We know there’s a problem but we don’t know how big it is. That’s what governments, scholars, and others argue when trying to figure out how to allot funds toward this problem of sexualized violence in conflict. If we don’t know the numbers, they ask, how can we help properly? How can we mount prosecutions? Offer reparations? Put in place proper advocacy? So the thinking goes.

Thirty-year-old Anna Guz was held by pro-Russian rebels for six days in May. (Guz is not her real name; she asked to be identified by a pseudonym for safety reasons.) Men in military uniforms abducted the pro-Ukrainian activist, along with her boyfriend, from her Donetsk apartment in the middle of the night.

At the age of 18, Leyla’s three-year lesbian relationship was discovered. She ran away to Baghdad from her home in the conservative Iraqi city of Basra, though her girlfriend wasn’t able to escape. Staying behind turned out to be deadly.