WORD OF THE YEAR IN RUSSIA: FEMICID
“The Russian state has fully complied with the obligation to create a legislative framework that effectively addresses the problem of domestic violence ...” The Representative of the Russian Federation at the European Court of Human Rights is Mikhail Halperin, Deputy Minister of Justice of the Russian Federation. Russia’s reply to the ECHR, Kommersant, 11.19.2019
At least 1,504 women were killed in Russia in 2019, and 165 in 2020. The list continues to grow.
With thanks to femicide.net who collated and shared this important report on a global stage:
The Goal: It is normal that civilians and society control news about crimes and measures that the state is taking to protect citizens. In 2019 the independent project femicid.net began to collect news about femicide and publish data in the public domain. It is not this fact that is strange but that no one had done this before.
We present a report that reflects (as far as it is possible at present moment) statistics about femicide in Russian Federation. Official sources either do not exist or cannot be trusted. The Russian authorities suppose that collecting such statistics is unnecessary. In general in Russian Federation the notion of gender-directed violence and the need to address it within the legal framework is not known. As a result people in Russian Federation are totally unaware about femicide.
The independent team at femicide.net collected the presented statistics based on news about femicide in Russia in 2019.The researchers looked at publically accessible news sites in all 84 regions of Russia (excluding annexed Crimea and Sevastopol) and noted reports about killing of women. The information was then checked against websites of the prosecutor’s offices, courts, and investigative committees. The resulting data was then entered into a table that reflected demography, social status, relations between the victim and the perpetrator, circumstances of the crime, the course of the investigation and its conclusion. The collected statistics for 2019 are very different from those voiced by representatives of the authorities in their speeches. It falcifies the recently published “Report of the Russian Federation about successes and problems encountered in the matter implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and final documents of the 23rd special session of the UN General Assembly”. In our opinion that report tried in general to present the situation in Russia in the most positive light, juggling with numbers and using bureaucratic language. For example, the authors tried to show that the authorities had taken all necessary measures to achieve gender equality including taking into account the recommendations of international organizations. This is not true and the situation in Russia is very patriarchal. Women in power make up a tiny percentage, crisis centers are underfunded or non-existing. The general tendency is to educate future generations in a patriarchal and militaristic style, there is no sexual education, there is no laws about femicide or even law about domestic violence. Wome n remain powerless, their situation is deteriorating every day. Russia is a country that is dangerous to women.
Participated in the creation of the English version of the report: Ekaterina Bakhrenkova (Moscow, Russia), Lyubava Malysheva (Barcelona, Spain). Experts and translators: Natasha Sharymova (New York, USA), Ekaterina Drobyazko (Cologne, Germany), Lena Gruntova (Moscow, Russia), Anna Barantseva (Puerto Misahuallí, Napo, Ecuador), Dmitry Stepanov (Nizhny Novgorod). Calculations Igor Bukanov (Oslo, Norway). Banner with photos of victims of Russian femicide: Valeria Sokolova (Nürnberg, Germany).