SOCIETY

There’s an old Russian saying that a man only beats his wife because he loves her – but that tired joke hides the shocking truth that one woman every 40 minutes dies as a result of domestic violence.

Amnesty International this week became the latest in a long line of organisations, both at home and abroad, to draw attention to this problem.

Its report said the authorities are not doing enough to tackle the problem, echoing the comments of local groups campaigning for a proper system to protect the vulnerable.

Lack of protection

Andrei Sidelnikov, the deputy director of Russia's Anna National Centre for the Prevention of Violence, thinks that violence against women is so commonplace because of a lack of interest.

“The state is not paying attention to this problem, which is very surprising,” he told The Moscow News.

The group’s website quotes research that says that a Russian woman’s chances of being killed by her husband or partner are 2.5 times higher than those of an American woman and five times higher than in Western Europe. Some 14,000 women die every year, according to figures from 2008, and some form of violence affects one family in four. About 40 per cent of all murders and serious crimes in Russia happen in the family and a third of Russian women suffer physical violence at home.

Sidelnikov thinks that lack of protection for vulnerable women is the main factor. “There are no measures like restraining orders, so crimes inside the family present a higher danger for women,” he said. “A criminal on the street does not know where the woman lives; he cannot pressure her to take back a police complaint. A husband knows where her parents and friends live; he can find her and force her to take the complaint back.”

Reported attacks are on the rise

Even these horrifying numbers are not up to date. “The police do not have statistics on domestic violence and violence against women,” said Sidelnikov. “The data that we use comes from one-off statistics given in 2008 at a press-conference devoted to this problem. In most cases the relationship between the victim and the offender is not specified, so it is impossible to count such cases.”

And the lazy excuse that this is somehow part of the Russian mentality also doesn’t wash – with more women prepared to speak up.

“Women have changed; they do not agree with violence, the number of women who report these crimes is on the rise,” Sidelnikov said.

Police media staff were not available to answer repeated phonecalls about the subject on Friday.

Possible solutions

Step one in tackling domestic violence, Sidelnikov said, is to start considering the relationship between the victim and the aggressor. That would finally make it possible to paint a true picture of the extent of the problem.

The introduction of restraining orders would be another big step, neutralising pressure on battered wives to suffer in silence.

Once domestic crimes are properly identified, it becomes possible to treat them as public prosecutions rather than private matters.

“Now if the woman does not write the complaint, no one will lift a finger,” Sidelnikov explained. “In public the offender will not be able to pressure the victim to take the complaint back, because it will no longer be up to her.”

Gimme shelter

To make matters worse, women caught in an emergency situation have almost nowhere to turn beyond their family and friends.

Amnesty reported that only 20 refuges exist in the whole country, and most of them will only take women with local registrations.

Moscow currently has a single shelter, housing up to 35 women, serving a population of 10 million. At the moment 15-20 places are taken.

The Nadezhda (Hope) Centre accepts women permanently registered in Moscow, who can stay there for between three days and two months, helpline operator Lyudmila Danina told The Moscow News. Longer stays need approval from the city’s social services, who will also handle requests from women registered outside of the city.