Gannushkina tells about "re-education" practice of European Chechen women

Rights defenders know about young Chechen women from Europe, who are forcibly kept in Chechnya by their relatives and are exposed to domestic violence and forced to marry, Svetlana Gannushkina, the head of the Civil Assistance Committee, said in her interview with the "Kommersant" on January 27.

According to her story, she personally managed to help four such girls. One of the latest such cases occurred in spring of 2017 with a 22-year-old girl from Germany, whom her mother forced to marry, when she was a teenager yet.

"When she was actually a child, her parents married her to a Chechen, who applied for asylum in Europe; he was an extremely cruel person who treated her in a monstrous way. She appealed to German authorities; and, as she was still a minor, she was placed into a German family," Ms Gannushkina has explained.

In 2017, her mother lied to her by phone about her deadly illness; and the girl, yielding to her mother's persuasion to come to Russia, found herself in captivity by her Chechen relatives, who took away her money and documents, and forced her – through beatings and bullying – to marry a much older man, Svetlana Gannushkina said.

Only several months later, the young woman, a German citizen, could escape from their captivity in Chechnya.

"I know that there are now other girls in Chechnya, who came from Europe and are kept by their relatives. We don't know how many such cases ended 'in success', when captives could not escape from their domestic imprisonment," the "Kommersant" quotes Svetlana Gannushkina as saying.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.