Violence against women: a hidden wound from the Caucasus to Turkmenistan

A survey by the Currentime website has outlined the problem in the former Soviet countries. In none of the five Central Asian countries is the concept of ‘femicide’ included in the Penal Code, despite the prevalence of domestic violence. The war between Russia and Ukraine has also led to a significant increase in crimes against women in both countries.

Astana (AsiaNews) - On the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, the website Currentime sought to compare the situation regarding femicide in various regions, from Eastern Europe to the Baltic, from the Caucasus to Central Asia.

As Sofia, a Russian women's rights activist, states, ‘femicide is gender-based murder,’ and it is precisely this specific content that distinguishes it from ‘murders of women.’ Female identity provokes excessive jealousy stemming from a desire for domination and submission of women, who are forced to perform mainly domestic tasks, the unsatisfactory performance of which arouses the murderous rage of the male master.

A researcher from Central Asia, under the pseudonym Ajnura, explains that ‘according to our investigations, most of the time femicide is the end result of years of domestic violence’, perpetrated by partners or close relatives, rarely by strangers outside the family circle, except when linked to kidnappings or maniacal persecution.

The UN Women's Organisation defines femicide as a “hidden pandemic” and a “global crisis”, considering that in 2023, 85,000 women were killed for these reasons, 60% of them by partners and relatives, although the criteria for classifying these tragic events vary greatly from country to country.

In Central Asia, the issue is quite dramatic, with constant media reports of murders and violence against women, even though none of the five countries in the region includes the concept of “femicide” in their criminal codes, and therefore no statistics are available.

As Ajnura observes, “these incidents are often accompanied by particularly violent actions, and the victims” bodies show signs of severe and repeated trauma, typical consequences of the still deeply rooted patriarchal mentality'.

In her opinion, “there is a form of hatred of women that has been handed down in society since childhood, with a preference for boys, and this is true in all our countries in the area”. .

The vast majority of family resources are allocated to sons, and girls are treated as outsiders to the family, as they are given in marriage while still in their teens. Acts of violence are hushed up and often concealed even by the courts and authorities.

In Turkmenistan, for example, the national media even avoids reporting on such incidents. Only in 2021 did UN representatives conduct research in Turkmenistan, which found that 12% of women had experienced domestic violence, recounting with difficulty numerous abuses suffered before the age of 15.

The war between Russia and Ukraine has led to a significant increase in violence against women in both countries, starting with rape and violence by invading Russian soldiers in various regions of Ukraine, as reported by Kristina Kit, a Ukrainian lawyer from the JurFem association. In Ukraine, these actions are considered war crimes.

The conflict also affects Ukrainian society itself, with the exasperated aggression of men engaged in military actions, or in any case in a state of constant alert and tension, who end up killing their wives and partners for no reason.

Some forms of femicide include behaviour that drives women to suicide, as in recent cases in Tajikistan, where the kelin, the new bride, is forced to take on the burden of all domestic work, suffering numerous humiliations and eventually committing suicide out of despair, sometimes even killing her children.

Honour killings still exist, where women are killed to “wash away the shame of immoral behaviour” in Central Asia and especially in the Caucasus, as in recent high-profile cases in Chechnya.

Human rights activist Eldar Zejnalov from Azerbaijan believes that “these murders are closely linked to a return to traditionalism, to the patriarchal criteria typical of our countries, and often to the cover-up by law enforcement agencies, which are mostly made up of men who share this mentality”.