Is the victim to blame?

In 2006 alone 900 women have been killed by their husbands during drunken brawls and other types of altercations — by men who had pledged to love them forever, in joy as well as in sorrow. There are no official statistics on domestic violence, and the above figures indicate the number of domestic homicides. This year a total of 1,008 people, 90 percent of whom are women, have died in various domestic incidents.

However, if you call the militia, screaming that you are being killed by your husband, in most cases no one will come to the rescue, and the standard law enforcement reply will be, “You better sort it out between the two of you.”

“Violence in the Family: Blaming the Victim” is the title of a report recently submitted by the Ukrainian branch of Amnesty International, based on the results of monitoring women’s human rights. “This problem is not endemic only to Ukraine,” says the executive director of Amnesty International in Ukraine, Antonina Taranovska. “Among the positive aspects is the fact that Ukraine was the first to enact the ‘Law on the Prevention of Violence in the Family’ and introduce an appropriate clause in its criminal code. Nevertheless, Ukraine has not adopted effective measures to uphold the law over the past several years.”

Women who are victims of dom estic violence do not receive adequate protection or even access to justice. According to a stereotype in Ukrainian society, women are to blame for whatever wrong is done to them.

Experts are forced to admit that the legislative and executive branches are not fulfilling their international commitments, just as they are not implementing the principle of the “state’s necessary responsibility” in ensuring women’s rights to equality, life, security, and freedom from discrimination.

In response to the UN Human Rights Committee’s inquiry, Amnesty International submitted a report on the human rights situation in Ukraine. After studying the report, the United Nations expressed concern about detainees being subjected to torture before trial, their incarceration conditions, acts of violence against women in the family, nonobservance of refugee rights, and the failure to protect ethnic minorities from racist and anti-Semitic attacks, and issued a number of urgent recommendations.

In connection with the first problem elucidated in Amnesty’s report — violence in the family — women in Ukraine and other countries seldom file complaints against their husbands. According to law enforcement officers, the astounding figure of 83,150 complaints recorded during the first six months of 2006 is only the tip of the iceberg. Members of non-governmental organizations and militia officers interviewed by Amnesty International believe that between 50 and 70 percent of Ukrainian women are victims of domestic violence.

“Yet even after a woman’s statement ends up on a militia officer’s desk, she faces a great many obstacles when she tries to have the guilty party punished. Therefore, the main problem today is offenders’ impunity,” says Taranovska. So far as international experts are concerned, these obstacles stem from a discriminatory attitude to women, which is widespread in Ukrainian society.

In fact, law enforcement authorities are “moved” only when a victim sustains extensive bodily injuries, otherwise the whole matter is ignored. Another widespread notion is “victim behavior,” the presence or absence of which is determined by the district militia officer under the law. To illustrate the situation, here is a quote from a militia officer in Vinnytsia: “The man comes home. The breadwinner (carrier of material benefits) goes into the kitchen and sees it’s untidy and that his wife has done nothing. If she receives a warning about victim behavior (that’s how an untidy kitchen is referred to in legal terms), she will behave differently, and the man won’t have to beat her up.”

As they say, no comment. One of the recommendations of the UN and Amnesty International is to remove the concept of victim behavior from Ukrainian legislation.

“The worst thing is that women often feel guilty for being physically abused,” says psychologist Tetiana Antonenko. “This is a problem of upbringing, a problem of the gender gap in our country. Many mothers have taught their daughters that the man is always right. And so they put up with this situation, fearing divorce, loneliness, and condemnation from relatives, who will accuse them of being unable to maintain their marriage, and say, ‘Who will want you with two children?’

In addition, offenders often repent after a fight; they bring flowers, make declarations of love, and beg for forgiveness. A woman finds herself in a vicious circle: she is prepared to endure acts of violence because she wants to have some warmth and tenderness afterwards. Someone must help her figure out the reasons for her husband’s brutal behavior and sort out her own feelings,” says Antonenko. The law provides for special shelters for women who are victims of domestic violence. The family, youth and sports ministry oversees a number of centers that offer advice and shelter to young people (under 35). Amnesty International, however, does not think this kind of assistance is adequate. “The shelters that do exist in Ukraine cannot be considered as such,” says Taranovska, “first, because they can be found. In fact, their location cannot be known to many people, in order to prevent husbands from tracking down their wives.

“That’s the first point. The second one is that these shelters are meant only for young people under 35 years of age. What about a 36-year-old woman who is physically assaulted by her husband? Where can she hide?”

Amnesty International is thus insisting that the Ukrainian government step up efforts to eradicate violence in the family and help all women secure access to social and medical centers for victims of domestic violence. International experts believe that these shelters must be financed by the central budget. Reliable inspections of detention cells and the right to conduct confidential interviews with any inmate are the third requirement. Pre-trial incarceration and prison conditions remain a very acute problem in Ukraine, although experts point to certain positive trends.

“Compared to last year, the number of registered cases of torture has dropped this year,” says Dmytro Hroisman, the coordinator of Vinnytsia’s human rights watch group. “This is a very positive factor, explained primarily by the interior ministry’s serious training of its personnel in dealing with detainees. Law enforcement agencies have become more open. We have also had considerably fewer reports on torture with serious and especially grave consequences. This is a very positive aspect.

“On the other hand, we still have cases of torture that are spread evenly throughout every region of Ukraine. There is a problem of impunity. There have been practically no cases — well, about five in all — where law enforcement people have been convicted for torture. The main reason is the prosecutor’s office whose divisions remain closed to the public eye. There is absolutely no public control.”

Hroisman adds that because of the prosecutor’s office complaints about unlawful actions by policemen are often left hanging in mid-air. The prosecutor’s office forwards them to the interior ministry — complaints are substantiated in 60 percent of cases — but the ministry tries to return such data to the prosecutor’s office and later simply refuses to launch criminal proceedings. A refusal can be appealed only within seven days.

“The penitentiary system is also a closed shop,” Hroisman continues. “There is an official document stating that the department in charge of implementing legal punishments also investigates prisoners’ complaints. For example, this department reports that in 2006 it received 360 complaints. Everything was checked out and no grounds for complaints were found. Can we trust such inspections? We have information that this department is failing to do its job in the sphere of human rights protection.”

Countless measures to prevent violence in the family and penitentiaries are being proposed, but the main one remains the same: the need to change public opinion and convince people that beating up one’s wife or a prisoner is unacceptable because these acts are against the law and subject to criminal prosecution. It is interesting to note that the subjects of families and prisons are lumped together under the same heading in a report that deals with egregious violations of human rights of the very people who cannot defend themselves. A convict cannot leave prison, just as a detainee cannot walk out of a militia precinct’s holding cell, just as a wife cannot leave her family, even though there are no bars on the windows. In 10 percent of domestic homicides, wives kill their husbands. The UN report cites an example of a woman who was raped by her husband in front of their children. After that he threatened to rape their daughters. The woman killed him and was sentenced to 15 years — so much for gender equality.