WASHINGTON, Jan 23: Battered and abused women receive little or no protection from the law or the criminal justice system in Russia, according to a report by Human Rights Watch.Despite the growth of a women's rights movement in the former Soviet Republic, the government has yet to seriously address the problem of violence against women which, the report says, is ``pervasive'' throughout Russia. The law enforcement system, in some respects, actually adds to the problem by failing to take seriously, incidents of domestic violence and by often treating complainants with a lack of respect.
``From the moment that victims of violence first seek out the legal system until the close of their cases,'' the report says, ``these women consistently confront hostility, reluctance, and bias against their cases. Instead of fighting the problem, the Russian government suggests by word and deed that it accepts that women can be assaulted in the street or in their homes with no recourse for the victims and few consequencesfor the attackers,'' according to Dorothy Thomas, director of the Women's Rights Project at Human Rights Watch.
The 52-page report, entitled ``Too Little, Too Late'', is the latest in a series by Human Rights Watch, documenting the special difficulties faced by Russian women as a result of the transition from Communism to a more market-based economy. It is based on interviews and records of women's rights groups, state local and federal officials, forensic doctors, and victims of violence in Moscow, St Petersburg, Sergeyev Posad, Murmansk, and the Ural city of Nizhni Tagil. In a similar report, produced in 1995, entitled `Neither Jobs Nor Justice' Human Rights Watch found widespread employment discrimination against women throughout Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The same report also described how law enforcement agencies failed to investigate and prosecute violence against women.
Since then, the situation has worsened. ``From the work place and government to the streets and the home,
Russian women are increasingly encountering discrimination, exclusion, and violence,'' according to the report, which will be released in a Russian version in March.
Unemployment, which has plagued the country since the end of Communism, has affected women disproportionately - more than 70 per cent of the unemployed are estimated to be women. Women have suffered job losses at about ten times the rate of men, according to one government report.
The problem has been exacerbated by the government's failure to live up to the Constitutional guarantee of equal opportunity. Labour legislation which took effect in 1996, for example, greatly increased the number of jobs which are closed to women, allegedly for reasons of health and reproductive functions.
At the same time, the fraying of the social safety net - required by budget cuts imposed by Western donors - has resulted in far less state support for women, particularly those without jobs.
Women have also lost ground in government compared to the Soviet
era when the Communist party and all legislative bodies were required to ensure that approximately 30 per cent of their members were women. Of the more than 20 members in Russian President Boris Yeltsin's cabinet, only two are women - the ministers of culture and health. According to government statistics, nearly 11,000 women reported rape or attempted rape in 1996, but Human Rights Watch and women's groups in Russia believe that the number vastly understates the problem. Women's rights activists, however, say only about five to 10 per cent of rape incidents are even reported to the police, while the reporting rate by victims of domestic violence is even lower.
In addition, the Russian government does not gather statistics on women who are assaulted or killed by their partners. Yekaterina Lakhova, who advises Yeltsin on women's issues, has estimated that 14,000 women in Russia are killed by husbands or family members each year. While Russian law considers sexual or domestic violence a crime, Human Rights
Watch found a major gap between the law as written and as it is applied.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
