oliviamaria(nicolae)marcov: bucharest, romania

Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties. Abraham Lincoln In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility - I welcome it. John F. Kennedy *** The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all. John F. Kennedy, speech at Vanderbilt University, May 18, 1963 ***

luni, 20 februarie 2017

Human Rights Watch, A Slap is Only the Start, Newsletter 17 février 2017

Human Rights Watch, A Slap is Only the Start, Newsletter 17 février 2017

FEBRUARY 14, 2017 10:01PM EST Dispatches

A Slap is Only the Start

New Domestic Violence Law in Russia Hurts Victims

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38794677

"But the police said 'this isn't a hotel, we can't keep you here', and that was it."

https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/02/14/slap-only-start&utm_content=WIR.02.16.2017

Hillary Margolis

Researcher, Women's Rights Division

Only after a year of abuse, when Marina fell out a second-storey window as her husband tried to strangle her, did she go to police in Russia. Even then – wheelchair-bound, with metal plates holding her smashed feet together – Marina said she had to beg police not to send her back home.

Domestic violence kills 12,000 women a year in Russia, or one every 40 minutes. Despite such grim numbers, last week Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a bill todecriminalize acts of domestic violence that don’t cause severe injuries, or are reported only once a year.

Within days, the mayor of Russia’s third largest city, Yekaterinburg, told the media that police had responded to twice as many domestic violence incidents as usual. “People got the impression that before it wasn’t allowed,” the mayor said. “But now it is.”

Russia

’s parliamentarians voted 380-3 in favor of the bill. Opponents weren’t allowed to campaign publicly: Moscow’s mayor denied activists a permit to protest the law.

Some lawmakers argued that strong domestic violence laws contradict Russian “family values” and amount to state interference. MP Vitaly Milonov likened stronger laws to “lying in bed with your wife, and a lawyer, and some human rights organisation.”

Senator Yelena Mizulina said that a woman humiliating her husband is worse than a man beating his wife, and that parents should be allowed to beat their children.

But beating your wife or child is not a Russian “family value”; it’s a human rights abuse that has been ignored in Russia for too long.

In recent years, the UN has criticized the government for serious shortcomings in theprotection of women and children.

Human Rights Watch research – including in Hungary, Turkey, and Kyrgyzstan – shows that fear of reprisals, impunity for attackers, and attitudes condoning violence all deter the reporting of domestic violence. Laws like the one Putin just signed add yet another obstacle.

If victims muster the courage to report abuse – whether the first incident or the fiftieth – it may be the only time they dare to come forward. Violence in the home often spirals: what starts as a slap or a shove may lead to severe beatings, choking, or other life-threatening acts, like what Marina faced. Failure to treat more minor incidents as possible crimes sends a dangerous signal, and makes violence more likely to escalate.

Marina is lucky: she escaped her abuser and is building a new life with help from one of Russia’s few shelters for victims. But Marina and others like her shouldn’t have to nearly die for the government to take their abuse seriously.

Sursa:

https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/02/14/slap-only-start&utm_content=WIR.02.16.2017

+ http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38794677

***

Domestic abuse: Why Russia believes the first time is not a crime

By Sarah RainsfordBBC News, Moscow

· 31 January 2017

· From the sectionEurope

Marina recounts her story in a quiet, calm voice but the details are horrific. She says her husband beat her almost every day for more than a year.

Rolling down a sock, she reveals a long scar on her heel where a metal plate was inserted. Both her feet were smashed, as well as her ribs, when she was pushed through the window of their second-floor flat.

More than 600 Russian women are killed in their homes every month, according to estimates drawn from wider police statistics. Now some fear the situation could get worse.

Russia

's lower house of parliament, the Duma, has approved an amendment that removes domestic abuse from the criminal code.

Read more here:

§ MPs vote to soften domestic violence law

§ Silent nightmare of domestic violence in Russia

Marina survived the two-storey fall and spent three months in a wheelchair. Even then the abuse didn't stop.

"After he beat me in my wheelchair I went to the police," she recalls, now in a shelter for vulnerable women on the outskirts of Moscow.

"My face was puffed up and my lip was split. But even then they didn't detain him. I was in the police station in tears saying I couldn't go home because he'd beat me if he knew where I'd been," Marina says.

"But the police said 'this isn't a hotel, we can't keep you here', and that was it."

If President Vladimir Putin signs off the change in the law as expected, it will mean that first-time offenders who beat a family member, but not badly enough to put them in hospital, will not face a prison sentence.

The maximum penalty will be a fine or up to a fortnight in police custody.

The amendment sailed through parliament amid talk of protecting the family from interference.

"For us, it is extremely important to protect the family as an institution," Olga Batalina, one of the authors of the amendment explained beneath the vast chandeliers on the sweeping staircase into parliament.

Her proposal undoes a change made only last July when beating relatives was first defined as a criminal offence.

Welcomed by women's rights activists, the move caused uproar among Russia's increasingly conservative political class.

Deputies condemned it as "anti-family", arguing that a stranger could slap a child and get a fine, while a parent who did the same risked a prison sentence.

Reversing that decision is part of a broader backlash in Russia against what are seen as alien, Western values.

"We are talking about conflict in families. You should not point at this problem from the liberal point of view," argues ultra-conservative deputy Vitaly Milonov.

"That's like having three in a bed. You are sleeping with your wife - and a human rights organisation."

But Marina and those who run the refuge where she's staying believe abuse victims need stronger legal protection, not less of it.

There are currently five families squeezed into the house in the grounds of an Orthodox monastery.

The place is noisy with the squeals of children playing; it is pleasantly chaotic, cosy and secure. Funded through charity, the women get shelter and counselling.

They're also offered advice on pressing criminal charges against their abuser, a difficult process even before the law was changed.

"Only one woman in our experience managed to get her case to court," the shelter's director, Alyona Sadikova, recalls. Even then, the offender was given an amnesty and released from prison after a month.

"Now the maximum punishment for beating will be a fine. And if the woman goes home, her husband can take his revenge," Ms Sadikova warns.

The legal change also returns responsibility for bringing a prosecution and collecting evidence to the victim; the police will not automatically open a case.

"For a person who is in deep crisis, that's just unreal," the shelter director argues.

'Freedom to beat'

A proposal for a specific law addressing domestic violence was sent to parliament well over a year ago. It includes restraining orders, prevention and special training for police. But the draft has made no progress; instead, deputies have lessened the penalties for abusers.

"It's like they've been given freedom to beat: as if it's not serious, just a slap or a shove. But it can lead to very serious consequences," warns Irina Matvienko.

She's in charge of a hotline at the Anna crisis centre, which received some 5,000 calls last year from women seeking help.

"Domestic violence is not about a normal family fight. We are talking about systematic behaviour. So allowing impunity is especially dangerous, because the woman is one-on-one with her abuser," she argues.

Marina is now safe and gradually beginning to rebuild her life. She has a job in the monastery bakery and is saving up to move into a flat with her 10-year-old daughter.

But she didn't have chance to grab her youngest child when she fled barefoot from her home in panic. Now she's battling her husband for custody.

"How can they let her stay with him, after everything he's done," Marina struggles to understand.

But despite the scars on her body, her husband has never been successfully prosecuted. The worry is that even fewer offenders will be held to account now, and intervening before their abuse becomes dangerous could be even harder.