Rights defenders name conditions to counter women's discrimination in Dagestan

To eradicate the practice of women's forced marriages and hard physical labour in Dagestan, it is necessary to raise the women's education level and make violations of their rights public, the human rights defenders, Nadezhda Azhgikhina and Irina Kosterina, believe.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that social network users were outraged by the video from a wedding in Dagestan, where the groom behaved insultingly towards his own bride, but did not receive any repulse from her relatives.

On the whole, women in Dagestan have begun to more actively defend their rights, Irina Kosterina, the coordinator of the "Gender Democracy" Programme at the Heinrich Böll Foundation, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent. "I see quite a lot of women in Dagestan who start expressing their opinions and are able to stand up for themselves," she has stressed.

Ms Kosterina has noted that more and more people are moving to cities and noted: "Because it's important to get education in order to be able to maintain oneself not with manual agricultural labour, but with other skills that are easier to convert into real money."

Indeed, education should become the main way to fight for women's rights, agrees Nadezhda Azhgikhina, a human rights journalist and the director of PEN-Moscow. "It's very important for parents to educate their daughter. If a girl is literate, it's easier for her to defend herself," she told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

Ms Azhgikhina has also noted the importance of publicizing cases of women's rights violations. She has regretted that the journalist, Svetlana Anokhina, was forced to leave Dagestan, as she had actively helped Dagestani women together with her colleagues and lawyers.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on October 3, 2020 at 06:00 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.