Rights defenders report that fathers from Northern Caucasus ignore court rulings in children-related disputes

Even if the court rules to leave a child with the mother, fathers from North-Caucasian regions often kidnap their children and take them to their homeland, from where it is then difficult to return them, human rights defenders have in their comments on the story of Maria Smelaya, a Krasnodar resident. According to their version, the situation is especially difficult in Dagestan, Ingushetia and Chechnya.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on May 9, the human rights project "Caucasus without Mother" reported that Maria Smelaya, a native of Chechnya, who had complained of violence from her husband, stopped communicating after her husband abducted her and her child from a shelter. A few days later, in a video message, Smelaya refuted the information that her husband had beaten her up. On May 30, Smelaya again appealed to human rights defenders, stating that her husband had forcibly taken her child away from her.

Natives of Chechnya and Ingushetia "very often" take children away from their mothers, said Saida Sirazhudinova, the president of the Centre for Studying Global Issues of Contemporary and Regional Problems "Caucasus. World. Development". Courts often come to mothers' defence, but this does not change anything.

The male natives of Chechnya who want to take a child away from their spouses or partners would not go to court; they prefer other methods, said Aida Mirmaksumova, a Dagestani journalist and human rights defender, who is also a co-director of the Fathers and Daughters project. She has treated Chechnya as a "dead swamp," from where it is very difficult to return a child to the mother, especially if the father is a Chechen and the mother is not.

Ms Mirmaksumova has emphasized that the main victims of these strife are children, torn away from their mothers against their will.

"There is a chance to defend the child in court, albeit small. However, through the court, for example, a woman can get a chance to visit her child, take him/her to her place for some days, and so on," Alexandra Miroshnikova, the press secretary of the SK SOS Crisis Group* project, has explained.

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