When a Ukrainian prisoner of conflict was launched in 2025 after three years in detention, he carried with him searing reminiscences of rape, pressured nudity, beatings and electrical shocks to his genitals.
His expertise is a part of a sample the United Nations is documenting throughout conflicts: Males and boys are additionally subjected to conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), usually in locations the place sexual abuses are arduous to doc, together with detention amenities.
© UNICEF/Eyad El Baba
Households flee their shattered houses in Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood in Gaza metropolis.
Girls and ladies proceed to bear the overwhelming burden of this violence. However overlooking male survivors can depart them with out applicable medical, psychological or authorized assist.
In keeping with the UN Secretary-Basic’s report, girls and ladies made up 93 per cent of verified victims of conflict-related sexual violence in 2024, in contrast with seven per cent who had been males and boys.
The figures, nevertheless, don’t seize the total extent of the injury which stays closely underreported; estimates counsel that 90 to 95 per cent of sexual abuse towards males and boys in battle settings is rarely recorded.
What occurs in detention?
Detention is without doubt one of the settings most ceaselessly related to the problem. In Ukraine, the UN verified 310 circumstances of CRSV, 280 involving males. Many had been prisoners of conflict or civilian detainees.
The abuses included rape, pressured nudity, beatings and electrical shocks, used alongside different types of abuse to punish, humiliate and extract crucial data and confessions.
The sample isn’t restricted to Ukraine: the UN has documented male survivors in a number of different conflicts, whereas stating that verified circumstances are conservative estimates as a result of insecurity, restricted entry and concern of retaliation stop many survivors from coming ahead.
Why does the crime stay hidden?
Research by the UN Institute for Disarmament Analysis (UNIDIR) factors to social expectations round masculinity, homophobia, concern of being perceived as weak and restricted institutional consideration to male survivors.
How circumstances are described may also have an effect on whether or not they’re recognized. The Secretary-Basic’s 2026 report notes that males and boys might describe sexual violence as torture, notably after detention.
That may make it more durable for humanitarian and justice methods to establish the precise wants related to CRSV.
Analysis in jap Democratic Republic of the Congo factors to the dimensions of sexual violence towards males, that’s merely not on the radar. In a single research, 23.6 per cent of males, when requested immediately, reported experiencing sexual violence, and almost two-thirds stated it had occurred within the context of battle.
For survivors, the limitations usually are not solely institutional: group initiatives may also make a giant distinction on the trail in the direction of restoration. One Ukrainian survivor described the affect of connecting with others by means of a UN-supported community:
“For a very long time, I believed what occurred to me had no place to be spoken. Being right here, with others who perceive, modified that. It gave me a manner ahead.”
Why are circumstances underreported?
Stigma, concern and gaps in analysis and providers make many circumstances tough to establish. Reviews on the subject counsel that males and boys usually are not acknowledged as weak or protected teams in battle settings and therefore stay underreported.
The place has it been documented?
The UN has verified circumstances in Ukraine, Gaza and the West Financial institution, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Haiti, amongst others talked about in Report of the Secretary-Basic on sexual violence in battle.
Why does recognition matter?
Recognition can decide whether or not survivors attain specialised care, authorized help and assist mandatory for CRSV survivors.
What’s the UN doing?
UN entities are enhancing identification, coaching frontline professionals and supporting survivor-centred providers and networks.
What does assist seem like?
For survivors, recognition isn’t an finish in itself however a path to providers that will in any other case stay out of attain.
UNIDIR recommends higher knowledge assortment that explicitly permits males and boys to reveal sexual violence, alongside survivor participation and psychosocial assist tailor-made to their wants.
The UN Motion community is placing a few of these rules into observe. In Ukraine, the UNited Motion to Empower Survivors mission supported 160 survivors in 2025, together with 69 males, by means of psychological counselling, rehabilitation and tailor-made help. It additionally helped set up male survivor networks providing peer assist and advocacy.
© OHCHR/Marion Mondain
Haiti’s penal system is struggling to perform successfully.
The Secretary-Basic stresses that survivors usually are not a homogenous group, and that efficient responses should replicate variations in age, gender, circumstances and particular person wants, fairly than assume one expertise of violence.
In Sudan, UN-supported initiatives have sought to create house for dialogue concerning the experiences of males and boys who’ve been harmed, whereas UNHCR has issued steerage for humanitarian staff supporting male survivors in refugee and displacement settings.
Why breaking the silence issues
Girls and ladies stay disproportionately affected by CRSV. As UN Secretary-Basic António Guterres has put it, “sexual violence is a menace to each particular person’s proper to a lifetime of dignity, and to humanity’s collective peace and safety.”
However recognising males and boys as victims of sexual violence in battle doesn’t shift the main target from different weak teams.
It closes a spot within the response, by making certain that survivors who’ve usually been ignored will also be seen, supported and heard.
