IN Russia, they have a saying: "If he beats you, he loves you."
With the ill treatment of women so nonchalantly observed, you'll not be surprised to learn that domestic violence is rife.
According to Amnesty International, every 40 minutes a woman is murdered by a partner in Russia. Unicef reports that Russian women are five times more likely to be killed by their partners than women from Western European countries.
Now a team of experts from very close to home are helping Russian women speak up against abuse - by tackling ignorance and encouraging compassion in the legal system. Here's our press release, sent to local media yesterday, about the innovative work led by Wolverhampton women's refuge, The Haven.
Wolverhampton’s women’s refuge expertise helps Russia stem the tide of domestic violence
Groundbreaking work by Wolverhampton experts helping Russian women victims of domestic violence has been hailed as a major success after nearly 600 key workers involved in the criminal justice system completed training.
Women’s refuge, The Haven Wolverhampton, in Fold Street in the city centre, has been providing services for women and children experiencing domestic violence in Wolverhampton for the last 35 years.
Now the team is also working with a “women’s crisis centre” called Ekaterina in Sverdlovsk, in a £300,000 three-year scheme funded by the Big Lottery’s international programme, which began two years ago. Before that, The Haven Wolverhampton had been working with Ekaterina since 1997 when they approached the team in Wolverhampton to share its knowledge, skills and expertise.
Haven Chief Executive, Kath Rees, said the “crucial” work carried out had brought the city an international reputation for providing such expertise and strengthened the work being carried out with women in its home city – by breaking down cultural barriers, raising the profile of Wolverhampton and providing additional employment for women to do this work at The Haven.
Services provided under the ‘Life without Fear’ scheme include training for judges, lawyers and police and domestic violence training for women’s organisations, focusing on processing domestic violence cases through the criminal justice system.
Project Manager, Elvira Wilson, said: “Domestic violence is a criminal act which has to be dealt with accordingly. Women have the right to live without violence and there is a need to “prioritise women’s rights.”
“One of the women who came for support to Ekaterina said she’d endured 14 years of violence said her partner beat her during her pregnancy, raped her after an operation, gave her insulting and hurtful nicknames, refused to pay child maintenance, prejudiced her child against her, and beat her repeatedly.” This case reflects unfortunately the story of many women we see at The Haven with long term systematic abuse of all kinds of domestic violence.”
During the first two years of the current programme, 220 JPs, 75 lawyers, and 223 crisis centre staff and 81 police officers were trained. In total, 599 people have benefited from The Haven’s expertise with 95.9 per cent saying they found the training useful.
A conference on domestic violence – the first of its kind in Russia - was also held in Ekaterinburg last October, thanks in part to The Haven’s innovative work.
Wolverhampton district judge Shamim A Qureshi and senior legal adviser Gaynor Hollis also attended.
Gaynor said it had been an amazing experience and she was delighted to have met the Russian criminal justice workers to pass on ‘best practice’ from working with specialist domestic violence courts in Wolverhampton.
Elvira added: “This project aims to influence the attitude, perception and opinion of the general public and professionals in responding to domestic violence cases.
“There is a basic lack of understanding and compassion for such victims, at every level. It’s a really complicated process even to make a complaint. A person without expert legal assistance will still find it almost impossible to comply with the rules for filing a complaint. Yet the legal assistant is far too expensive for most of victims.
“That means that three is no help to make a complaint and if a slightest mistake is made, all paperwork is sent back to victims, which results in the women losing the will to do proceed with their cases.
“If a case does reach court, which is very rare, the presiding Justice of the Peace has no awareness of domestic violence and that is where our work is making a difference. Statistics collected during the project show steady decrease of cases closed and increase of number of perpetrators brought to justice.
Kath added that one of the most important successes of the last year had been the awareness raised by the conference – with the Russian partners set to report on the success of the project at The Haven’s conference in Wolverhampton later in the year.
And with no official figures on the prevalence of domestic violence in Sverdlovsk, an important part of future work will be to research among victims and the legal system.
Because of its work in Russia, The Haven Wolverhampton held up as an example of “best practice” in support for women and has resulted in approaches and visits from activists and officials from elsewhere in the world, including Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia and India.
Pictures show: Kath Rees with Ludmilla Ermakova from Ekaterina and the team from the women's crisis centre.
For more information, call Elvira at The Haven on 01902 572 173.
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