Domestic Violence is NOT a Crime in Russia

Every day 36,000 women in the Russian Federation are beaten by their husbands or partners.

Every forty minutes a woman is killed by domestic violence.

Official figures say domestic violence is part of the life of every fourth Russian family.

“ Many women experience domestic violence for years on end but this rarely becomes public. If a woman is killed, then this cannot go unnoticed and in one way or other enters the statistics. The state however offers no protection against everyday physical, psychological, and financial abuse. What we need is to prevent domestic violence and the state to make it unacceptable. Women want one thing – the violence to stop. In the 10-year long war in Afghanistan, the Soviet Union lost 10 thousand soldiers. But the fact that every year about 14 thousand women become victims of domestic violence doesn’t seem to bother anybody and this is discrimination.” Maria Mokhova

One of the more shocking statistics in the Amnesty report is that the capital city - Moscow - with a population numbering well over 10 million, does not have a single shelter to house victims of domestic violence. The nearest shelter is in Khimki, on the Northern outskirts, and Muscovites are not afforded service there because they do not have residency status for Khimki.

Domestic violence is one of Russia's darkest secrets. The government estimates that 14,000 women die each year at the hands of their husbands or male partners. But Russian police don't even classify domestic abuse as a crime. It's a social problem few Russians ever mention.

  It started out as a nice marriage. We had two children. Then my husband started to change, as he was getting more money and more power. And I was just a housewife, at home with the children and pots and pans.

We started to have scenes. Then he started hitting me. I kept it to myself, I didn't want to tell anyone. I tried to drown my grief in alcohol. Then he stopped seeing me as human.

Once he raped me in a perverted fashion in front of the children. He beat me first and then he raped the "hunk of meat" that he considered me to be.

After this I broke up with him and started binge-drinking. He set the police against me and eventually they came and took me away. When the police let me go I came back to a locked door of the flat I shared with my husband. I was without my things, without documents, without any money.

I was homeless on the streets of St Petersburg for several years. Eventually I got really ill and doctors referred me to a crisis centre for women. They helped me get new documents and find a job where I can live in a dormitory room.

I tried to get in touch with my children, I sent them presents and tried to inquire through friends, but at the moment they don't want to see me. I'm happy with my life now: just to have a roof over my head, even if it is only a small dormitory room. There are no guarantees, of course, that I won't end up on the streets again. And this is what frightens me. I don't think I will survive this a second time.

Andrei Sinelnikov is a member of Anna, or the Association No to Violence. He says that at least 18 non-governmental organizations or charities working on issues of domestic violence against women have been closed in Russia this year alone, due to a lack of federal and local funding.