It was a hot and humid summer afternoon when 21-year-old Yelyzaveta Pererva met me at a small outdoor cafe on a sidewalk of the Triftstrasse neighborhood in Berlin. Dressed in black, with distant eyes and the feeble smile of deep exhaustion, Pererva began to tell her story: “I was sleeping when my mother called me. In a hurried voice, she asked me to pack some essentials and documents. She told me, ‘We have to flee Ukraine, war has started.’”

Pererva and her mother traveled for two days to reach the Polish border, some 1,100 kilometers (680 miles) away. Despite the dangers and hardships of that journey, Pererva’s mind was elsewhere.

“Along with my country, my home and college, I was also leaving behind all the men in my life, including my father, my partner and my friends. I don’t know if I will see them again,” she whispered.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has triggered the largest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II. According to the United Nations, as of Aug. 30, more than 7 million refugees from Ukraine have been recorded across Europe; an estimated 90% are women and children. This means that millions of Ukrainian women who have sought refuge abroad are now grappling with the complex and difficult work of keeping themselves and the children in their care safe, while meeting their material needs and setting up a household in an unfamiliar country.

During war, women “are expected to take on the work that the men would do in the peacetime economy, and look after children and the elderly,” Jenny Mathers, senior lecturer of international politics at Aberystwyth University in Wales, told OZY.

She called this caretaking an “additional burden,” in which the work of keeping families together falls almost exclusively on women — even as dangers lurk around every corner.

Before the war, 36-year-old Diliara Brileva was happily living in Kyiv with her husband, a university professor, and her nine-year-old son. When news of the invasion broke, she could scarcely process it. Nearby shelling soon made it real. Brileva, who said that she began losing weight due to fear and anxiety, then made the decision to leave Kyiv with their son. Her husband dropped them off at the Ukrainian border.

“I was leaving my entire life behind, and there was not even enough time to exchange proper goodbyes,” she said.

Suddenly, Brileva was a solo parent. She forced herself to avoid showing her fear, lest it scare her son, who already had to part with his father, friends, home and country.

“I am the kind of person who thinks that if anything were to happen, I would be the first one to die. Pretending everything is fine just to make the child comfortable is one of the most difficult tasks of my life, because I had to alter my personality for it amid such trauma,” she told OZY.

Mathers, who is editor of the book, “Heroism and Global Politics,” explained that such crisis-driven behavior is part of a much larger pattern.

“Wartime tends to highlight and strengthen gender stereotypes that are always in the background of everyday life. For example, the man as the protector, the woman as the caring mother,” she said. “In many respects, Ukraine’s martial law has simply formalized and created legal ways of enforcing these gendered roles.” That is, women who remain with their children in the absence of a co-parent are expected to be nurturing even as the world burns around them.

Mathers noted that some women in Ukraine have been serving in the military and fighting in the war in the Donbas since 2014, and there are women on the frontlines of the conflict today. Those women who are engaged in combat are often expected to fulfill multiple roles, as both fighters and the caretakers who bind fractured families together.

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Twenty-eight-year-old Safina Akimova, an Indian citizen who married a Ukrainian man in 2019, had recently launched a business in Sumy, Ukraine and delivered a baby boy. The family then planned a trip to India to visit relatives but, as soon as they booked the flights, war broke out.

“We spent nights in the bunker and returned to our apartment during the day in the hope that the condition will improve,” said Akimova. “I am a lactating mother and needed proper meals, but we were trying to survive and ate one oatmeal bowl a day. We had stored baby food, but when we were running out of it, we had to then take the tough decision that I leave the country with our son.”

Traversing a 1,200-kilometer (750-mile) journey on foot to the Polish border was grueling for this fatigued mother with an infant. When she reached Poland after traveling for four days, she was so exhausted she could barely move. She then tested positive for COVID-19.

“I was put in a quarantine facility,” she said, where she took care of her baby son while she recovered. During this time Akimova contacted friends, who suggested moving to Germany.

Yet this raised new concerns.

“We had heard of cases where people had trafficked women, Ukrainian refugees, while offering to help,” she said quietly.

The threat of exploitation has added yet another dark layer to the grim reality these women face. Soon after the war erupted, reports began to surface that human trafficking — which is rampant in Ukraine and neighboring countries even in normal times — was on the rise, as predators exploited vulnerable women and children amid the chaos of war. One suspected ringleader was arrested in Kyiv after allegedly offering bogus employment to women who were then forced into prostitution.

“A crisis like Ukraine is a business opportunity for criminals,” said human trafficking expert Lauren Agnew, of the organization CARE, in a public statement. Some predators have even posed as crisis volunteers, offering transportation to refugees they intend to sell into sex work.

In spite of such chilling dangers, Akimova and her son embarked on the journey from Poland to Germany, where they arrived safely in Berlin.

They are now hosted by a local family, and Akimova is studying German in order to improve her new life in a new country. She continues to hope she can reunite with her husband soon, but that seems like a distant dream.

“He can’t leave the country; I can’t go back. I do not know how long this will last, but what can I do except to hope for good and wait?” she said.

Should the international community do more to support refugees from Ukraine and elsewhere? If so, what new efforts should be made?