Child Abuse in North Caucasus Reflects All-Russian Trends and Regionally Specific Features, Experts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, December 10 – Debate about a possible new Russian law against family violence and several recent horrific examples of child abuse in the North Caucasus has prompted experts in that region to examine its causes. They suggest that abuse there is the product of both all-Russian trends and certain regionally specific features.

            What is most interesting is that some argue that the rising incidence of child abuse in the North Caucasus is the product of the breakdown of patriarchal society and the extended families that prevented it in the past while others say that violence reflects the very essence of patriarchal relationships and that their breakdown is the only way to end such violence.

            Libkan Bazayeva, head of the Women for Development organization, argues that child abuse are connected with the practice of taking children from their mothers in cases of divorce and putting them under the supervision of people, men and women, who do not feel especially attached to them (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/343351/).

            After a divorce, customary law gives men the power to take children from their mothers and then leave them under the supervision of other more distant relatives.  These children often become superfluous for those who are supposed to take care of them, and this “defenselessness provokes violence.”  She hopes a new law on family violence will limit this practice.

            Zemfira Dzadayeva, the president of the Mountain Woman Foundation in North Ossetia, says that violence against children is often used by women who have experienced violence when they were growing up.  That cycle must be broken if children are to grow up in safety, she continues.

            Both Bazayeva and Dzalayeva link the increase in violence over children to events in the region over the last several decades: “As a result of war, there has become more cruelty and human life has begun to be valued less. Fifty to 100 years ago, such events simply could not have occurred. Everyone lived in extended family communities” which acted as constraints.

            Svetlana Anokhina, a Daghestani journalist and human rights activist, disagrees. She argues that violence against children is “a typical characteristic of patriarchal societies” and that the continued existence of such family arrangements in the North Caucasus is a major reason why there is so much child abuse.

            “The system of ‘chief/subordinate’ operates here with the complete approval of society. Women live in exactly the same milieu and follow the same rules. They do not resist force used against them and consider the use of force against children as appropriate as well,” the Daghestani says.

            She points out that in the most horrific cases, where a women beats a child, observers typically ignore the role of men in these situations.”  They forget that men are involved either as models of such behavior or as enablers who are not prepared to intervene when such violence does occur.