Press Release, 27.04.2020

The government commission, chaired by Russian Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev, recommended that regional authorities provide support to victims of domestic violence.

To this end, the commission invites the heads of the interior in the regions to ensure institution of criminal proceedings under Article 116.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (beatings by a person subjected to administrative punishment) in the absence of a statement by the victim; by May 1, 2020, inform citizens at the level of local police stations about the activities of crisis centres that help women; by June 1, 2020, include information on the state of crime in the sphere of family-domestic relations into the statistics of the interior and the results of the work of the police in their prevention; by June 1, 2020, optimise the procedure for conducting forensic medical examinations to reduce the time it takes to prepare a conclusion on beatings.

Governors, in turn, will have to work out the issues of creating crisis centres for women during the period of family conflict; support NGOs implementing projects in the field of prevention of domestic violence; post on the official websites of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation updated information on contact telephone hotlines and crisis centres working in the field of prevention of domestic violence.

It should be noted that on April 23, members of the Party Bureau adopted a statement demanding that urgent measures be taken to reduce the level of domestic violence in Russia. The document ran that surge in domestic violence occurred in all countries in the situation of self-isolation due to the coronavirus pandemic, but in Russia the situation was especially threatening: domestic violence is decriminalised, the law on the prevention of domestic violence has not been adopted; the number of shelters for victims of violence is catastrophically small, some of them closed due to the pandemic. The authors of the statement also pointed to the absence of statistics on the number of victims of domestic violence in Russia, which makes solving the problem even more difficult. The measures of aid to victims of domestic violence proposed by the party were reflected in the recommendations of the government commission.

According to Galina Mikhaleva, Chair of the Yabloko Gender Faction, the support programme proposed by the government commission is a rare case when a decision was formed in response to a statement by Yabloko, experts and non-profit organisations. “There is only one problem, as in the situation with the spread of coronavirus, everything fell on the shoulders of the governors. It is difficult for them to organise aid for victims of domestic violence, as they do not have adequate resources. This is a federal [government] task,” Mikhaleva noted. “It is necessary to use the money of the Reserve Fund and organise the aid of specialists in the regions.”