The best way to honor the short, tragic life of Oksana Makar is to never forget her – and let her grotesque murder become the catalyst for ending this nation’s all-too-prevalent culture of violent misogyny and impunity for the elite.
These disturbing facets of Ukrainian life collided on March 9 when three young men met the 18-year-old Makar in a Mykolayiv bar and invited her to one of their homes.
She made the mistake of accepting and paid for it with her life, which ended on March 29, three weeks after her assailants gang raped her, choked her and set her on fire – leaving severe burns to more than half her fragile body.
The attackers wrapped her naked body in a blanket and dumped her at an abandoned construction site.
It is far from clear that the authorities, despite prodding by public pressure and clear evidence of who is guilty, will punish the three men responsible for her murder.
Two are reportedly connected to ex-local officials.
The assault on Makar extends beyond the physical, to attacks on her character, as if to minimize what happened.
We don’t care how uneducated or careless Makar may have been in life.
In Makar’s memory, let’s keep the pressure on the authorities and try to cleanse society of sexist and violent actions.
She was a young woman trying to make her way in a brutal, mafia-like society wracked by severe poverty.
She was described as liking nightclubs, boxing and bungee jumping.
Now she is no more.
What remains instead is a sick society in which perverted privileges are granted for the wealthy, the authorities and those with high social status, while 46 million citizens hope to just stay out of their marauding ways.
If you’re a woman who dares to spurn the advances of the married son of a lawmaker, you could get beaten up and dragged by your hair around a restaurant for 20 minutes, as happened on July 4 to Maria Korshunova at the hands of Roman Landik, who only got a suspended jail sentence for the crime.
But there is reason for hope.
After two of Makar’s suspected assailants were initially set free, the public outcry became so fierce that police and prosecutors had to re-arrest them and make it look like they will really investigate.
In Makar’s memory, let’s keep the pressure on the authorities and try to cleanse society of sexist and violent actions.
