There Is a Way Out

Domestic or, as it is also known, family violence is a type of criminal act that is among the hardest to expose and its victims the most difficult to rehabilitate. As a rule, this form of human rights abuse is gender-based.

Here is one of the many instances of such affliction that our team, unfortunately, encounters far too often. However, this story is different from many others – because it has a hopeful ending.

On the outskirts of Kharkiv lives Hanna Stepanivna – a modest, hardworking woman who spent her whole life working as a cleaner. When the heavy Russian shelling began, she had to hide in the basement of a nearby school together with her family and neighbors. This experience of senseless violence appeared to her as yet another manifestation of endless, reasonless evil that a helpless person cannot escape.

Hanna Stepanivna is a sincere and humble woman who barely made ends meet, yet life’s hardships never broke her kind nature, and her heart was always full of love for her only daughter and granddaughter.

Hanna Stepanivna had no idea what gender-based violence meant, even though she faced it almost daily. Her daughter Oksana had been living for years with an abusive husband who humiliated her, controlled her every step, took out his anger on her, and did not hesitate to raise his hand.

But each time, the daughter believed that maybe next time it would pass – she just had to endure a little more.

Hanna Stepanivna also endured, watching her daughter lose herself. She saw the fear in her daughter’s eyes but didn’t know how to help. When Oksana came home with bruises and at the same time tried to justify her husband, the mother’s heart broke with pain.

One day, some women she knew advised Hanna Stepanivna to attend the activities of the “60+ACTIVE” project, organized by the NGO “CNGD Volonter-68.” These were meetings for women of her age where unfamiliar topics were discussed – women’s rights, gender-based violence, and ways to counter this evil. With each meeting, she listened more attentively.

After a few months, Hanna Stepanivna found the courage to speak about her daughter who endured abuse, about her granddaughter who was growing up in an atmosphere of fear, and about her own helplessness.

For the first time, she realized that silence is also part of the problem.

During these meetings, she learned that violence is not normal, that there are organizations that can help, that her daughter has the right to a safe life. Armed with new knowledge, she began to talk to Oksana.

At first, her daughter didn’t want to listen. She was used to suffering, convinced there was no way out. But Hanna Stepanivna did not give up, explaining that love is not fear, that bruises are not "signs of passion" but evidence of violence.

Slowly but surely, her mother’s words took root in Oksana’s consciousness, and eventually, the woman came to the realization that she was not a prisoner and that her fate was not a life sentence.

Oksana filed for divorce, received legal support, found a job, and rented a small apartment. Together with her daughter, they began a new life – free of abuse and pain.

And peace finally settled in Hanna Stepanivna’s heart, because on her beloved daughter’s face she no longer reads sorrow or fear.