The right panel shows an adult holding a smartphone displaying a form or application, with a child sitting close by and touching the phone. — Women's rights organizations are adapting in real time as the full-scale invasion of Ukraine continues. Credit: (from left to right) Courtesy of Insight, VESTED, Club Eney.

Women’s bodies, rights, and safety under pressure

When the shelling intensified over Kharkiv, in northeast Ukraine, Diana and Sofia, two friends hiding for days in a metro station, were running out of options. As a transgender woman, Diana faced life-threatening barriers to evacuation. They reached out to Insight*, a women-led organization known within the LGBTI+ community in the country. Within days, Insight arranged shelter, transport, and a safe handover to a partner organization across the border in Poland.

Their story is one among thousands, illustrating the precise gap that local women’s rights organizations fill every day in volatile contexts.

Before the invasion, the organization Carpathian Agency of Human Rights VESTED focused on long-term inclusion for Roma women and girls. After 2022, displacement reshaped priorities overnight. Families fled without identity papers or stable housing, and many women could no longer access health care, social benefits, education, or legal support. Without documents, reporting violence also became harder. For many Roma women, regaining legal identity is the first step toward safety.

“There has been a greater need for continuous follow-up due to prolonged displacement and overlapping vulnerabilities faced by Roma women and girls,” said Marija Mendzhul, Director of VESTED*.

two people work in a crowded storage room filled with shelves and open boxes of medicines and supplies. Two people stand at a table sorting items, while others move boxes around the room. The space is filled with packaged goods, cartons, and inventory materials. — After the start of the full-scale invasion, Insight had to adapt immediately: they set up shelters, built routes to evacuate LGBTI+ people and deliver medicines, including hormones that vanished from pharmacies. Credit: Courtesy of Insight.

For other groups, the barriers are medical and economic as much as legal. Women living with HIV, women who use drugs, sex workers, and LGBTI+ women, have faced rising risks and shrinking safe pathways to help, deepening existing inequalities.

“The war shifted women’s needs from issues of access and isolation to matters of physical survival.”, said Vielta Parkhomenko, Chairperson of Club Eney*.

Club Eney prioritized life-sustaining support, including food, water, heating, and safe accommodation, while keeping core services running in HIV care and gender-based violence response. As women began seeking help later and in more complicated situations, the organization also updated its WINGS screening tool to better identify conflict-related sexual violence and offer practical guidance to reduce risk.

Insight has seen the same urgency from another angle: demand rose sharply as LGBTI+ people faced “deadly danger”, including documented abductions, torture, and homophobic violence.

“People are forced to destroy any digital traces of their identity and to hide,” said Olena Shevchenko, Head of Insight. “In the first 6 months of the war alone, we received more than 22,000 requests for assistance, from shelters to hygiene products and medications, food and children’s goods.”

War does not respect project plans, budget lines, or tidy timelines. What ties these organizations together is speed, adaptability and a focus on reaching women and girls who are most likely to be left behind when systems fall short.

VESTED hosts safe spaces for Roma women to learn about their rights and pathways to regain legal identity. Credit: Courtesy of VESTED.

Flexible support that sustains frontline work

Behind every rapid response is a core requirement: funding that is steady enough to last and flexible enough to adjust quickly as conditions change.

When Insight lost major donor funding in 2025 due to the mass funding cuts, the UN Trust Fund’s support helped keep Insight's shelters open, and ensured hormones and medications reached those who needed them. For Club Eney, flexibility meant relocating activities from high‑risk regions without abandoning women from frontline regions. For VESTED, the UN Trust Fund’s support enabled the combination of urgent protection with livelihood‑oriented activities, including driving lessons, financial literacy, culinary skills, all of which help Roma women move from survival to stability.

“The UN Trust Fund’s understanding of the changing wartime context and its adaptive approach helped us respond quickly and effectively to the evolving needs of our beneficiaries,” said Olena (Insight).

Women and women’s rights organizations are not only surviving this conflict; they are also holding together communities, rebuilding systems, and protecting rights under bombardment. But they cannot, and should not, stand alone.

Somewhere beyond the headlines, Diana and Sofia are alive because someone answered the phone, knew what to do, and had the means to act.

a group photo with people holding certificates as part of a training organized by Club Eney organization in Ukraine — Club Eney provides advocacy training to community members who have unique access to the hardest-to-reach communities, including women who use drugs, women living with HIV, and displaced women, who are often left behind during the war. Credit: Courtesy of Club Eney.

"Four years into the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the lesson is clear: when flexible, multi-year funding is in place, local women’s organizations hold front line, lifesaving services in place. Without that stability, shelters close, services stop, and survivors are left unprotected. Our grantee partners are there for women and girls - under bombardment, through blackouts, supporting communities when systems falter. Our responsibility has been to ensure they are not facing these pressures alone. Sustained partnership with local civil society is lifesaving and not optional. It is the backbone of continuous protection and crisis resilience,” said Abigail Erikson, Chief of the UN Trust Fund.

This moment demands more than statements. It demands continued, flexible investment in these frontline partners remains essential to ensuring that women and girls across Ukraine can access safety, dignity, and support throughout the conflict and recovery.

“One in three women-led organizations we surveyed warn they may only survive six months or less under current funding levels, and 99 per cent report that foreign assistance cuts are already harming women and girls. These organizations are the backbone of Ukraine’s response and recovery. UN Women works closely with them across the country, and this is a critical moment to ensure funding not only meets immediate needs, but sustains women’s leadership and creates real opportunities for recovery and a just, lasting peace.” – Elisa Fernandez Saenz, Deputy Regional Director, UN Women Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia.

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*¹ Insight Public Organization, a Ukrainian LGBTI+ and women-led human rights organization providing shelters, evacuation, legal aid, and psychosocial support.

² Club Eney, a Ukrainian civil society organization specializing in HIV services, harm reduction, gender-based violence response, and psychosocial support for women from key populations.

³ Carpathian Agency of Human Rights “VESTED,” a Roma-led women’s rights organization providing legal aid, documentation support, and protection services for Roma women and girls affected by displacement.