A volunteer group in Kyiv - Brat za Sestru (A Brother for a Sister) - has been set up to provide free security escorts for unaccompanied women traveling home late from work.
Group organizer Olena Yushchenko says its goal is to protect women from robbers and rapists on Kyiv’s streets late in the evenings.
“Many girls and women who return home late from work or study are under continual risk of becoming the victims of assault, so our aim is to protect them,” Yushchenko says.
The initiative started three months ago, and more than 10 women have already asked for help. Anastasiya Lytvynenko, 25, an economist from Kyiv, was one of them. Two months ago she came across the organizaton’s page in the Vkontakte social network, although she never thought she might need their help.
But nearly two weeks ago, a drunk man attempted to harass Lytvynenko on a street early in the morning. She managed to escape, but was shocked by the incident and feared it might happen again when she came home at 10 p.m. that day. With none of her friends in town that day to see her safely home, Lytvynenko sent an application to the security escort group’s social media page to get a male volunteer to safely escort her home. Within two hours the young woman received the number of a volunteer, who met and escorted her right to her doorstep.
“I wasn’t sure I’d made the right decision by contacting Brat za Sestru until I saw the volunteer. He was a well-mannered young gentleman who has a black belt in karate,” Lytvynenko said.
Yushchenko says all their volunteers go through a rigid selection process. Besides passport data verification, the male volunteers must be physically fit and be between 16 and 40 years old. “We choose young physically strong men who are able to protect a woman in any circumstances,” Yushchenko says.
Inappropriate behavior by the male escorts is unacceptable, organizers say.
“The guys are not allowed to enter the girls’ apartments, and they can only date a woman if they are off-duty,” Yushchenko says, adding that it is strictly prohibited for escorts to receive any payment from the women they protect.
In the three months since the group was founded, nearly 50 male volunteers from all over Kyiv have stepped up to help unaccompanied women reach home safely. Yushchenko uses mostly social networks to find volunteers. At first it was not an easy task. Many of the men were suspicious and didn’t trust her initiative, Yushchenko says.
But Mykola Buhayov, a 19-year-old student in Kyiv, who practices the martial art of aikido, did not hesitate when two months ago he received a Vkontakte message from Yushchenko with an offer to join the volunteer initiative. “I always accompany my older sister late at night. Many girls don’t have brothers or husbands who can see them home, which is why I became a Brat za Sestru volunteer,” Buhayov says.
Now more men are sending their applications to Brat za Sestru’s Facebook or Vkontakte pages, Yushchenko says, adding that over the past week nearly 15 new male volunteers have signed up.
The volunteers all speak English, so foreign women are also welcome to use the service if they need it, Yushchenko says. Organizers also have plans to visit local sport clubs to recruit more male volunteers.
Yushchenko got the idea from activists in St. Petersburg, Russia. Similar volunteer organizations have existed in other big Russian cities for the past two years. In Ukraine, activists from Cherkasy, Brovary, and Bila Tserkva also plan to organize similar security escorts for women in their home towns.
“Many men in Ukraine are ready to protect women from thugs for free,” Yushchenko says.
Lytvynenko says that next time she needs to be accompanied home, she will try to arrange it with her friends. “But now I can rely on Brat za Sestru volunteers, because I know they won’t let me down,” she adds.
Women who need help and men who want to join the initiative can send their applications to:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/bzs.kyiv/ or https://vk.com/brat_za_sestru_kyiv
Kyiv Post staff writer Nataliya Trach can be reached at [email protected].
