The aims of this project are:
- Raising awareness among sign language users with hearing disabilities about conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) and the available ways for survivors to get help.
- Promoting high-quality assistance for CRSV survivors in the community of Ukrainian sign language users.
- Encouraging potential CRSV survivors among Ukrainian sign language users to actively seek the help they need if CRSV has been committed against them
The project beneficiaries are: people with hearing impairments who use Ukrainian Sign Language to communicate, who have been (or still are) in a combat zone and could potentially have been affected by CRSV.
Acts of a sexual nature committed against civilians or combatants in the context of armed conflict are recognized as a serious human rights violation and a war crime. According to the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, as of 25 April 2024, 290 cases of CRSV had already been recorded.
Potential CRSV survivors among people with hearing impairments may face barriers caused by the physical and psychological trauma they have suffered, and may also lack access to information on how to get comprehensive help in overcoming the consequences of what they have been through. That is why the project includes adapting CRSV materials and distributing them with Ukrainian Sign Language interpretation.
Making Ukrainian sign language users aware of the steps to take to seek medical, psychological, legal and socioeconomic support will help identify more survivors and speed up their reintegration into society.
In this way, the project seeks to create an environment where Ukrainian sign language users have full access to information and quality assistance and are able to protect their rights in the context of CRSV.