Interview: Giving a Green Light to Abuse in Russia

The idea that domestic violence is not a serious criminal offense is hard to grasp. How did this happen? Russia doesn’t have a national domestic violence law. Some acts of domestic violence can be prosecuted under the criminal code as assault, but domestic violence isn’t seen as any different than assault on the street by a stranger. It’s actually taken less seriously than public assault because at least when it’s public, the police is much more likely to intervene. The worrying step the government took in February 2017 was to make what protection exists under the criminal code even narrower and…

© Human Rights Watch - jeudi 25 octobre 2018