Maria Alyokhina

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Two years ago, many Russians were shocked, when the Parliament significantly reduced penalties for domestic violence. Since then, The Women have to fight back - Call for new laws to curb The Perpetrators , demonstrate the support of the Three Sisters took The Law into their own hands and are looking for new ways to combat outdated attitudes on gender.

On a blustery, gray afternoon, Margarita Gracheva their small sons on The Playground . You run ahead, then jump on the swings and shoot down the slide. "They are pretty independent for their age," she says. "You know, I can't do up their buttons or tie their shoelaces, so You have to learn to do it yourself. "

On The Morning of December 11, 2017 Margarita man, Dmitri, offered her a lift to work, but instead, he drove in The Opposite direction, in the direction of The Forest . He parked The Car , pulled her from her seat, took an ax from the trunk and chopped off both hands.

Then he threw it in The Emergency room of your local hospital in Serpukhov, South of Moscow, in front of the ride to The Police station and confess his crime.

had met The couple, in school, and began dating after college. Initially, they were happy, even though he flared easily over trivial Things and vowed that he would kill You if You ever unfaithful to Him .

on Easter-photo-Margarita , Dmitry, and their Two Children , their relationship is sour, when Margarita started in the display portion of the Serpukhov newspaper. Although he has a degree, Dmitri was only able to find work, drive a forklift, and he was really upset of her career and jealous of her male colleagues. At home he always cold and back.

When Margarita said she thought they should separate us, he ignored them. But if You produced the divorce, he was angry. One night, he attacked her in her apartment with a bedroom, Wake up The Children , who saw the bruises on her body. The next Time he threatened her with a knife, went to The Police .

"I wrote a statement and the clerk said they would get back to me in 20 days," says Margarita .

"I pointed out, then he could have also tried to Kill Me 20 times over. "

The speaker explained that Women often complaints only to withdraw later, The Police flooded in paperwork. "So, what's The Point to introduce Themselves ?"

Find out more five days after the case was dropped for lack of evidence, Dmitri cut off Margarita of the hands.

your mutilated left-hand The Forest again, and re-sewn, in a nine-hour operation. A crowdfunding campaign raised six million rubles (£73,000) for a prosthesis of the right hand, the built-in was in Germany.

Although Margarita is now publishing a book about her healing called, Happy, Without hands, she had not publicity wanted to begin with.

Margarita Gracheva in the hospital, " But the terrible thing is that, in order to ensure that he got a longer prison sentence, I needed the help of the Media . "

her lawyers told her that if she did not get on national TV, Dmitry would be let out of prison in three-to-five years - it was important that they felt the pressure of Public Opinion . Margarita took her attorneys advice and Dmitri ended with a 14-year prison sentence.

Margarita could be even Though You draw for your life, easily have a worse fate suffered. Russia is not statistics on deaths as a consequence of intimate partner violence, but The Interior Ministry says that 40% of serious and violent crimes happen within The Family . The Most conservative estimates suggest that domestic violence kills hundreds of Women each year.

This long-standing domestic violence "crisis," as the activists Call it, helps to explain why two developments have sparked protests in cities across Russia . The decision, in 2017, a downgrade of domestic violence from a felony to a misdemeanor classified for first-Time offenders, as long as The Victim does not need to be treated in hospital. The Other was handed down, the prospect of a long prison sentence beings, the Three Sisters arrested for killing her abusive father, In July of 2018.

The Father , Mikhail Khachaturyan - a business man, the run made a name for yourself, the protection racket in the 1990S , his wife, drove from The Family home At Gunpoint in 2015, then began to concentrate, his aggression on the girl.

"He was tortured, You wouldn't leave in The Night , You sleep," says The Mother , Aurelia Dunduk. "He did what he liked. He had had a bell, and each of them, to come and to submit to what he wanted. The Children were really suffering. "

Krestina and Angelina Khachaturyan before the court, So one night, while Khachaturyan was asleep in an armchair in her apartment in Altufyevo, a Northern suburb of Moscow, his eldest daughter, Krestina, at the age of 19 years, the pepper-sprayed his face. Then the 17-year-old Maria stabbed Him with a hunting knife, while the 18-year-old Angelina Hit Him on The Head with a hammer.

"were You protecting yourself - You actually had no choice," her mother tells me.

A public outcry led them released from detention, while they wait for their negotiation. A petition will be spoken for You free, has 300,000 signatures.

demonstrators in Moscow Call for the people to expect the Khachaturyans' fate, but rather a movement, A protester in St. Petersburg to build against domestic violence with a sign reading: "My body is not a battlefield," One of The Sisters ' supporters is Maria Alyokhina , of Pussy Riot , Russia 's most famous punk band. If You are headlining a fundraiser Last Summer , she spoke about domestic and sexual abuse as "one of The Most important problems in Russia ", but one that is "always pushed to sweep under the carpet".

she added that 80 of The Women prisoners she met during her 18 months in a prison colony (for performing a "punk prayer" in Moscow's Cathedral) were Women , which has been subjected to domestic violence ", until You simply could not".

a Few Russian politicians see the combating of domestic violence as a priority. Oksana Pushkina is a rare exception. She was elected in the year 2016, as a member of President Vladimir Putin 's party, United Russia , but The Treatment of Women in the rebel. She is now campaigning to 2017 decriminalization law repealed, and, for Russia , a specific law against domestic violence for the First Time .

Oksana Pushkina "from the rostrum Of the Parliament, we said, You can family the dough the whole," she tells me in her office in the State Duma , referring to the decision two years ago. "This is a very bad law. "

your list of suggestions to keep restraining orders, The Perpetrators from their Victims - never existed in Russia - anti-sexual-harassment measures and steps to promote equality of the sexes. But she faces fierce resistance and the daily Hate Mail .

More Than 180 Russian Orthodox Church, and family groups have addressed an open letter to Vladimir Putin asking Him to block, your law, with the argument that it is The Work of "foreign agents" and supporters of the "radical feminist ideology".

At a round-table debate in Parliament last month, Andrei Kormukhin, a businessman and ultra-conservative, has warned that the bill could lead to "the genocide of The Family ".

and Women are not immune to this way of thinking. Elena Mizulina, a member of the upper house of the Russian Parliament, said Russian TV, that domestic violence "is not the main Problem in families, in contrast to the rudeness, the lack of tenderness and attention, especially on the part of Women ".

she added: "We Women are weak creatures and don't take offense if we are not taken. to have "

Elena Mizulina Mizulina seems, was inspired by a 16Th Century literary work with the title of the Domostroi, or domestically, To a set of guidelines for a happy household edited by a priest, took Ivan the Terrible's confession. The book advocates the beating of children "to the rescue of their souls", and the hard discipline for wives and daughters. "If Women do not fear Men or not, what their husbands or fathers, they say, then whip with a whip to your debt, if to do so in private, not in public. "

Most of the Russians would, the idea of laugh that You can recognize live according to medieval rules, but some that are outdated attitude towards sex is a Problem and so in a brilliant way.

Elena Kalinina , a young advertising man, remembers how her own mother told her to put up with everything, if You wanted a husband. "We have an expression here," If he beats You - he loves You '," she says. "Twisted logic, Yes, but it is still a part of our mentality. "

You think that the country is the imbalance of the sexes - 79 million Women in the 68 million Men reduces Women 's bargaining power in relationships.

Earlier this year, You and your team is a computer game developed about a fictional couple called Nastya and Cyril, and their toxic relationship.

Nastya and Cyril, the computer-game

domestic abuse, human rights in russia, russia, long reads, women' s rights

Source of news: bbc.com