< Translator’s note: The original formatting of the stories has been preserved. The translations aim to remain as close as possible to each author's original wording and expression.

 

One day, at the start of the full-scale invasion, my friend and I went to volunteer in another city. In the evening after work, the American medics we were translating for invited us to relax at a bar. We had a few drinks, but one of the men drank way too much. He started making disgusting comments about our appearance, verbally harassing us, and demanding that we perform certain sexualized movements, demonstrating them on himself. The only thing that seemed to stop him from taking more aggressive action was the presence of our other friends.

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The next day, we spent the entire day as passengers in a car driven by this man. The scariest part is that he works for an international organization. We couldn’t report him at the time because we felt guilty: we had gone to that bar ourselves, and we had been drinking. It was as if we were, to some extent, responsible for another person’s actions.

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We hope that no one else has experienced anything like this from him.

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Anonymous author; story shared in 2023 as part of the “16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence” campaign