What: a peace­ful march
— to raise aware­ness of busi­ness com­mu­ni­ties in South Africa that by doing busi­ness with Rus­sia, they are con­tribut­ing to the vio­lence against civil­ians, par­tic­u­lar­ly women and chil­dren; and
— against the delay of the Gov­ern­ment of South Africa in con­demn­ing the Russ­ian inva­sion of Ukraine.
Where and when: gath­er at the Whale­bone pier at Umh­langa prom­e­nade at 14:45 to start march­ing along Umh­langa prom­e­nade at 15:00.

We, the Ukrain­ian Asso­ci­a­tion of South Africa, call on all respon­si­ble busi­ness­es to imme­di­ate­ly and deci­sive­ly stop coop­er­a­tion with Rus­sia. And we appeal to the South African Gov­ern­ment to imme­di­ate­ly and unequiv­o­cal­ly con­demn Russia’s full-scale inva­sion of Ukraine, and to con­tribute to erad­i­ca­tion and pre­ven­tion of gen­der-based vio­lence, both in Ukraine and South Africa.

August is rec­og­nized as Women’s Month in South Africa to acknowl­edge the women’s fight for human rights. The Russ­ian inva­sion of Ukraine has a huge impact on women and girls, includ­ing the hor­rors of sex­u­al and gen­der-based vio­lence, often irre­versible both phys­i­o­log­i­cal­ly and psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly. There are hun­dreds of report­ed and even more unre­port­ed cas­es of Russ­ian sol­diers delib­er­ate­ly using sex­u­al assault as a reg­u­lar weapon of intim­i­da­tion and humil­i­a­tion against Ukrain­ian women and chil­dren.

Since the Russ­ian inva­sion, women in Ukraine gave birth to 63,000 chil­dren, and many of them born under the Russ­ian mis­sile strikes and in the bomb shel­ters. Numer­ous pre­na­tal clin­ics in dif­fer­ent parts of Ukraine have been shelled, and oth­ers have report­ed a rise in the rate of preterm births, with the rates dou­bling or tripling due to increased stress and med­ical issues that have result­ed from the inva­sion. A clin­ic in Kharkiv report­ed pre­ma­ture births on as high as 50% of all deliv­er­ies, three times the pre-Russ­ian inva­sion rate.

Accord­ing to the UN sta­tis­tics, near­ly 13 mil­lion Ukraini­ans, pre­dom­i­nant­ly women with chil­dren, were forced to leave their homes due to the war. Russ­ian inva­sion has turned Ukraine into the largest in the world ter­ri­to­ry of land­mines, which is esti­mat­ed to con­tin­ue to harm civil­ians, espe­cial­ly chil­dren, for the next 20 years. Almost 27 000 reg­is­tered Russia’s war crimes have been man­i­fest­ed through the delib­er­ate killing of civil­ians, min­ing ceme­ter­ies and even dead bod­ies, and leav­ing bombs in cars, domes­tic appli­ances and even children’s toys.

The con­se­quences of the Russ­ian inva­sion will not only hit Ukraine but will also affect the most vul­ner­a­ble women with chil­dren in South Africa, as petrol price hikes, food short­ages, and finan­cial insta­bil­i­ties all con­tribute to high­er rates of gen­der-based vio­lence.

The Ukrain­ian Asso­ci­a­tion of South Africa appeals to all SA busi­ness­es to show their social respon­si­bil­i­ty, and to stand up against Russ­ian mil­i­tary aggres­sion; to defend peace and inter­na­tion­al order, which is crit­i­cal for busi­ness func­tion­ing and pros­per­i­ty.

The vast num­ber of inter­na­tion­al­ly rec­og­niz­able brands, such as Visa, Mas­ter­card, Pay­Pal, Net­flix, Ama­zon, Uber, Airbnb, Voda­fone, Mer­cedes, BMW, Siemens and many oth­ers, have already left the Russ­ian mar­ket, and many more are fol­low­ing. By not con­demn­ing the Russ­ian inva­sion of Ukraine, gov­ern­ments and com­pa­nies con­tin­ue to fuel and finance the ille­gal war, and facil­i­tate the inhu­mane war crimes and atroc­i­ties against women and chil­dren.

Addi­tion­al­ly, trad­ing with Rus­sia is push­ing South Africa to FATF “Grey list”, which will have wide-reach­ing con­se­quences for the country’s finan­cial sys­tem, might lead to cap­i­tal and cur­ren­cy out­flows, increase of admin­is­tra­tive and fund­ing costs for banks, and will def­i­nite­ly bring rep­u­ta­tion­al dam­age.

We call on the South African gov­ern­ment to pub­licly and with­out reser­va­tion con­demn Russia’s inva­sion of Ukraine.

We call on all South African com­pa­nies to stop doing busi­ness with Rus­sia, and there­fore not to con­tribute to vio­lence against women glob­al­ly.

#Stand­WithUkraine #Sto­pRus­sianAg­gres­sion #StopG­BV

For more infor­ma­tion: +27 767355501 Katery­na (Dur­ban) or +27 76 236 58 24 Anas­ta­sia (Pre­to­ria); [email protected]; www.uaza.co.za
For more infor­ma­tion on how glob­al busi­ness­es should be respond­ing to Russia’s aggres­sion against Ukraine please vis­it www.businessforukraine.info

On most valu­able brands that left Rus­sia: https://www.weareukraine.info/war-values-and-money-a-puzzle-for-the-worlds-most-valuable-brands-to-solve/