Ingush law enforcer’s wife complains of being regularly beaten

A woman from Ufa complains that her former husband, an employee of the Ingush Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA), regularly beat her and her two sons, one of whom was about a year old. An advocate for the law enforcer said that the former wife invented a story about domestic violence to ensure that the sons would remain with their mother contrary to the Ingush traditions.

The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that in June 2020, human rights defenders called the situation with women’s rights in Northern Caucasus critical. According to the human rights defenders, traditions in Northern Caucasus favour violence against women in the family, and the authorities consider assault by a husband the norm, while victims of violence are not willing to go to the police. On April 12, 2021, a founder of the “ING-Attention” fem-group noted that in Ingushetia, it is shameful to be a divorced woman and the traditions do not support any complains about domestic violence.

According to the woman from Ufa, her husband hit her for the first time when she was pregnant. Then he apologized and promised that nothing of that kind would ever happen again. But their children were born, he began to beat not only his wife, but also his sons, the “News Ingushetii Official” Telegram channel reports. Since then, the beatings became regular.

“He began to beat not only me, but also a small child, so that the child fell. He just screamed at the new-born baby,” the woman said.

Now, the resident of Ufa has succeeded in seeking a divorce from her husband. According to the woman, the former husband threatened to send her to a psychiatric hospital and take away her children. Three criminal cases were instituted against her former husband, including on torture, on threat of murder, and on failure to fulfil his duties of raising a minor, the “Kavkaz.Realii”* reported.

The former husband’s detention was not extended, and because of that, the woman, together with her children, has been afraid to leave the house for the ninth month.

*Included by the Russian Ministry of Justice (MoJ) in the register of foreign agents.