Rights defenders note increase of domestic violence cases in Northern Caucasus

The situation with women's rights defence in the republics of Northern Caucasus is deteriorating, the participants of the conference "New trends in domestic violence situation in Northern Caucasus" have noted, especially stressing Ingushetia in this regard. They have stated that it is difficult to trace such crimes, since local authorities are not interested in making them public, even going so far as to delete information from courts' websites.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that Saida Sirazhudinova, the president of the Centre for the Study of Contemporary Global Issues and Regional Problems named "Caucasus. World. Development", had issued a report "Domestic Violence in Northern Caucasus". According to the report, in Chechnya the so-called "honour killings" are the dominant motive for killing women; and in Dagestan, much more often than in Chechnya and Ingushetia, women's murders committed by strangers occur; many murders are committed during quarrels and property thefts.

According to Sirazhudinova, sometimes "honour killings" are used to conceal other crimes – for example, it turned out that the father of one murdered girl killed her for fear of revealing the fact that he had been raping her since she was nine years old.

One of the consequences of such murders is children's sales or transfers. "Many women understand that their position in the family will be devalued if they fail to become mothers; and they look for babies. There are women who understand that if they announce their pregnancy, they will become victims of "honour killings," Ms Sirazhudinova has explained, emphasizing that girls suffer from their parents' desire to raise them in helplessness so that they are more submissive.

Svetlana Anokhina, an expert on Northern Caucasus and the editor of the "Daptar" outlet, has noted that the situation with women's rights in the Caucasus is deteriorating, and spoke about new ways to return runaway girls and humble the "rebellious." "If a girl runs away, her relatives file a complaint that she had stolen something from them; she is put on the wanted list, found and handed over to her family. And if the family believes that the girl may be rebellious, she is declared incompetent by fabricating certificates at local psychiatric clinics; and her father or uncle becomes her guardian," Svetlana has emphasized.

Besides, girls are restricted in every possible way so that they do not run away – they are prohibited from studying and receiving a foreign passport without the presence of their husbands or brothers.

Lydia Mikhalchenko, the author of the project "Caucasus without Mother", has stressed that children are often perceived as the property of the husband's family.

Olga Shnyrova, the director of the Ivanovo Centre for Gender Studies (included in the register of foreign agents), speaking about Chechnya, has noted that when there is a region that lives by its own laws, this can be treated as the first step towards the collapse of the state.