How traditionalism impacts domestic violence

Sofia Guidi was shocked when she learned how prevalent domestic violence is worldwide. She was even more shocked when she discovered that law isn't always on the victim's side. In this fervent Talk, Sofia uses examples from recent Russian headlines to explain why preserving cultural tradition doesn't necessarily mean preserving safety, and discusses why she's concerned about the state of women's rights internationally. "Even if I live in another country and in another society and I have never met those women, I share their stories and their fear."

Yana Savchuck was a 36 year
old Russian hairdresser,

who lived in Oryol, a city 400 kilometers
away from Moscow,

she dated a man
who didn't love her

to the point of beating and killing her.

But Yana could have been saved.

When she called the police in November

saying that her husband
was going to kill her,

the police officer cast off her cries
for help as ridiculous.

"Don’t worry, if he kills you, we will
come to examine the body" he said,

as recorded on the victim's phone.

Within forty minutes later, Yana was dead,

beaten by the same man the
police refused to arrest.

Personally, I've always been stunned
in front of the episodes

of domestic violence and femicides
in my country.

I remember that when I was in the
last year of primary school,

since I was living in a big city,

just a few of my friends went home
completely alone.

One of them in particular,

said that her mum didn’t allow her to do
it because she had heard about a girl

who was just two years older than us,

that had been killed while she was coming
home from a sport center.

I also remember Fortunata, a 90 year
old women I knew,

who lived in a small village in
the South of Italy

who thought that it was normal
that her husband kept beating her

after 70 years of marriage and
wouldn't leave him,

even though her children wanted
her to do so.

After I heard about those stories,

I first realized that the reality wasn’t
exactly as I expected it to be

or the reality my parents or
my teachers believed in:

gender equality is not always real,

and the victims of violence do not always
receive help or protection.

A couple years ago,

while skimming over the headlines
of the local newspapers

I found out that this issue involves
every country around the world.

In the USA every day nearly three women
are killed by their intimate partner,

according to the violence policy center;

while in places like Pakistan this
phenomenon is endemic.

These articles made me realize that
even the law can be unfair

in those terrible situations.

I was startled to discover that domestic
violence in Russia

killed at least 14,000 women in 2009,

according to the Duma’s Committee
on social defense.

The Official Russian Interior Ministry
statistics point to

4 million reported cases of abuse
in 2015.

Those statistics do not include the likely
high number of unreported cases,

because 90% of the survivors
do not report

the violence incidents to the police.

Now, with these high rates,

you would expect that today there would
be strict laws punishing the abuse. Right?

Well, that’s not what’s happening.

In 2016, those convicted of abuse charges
were given up to two years in prison.

But in 2017, a new law was proposed,

and passed with a large consensus
of the Parliament,

that changed the punishment into a
fine for the first offense;

then heightened to a criminal charge
for the second offense.

But only with an interval of at
most one a year.

In other words,

today Russian men are allowed to
beat their wife once a year

without being considered criminals.

And on the top of that,

the Orthodox Church and the conservative
groups agreed justifying this law

as a measure to preserve traditional
family values.

When I first heard about this law,
I had two choices:

turn the page as if nothing had happened
or care about this issue,

recognizing that even if I live
in another country

and in another society and
I have never met those women,

I share their stories and their fear,

because as the statistics say,
this is likely to happen to me.

So, I decided to look into this further.

What’s the real cause of this
change in Russia

and why it might involve me
or my country?

The Economist describes it in a 2017
article as a state-sponsored

turn to traditionalism during Vladimir
Putin’s 3rd presidential term

that has exposed these fault lines.

Many Russians now embrace the liberal
notion of individual rights,

but others are moving in the
opposite direction.

As we can see this is a trend that
shows up in many countries

where their democracy is not
completely affirmed

and where authoritarian leadership want
to prove the moral high ground

of their traditional values in front
of other countries,

especially western democracies.

Since the approval of the law,

the cases of violence
are apparently decreasing.

This happens because now it is much
more difficult for a woman

to report her husband.

Policemen often blame the victims,

they don’t help them at all
or they ignore them.

And even when they try to help them
they are hindered by the law.

If the woman is able to
report the violence,

then her husband will probably force her
to pay the fine with her money.

But if on the one hand the reported
cases are decreasing,

the emergency calls on the other
are actually increasing,

according to the data from the
Anna violence crisis centre.

So, this law is a way to hide
the real situation.

So, if I were a Russian woman experiencing
domestic violence,

what would I need to do to be protected?

I would need to call the police,
probably more than once,

hoping to be able to speak with someone
who doesn’t blame me,

to report the violence for
the first time.

After that, my husband would probably
force me to pay the fine with my money,

then I would need to call the
police another time,

hoping to be able to speak with someone
who doesn’t attack me.

Then I would need to report the
violence a second time,

maybe then my husband would be arrested
and he’ll send me letters from prison

telling that he wants to kill me
as soon as he gets out.

Hard to imagine what it takes to
accomplish at least one of those steps.

If it were me, would my life decisions
be the same? I don’t think so.

Would my friends support me, like they
would normally do here and now?

I don’t know, but I don’t think so.

Another reason why a law like this
can still exist in 2018

is that unfortunately the progression
of society is not always linear

like the scientific progress.

I often hear people saying
"Come on! We are in 2018."

but, what do they mean?

They assume that since we are in 2018
everyone is entitled to human rights,

everybody should always be respected
and not discriminated

and society should be in
constant progression.

I wish it was actually like this.

In science, if a new
discovery is correct,

it will be the basis for the
next discovery.

But society may always turn backwards;

it happened in France and in other European
countries during the 19th century,

when during the Restoration many
progressive laws introduced

in the Napoleonic era were suppressed,

it's now happening in Russia and it could
happen anywhere else, that's why I care.

I also can't tolerate the fact that the
victims are just represented with numbers,

because like Anastasia Potemkina,

an artist who created an
amazing artwork project

for all the victims of domestic
violence said:

"It's not that I'm trying to speak
for them, definitely not,

but the lack of their representation
worries me."

Today, I am here because this is not
the world I believe in,

the world my parents or my teachers
taught me to believe in,

the world that my favorite YouTuber

or the founder of the Women Russian Crisis
Centre strive to create.

Today I am here to speak up for Yana,
for Veronica,

for Svetlana, for Irina, for Margarita

and for all the other women who can't.

Thank you.