In June 2020, UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, started supporting seven municipal mobile teams in eastern Ukraine, which travel to remote settlements and along the Contact line and provide social and psychological assistance to survivors of gender-based violence.

“Mobile teams in eastern Ukraine have proven to be a surprisingly effective tool for responding to difficult situations involving violence against vulnerable groups of population”, comments on the results of the work of the brigades Hanna Vysotska, Program Coordinator at the United Nations Population Fund in Luhansk oblast. "Seven mobile teams in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, whose capacity is being developed by the Foundation, were created at the expense of local budgets."

With the support of the Fund, the members of the teams are provided with means of communication, and their operational costs associated with visits to remote settlements are reimbursed. Hanna Vysotska emphasizes that such support significantly expands the coverage of vulnerable groups of population and makes the necessary assistance more accessible to people living in remote communities and rural areas, as well as along the Contact Line in eastern Ukraine.

The support is provided in Luhansk oblast to two mobile teams of Troitska and Bilokurakynska amalgamated territorial communities, and, in Donetsk oblast, teams are supported in Kostiantynivka, Bakhmut, Lyman and Mangush districts; the regional mobile team is supported too.

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, the work of field teams is becoming especially demanded, since with the quarantine introduction more and more people are at risk due to forced isolation, which is evidenced by a significant increase in calls to domestic and gender-based violence hotlines.

The first mobile teams to help survivors of domestic and gender-based violence were created within the framework of the Strengthening humanitarian response to the need of most vulnerable women and female adolescents affected by armed conflict in Eastern Ukraine through multi-sectoral prevention and response to GBV and access to SRH services project implemented by UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, in 2015.

UNFPA Ukraine is building the capacity of seven mobile teams in cooperation with its implementing partner, the International Charitable Foundation “Ukrainian Foundation for Public Health”, and with the financial support of the United Kingdom Government.