By Kester Kenn Klomegah
MOSCOW, Mar 7 2005 (IPS)

More than 50,000 Russian women are beaten by their husbands or partners every hour, a group of women’s non-governmental organisations says.

One woman is killed on average every hour in domestic violence, says the Russian Association of Crisis Centres.

The association suggests that official figures vastly under-represent the scale of the problem in this nation of 104 million. Based on calls to their hotlines the crisis centres figure that only 5 to 10 percent of women victims report domestic violence to the police, and that many of these complaints are then not accepted.

“Many women suffer domestic violence for years but this rarely becomes public,” Maria Mokhova from a crisis centre told IPS. Recent studies have shown that 30 percent of all married women are regularly subject to physical violence, she said.

The state offers no protection to women humiliated and battered behind closed apartment doors, she said. Violence against women is a hidden but pervasive human rights abuse, and the government must learn to recognise it as such, she said.

The crisis that has arisen from Russia’s political and economic changes over the past decade has pushed many families below the poverty line, according to official figures. This has in turn led to more alcohol abuse among Russian men, and that in turn to more domestic violence.

Police officers are reluctant to get involved in what they usually see as a purely domestic matter. The strained and inadequate housing system also deters women from reporting such crimes, women workers say, because it could mean that women are left with no home to return to.

Law does not consider domestic violence a crime as such, and women have little social support to turn to. Men who beat or rape their wives are unlikely to face prosecution.

Larisa Korneva from the St.. Petersburg Crisis Centre for Women which receives about 70 to 120 calls a month says that 20 to 40 percent of callers would like to report the violence to the police, but are reluctant to do so in the belief that the police will not help.

“Many cases of domestic violence are either rejected or not investigated because the police refuse to pursue criminal charges against their partners,” Korneva told IPS. “The men refuse to see their actions as criminal primarily due to their aggressive military training, and the women choose to live with the violence or find ways of helping themselves without turning to the police.”

Natalya Abubikirova, executive director of the Association of Crisis Centres says her organisation is committed to changing the present way of thinking so that authorities, legislators, law enforcement agencies, perpetrators of violence against women, and their victims all realise that harassment within a family can be a crime and a violation of the rights of women.

“We would continue ceaselessly to call on the government to conduct an assessment of Russian legislation and to develop proposals for revisions necessary to guarantee women’s rights,” Abubikirova told IPS. “Our strategic aim is to push through a law for the prevention of violence against women not from a social aspect but from the human rights aspect – defending adequately the rights of women here in Russia.”

She said that under pressure from Russian women’s rights advocates and international publicity, the government has begun to acknowledge the gravity of the problem of violence against women, and has indicated a desire to improve protection for women.

By way of such pressure, Amnesty International raised several concerns in a letter to President Vladimir Putin last week.

“Many women who have suffered these kinds of abuses have not sought redress due to fear about further involvement with the authorities,” the letter said. “Being the victim of a sexual crime can also carry social sigma for the women involved. Women who do pursue justice are confronted by a system that largely ignores violence against women and protects perpetrators. Thus, state officials believe that they can continue to abuse women in their charge without risking punishment.”

The letter urged the Kremlin to ensure that all allegations of human rights abuses are investigated thoroughly and impartially, and that perpetrators are brought to justice. “The authorities should take steps to make domestic violence a distinct criminal offence, and to ensure that law enforcement officials are trained to recognise and prosecute violence against women, including domestic violence.”

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