2023-07-01 15:28:34
The night train leaves Kyiv for Uzhgorod in western Ukraine. In car 5, Anastassia is reassured. With her 7 and 10 year old daughters, they will be without a man in their compartment.
This is a novelty for the Ukrainian railway company Ukrzaliznytsia. It put into service on Friday the first compartments reserved for women in night trains, to reinforce the safety of passengers.
“I chose this option because I am traveling alone with my two daughters for the first time“, without her husband, explains Anastasia. “I was a bit anxious, but saw that it was possible to get tickets from the women’s compartment, so I immediately bought some“, continues the psychologist.
For her, it’s both a matter of safety and comfort. “You can change, sleep at night. It is a closed space and it is not very pleasant to be there with men“.
The men are very nice, but sometimes our interests do not coincide
On the train to Ouzhgorod, three non-mixed compartments are grouped together in a single car, but next to others where there are men. Olena Vyacheslavivna, 60, says it’s a “very good thing” to be able to choose. “The men are very nice, but sometimes our interests do not coincide“, she believes, adding that it was her daughter who had taken her ticket. “From the first minute, I felt that I had very good neighbors and that it would be a pleasure to travel. So I’m very happy to be here“, she says.
Tatiana, 26, also feels “more comfortable among women. This is even more true when I travel alone. This way, I’m sure no one will harass me. I really feel more at ease, even morally“, she explains.
Oxana, 22, considers the experiment positive but would have preferred a car to be entirely reserved for women, with a real separation, and not a few compartments in the middle of others, “to prevent men from constantly passing“in front of those of women.
However, she notes that a male presence can sometimes be useful in certain situations. “I saw drunken men during a ride enter (the compartment). So another man in the next compartment can come up and say something“, she explains.
Response to a petition
The experiment currently concerns four night trains, two of which depart from the capital. It was announced following an electronic petition which has collected more than 25,000 signatures since its publication in mid-May on the government website.
The text asked to reserve for women “at least one car” in all trains whose routes exceed six hours, citing in particular cases “not isolated” of “harassment” et “deliberate touches“, even of “rapes in wagons“.
Depending on its success, the principle of places reserved for women might be extended, according to the company Ukrzaliznytsia, which had already tried to introduce the idea in 2010 before abandoning it due to lack of demand.
She also announced other measures such as more frequent armed patrols on trains, surveillance cameras in carriages, and the installation of emergency buttons in compartments and alarms on their doors.
A popular means of transport little affected by the war
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion, Ukrainian rail has played a vital role in the evacuation of civilians, the transport of troops and goods. This network, one of the largest in Europe with more than 20,000 km of track, has always been very popular. Now, many women often travel alone across the country, with the men mostly staying at the front.
Reliable and very cheap, rail was more popular before the war than domestic air transport – interrupted since the beginning of the conflict – more expensive and with insufficient infrastructure.
Along with the road, the train is now the only way to enter or leave the country.
So far, the Russians have hardly targeted Ukrainian railways, with the exception of a strike on Kramatorsk station (east) in April 2022, which left 61 dead and more than 160 wounded.
Critics of some men
The petition calling for reserved compartments has provoked heated discussions on social networks. Many women spoke out in favor, but some men denounced a form of “segregation” or complained of being considered by default as potential aggressors.
On the kyiv station platform, Andriï has just accompanied his mother, his wife and their daughter who are leaving on another train. Asked regarding the experimentation, he judges the idea “positive“but pleads that there are also compartments reserved for men only.”So we might play chess“, he jokes.
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