By AFP | 2024-06-12

SNIGURIVKA, Ukraine -- Deminer Tetiana Shpak crouched down in a once tranquil poppy-strewn field in southern Ukraine, now littered with Russian mines.

This scene would have been impossible once -- until 2018, Ukrainian women were banned from becoming deminers.

"I did not think that my path would lead here," said the former math teacher, 51, who was wearing a thick protective mask.

But the Russian invasion in February 2022 changed that.

After first helping to build fortifications against the Russians and then losing her father in a bombardment, Shpak said she "really wanted to be useful."

More women like her are joining mine-clearance teams, where they now account for 30% of personnel, according to official data.

A similar trend has unfolded in other formerly male-dominated professions drained by conscription and emigration.

"The family was initially against it," said Shpak, who has been working for the HALO Trust mine-clearing organisation in Snigurivka, Mykolaiv province, for the past year.

Her teenage daughter, in particular, was "nervous."

But Shpak told her that she only locates mines while other teams actually detonate them.

"Now my daughter says that when she grows up, she will ... try something similar," Shpak told AFP.

She would "like to see more women doing this kind of work," she said.

'More attentive'

Women bring strengths to this line of work, said Valeria Ponomareva, 23, a former hairdresser turned mine-clearing team leader.

"Girls are more attentive, careful," she told AFP.

She said her mother was "shocked," but she has no regrets about her "dramatic" career change.

"For the prosperity of Ukraine, our work is necessary," Ponomareva said.

Ukraine's female deminers include a former ballerina, a chemist who used to produce sparkling wine and a dentist, the HALO Trust said.

Ponomareva comes from heavily mined Donetsk province, where war has raged since 2014.

Russian forces laid mines around Snigurivka when it was under their control for much of 2022.

Elsewhere, Ukrainian troops have left a trail of their own explosives to thwart Russian advances.

According to the interior ministry, almost a quarter of the country could be "contaminated with mines and explosive devices."

More than 270 people have been killed in mine blasts since Russia invaded in February 2022, according to Kyiv.

'Want to serve'

Ukraine's deminers face tough conditions.

They need to be methodical, patient and ready to work in any weather.

In early June, temperatures were already well above 30 degrees Celsius.

Recruitment is not easy, said Oleksandr Ponomarenko, a team supervisor.

Some "come, work one or two days and realize it's not for them. And they leave," he said.

For now, women make up just under half of his unit, but he hopes that this proportion will grow.

Standing not far from an antitank mine discovered by his team, he said the wives of soldiers fighting on the front are likely candidates.

"They ... want to serve, but they realize that this job is safer."

Their task is immense: a seven-person team can clear just 80–100 square meters of land a day.

The field in Snigurivka alone was about 35,000 square meters -- meaning at least another year of work, said Ponomarenko.

Across the entire country, mine clearance is expected to take decades.

As the war continues, land that has already been cleared could yet be re-mined.

'Curious observers'

A few kilometers away, in Vasylivka village, a team had recently cleared land belonging to farmer Mykola Murai, 60.

"Everything was covered in mines," he said, relieved he could once again earn an income from the field.

The sight of female deminers had caught him off guard at first, he admitted.

"I was surprised, of course; at first, I thought it was just some curious observers," he told AFP.

Their thorough work convinced him, though.

"I think they work better than men," Murai said.

Surprise is a common first reaction to female deminers, said Iryna Nomerovska, who heads a land-surveying unit.

"The population does not really accept young girls working in demining. They think it's a bit strange," she said.

Nomerovska, an economist who decided to help demining efforts after living under Russian occupation at the start of the war, said she is "very proud" of her work.

After all, she added: "Who else can do it but us?"