Russia has a socially conservative legislature that has, in my opinion, gone too far by partially decriminalizing domestic abuse. By reducing sentencing for domestic violence and saying that it is permissible is a huge step back for women’s rights as well for children’s rights. Not too long ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin, signed off on a law that basically decresed the penalty of domestic abuse despite the protest of women’s and children’s- rights advocates.
Under this new law, domestic abuse that results in “violence that does not cause significant injury” or “substantial bodily harm” once a year is considered a misdemeanor. Meaning that, according to criteria laid down by Russia’s Health Ministry, beatings that occur within families that result in “minor harm,” such as “small abrasions, bruises, superficial wounds, and soft-tissue damage,” are no longer a crime. Furthermore, the violators taking part in the abuse more than once a year will only have to pay a $500 fine or be subjected to a 15-day arrest. To make matters a lot worse, this legislation was unanimously passed by the State Duma with an overwhelming vote of 380-3 in favour of this new law. Yeah, absolutely insane!
Nonetheless, this isn’t the first time Russia has decriminalized violence. Back in the summer of 2016, Putin actually signed a law that decriminalized several kinds of “simple battery,” except for violence among “close family members.” It basically decriminalized public/social abuse, all the while introducing the concept of domestic abuse into the Russian criminal code.
The way people are defending this new legislature is by basically saying what ultra-conservative lawmaker, Yelena Mizulina argues, which is that parents in Russia should have the right to hit their children. Just for the record she is also the women who in 2013 successfully lobbied for the passage of a law banning “gay propaganda”. People want this law implemented because they believe it protects parents from child abuse charges when all they want to do is discipline their children with spanking. After the 2016 legislature, some conservatives were unhappy and began to complain that as parents they shouldn’t go to prison for discipling their kids and Putin agreed and formed this new amendment.
On the flip side, the critics of this legislature say that this is impairing women’s rights and regressing children protection, which I couldn’t agree more with. Stats show that domestic abuse in Russia is overwhelming. According to government figures, 74% of the country’s abuse is focused on women and 91% of reported abuse incidents are perpetrated by husbands on their wives. Another study was conducted in 2003 by Amnesty International which concluded that 36,000 women were beaten by their husbands each day in Russia. Furthermore, 2008 government stats showed that thousands of women were dying each year at the hands of their spouse or other family member. Not to mention, 26,000 children are beaten by their parents every year.
In my opinion, I think that this is legislature is absolutely horrific and catastrophic not only to Russian society, but also worldwide. So many women are told already that “he hits you because he loves you,” or, “it’s your fault”, and this new legislature just shows that the Russian government is more interested in protecting abusers than its citizens. This also is a huge step backwards for women’s rights as a whole as well. Since we live in a globalized world where we immigrate, marry, work, trade and travel country to country, this idea of abuse being “okay” would travel as well. Stats show that many South Asian families here in North America deal with domestic abuse, because back home there is a domestic abuse problem as well. Issues like these travel, so it becomes a worldwide social issue. Normalizing abuse is not okay and governments need to do more to prevent abuse, but also to provide resources for those that suffer at the hands of violence as well.
*Disclaimer: Featured image is not mine. Retrieved here.