No Way Out for Battered Women
by
Cassandra Cavanaugh and
Martina Vandenberg
Over the last several years, governments in Central Asia, as well as Central and Eastern Europe, have made statements about defending women's rights and promised to abide by international conventions protecting women from discrimination and abuse. However, research in Uzbekistan reveals the opposite — government officials are pressuring women to remain in abusive relationships.
omestic violence is one
of the most difficult and underacknowledged challenges facing the people
of Uzbekistan. While few states have laws against domestic violence in
their criminal codes, the Uzbek government's inaction toward violence
against women is disturbing.
Interviews with survivors, judges, lawyers, police officers, and activists by Human Rights Watch (HRW) show the widespread failure of the Uzbek government to protect abused women and to prosecute those who abuse them.
Human Rights Watch conducted a fact-finding mission in May and June 2000 to investigate how the state responded to violence against women. The mission's findings will be published shortly in a report to be distributed to donors, Uzbek government officials, international organizations, and UN monitoring bodies such as the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
One interviewee, who asked to remain anonymous, said, "They asked me in court for witnesses to testify that he beat me. But my children were the only witnesses. They told me not to turn my children against their father. They told me that if the neighbor had seen it then they could do something."
Most accounts suggest that authorities do as little as possible to stop domestic violence. This official indifference to abuse and emphasis on the family is rooted in ideology and instability. The government and the media promote women's domesticity, docility, and subservience as the embodiment of Uzbek values. In a time of economic upheaval and social discontent, the family is seen as one of the few remaining symbols of stability. As one government official put it, "When the family is strong, society is strong."
In the name of strong families, regional authorities intimidate local community officials with threats of censure if they allow divorce rates to grow. Representatives of state women's committees pressure women to remain in abusive situations that endanger their lives and well-being. Police in urban areas often refuse to take women's statements about domestic violence. Village officials occasionally call in police to warn a batterer, but allegations of domestic violence almost never lead to criminal charges. At most, perpetrators of domestic violence face administrative fines for misdemeanor infractions — fines that harm the victims as well because they are paid out of the family budget.
“It is a sad irony that, frequently, the sole legal measure taken by the government against domestic violence is the criminal prosecution of abusers for 'driving a person to suicide.'” |
Community and regional officials in rural and urban areas told HRW about the central government policy of "family reconciliation," which calls for the preservation of marriages at all costs, and under almost any circumstances. Officials approached by women with violent husbands usually attempt to mediate the conflict by convincing the woman to return to her husband. In nearly all cases investigated by HRW, authorities readily blamed the women for the abuse.
A collective farm official told a victim of domestic violence, who had come to him for assistance, that "women are guilty in eighty percent of these cases."
Another interviewee was threatened and stalked by her husband after she and their children left him. Her frequent appeals for assistance to local government authorities went unheeded because her husband, according to the authorities, had not committed a crime.
In fact, the sad irony is that, frequently, the sole legal measure taken by the government against domestic violence is the criminal prosecution of abusers for "driving a person to suicide" (article 103 of the criminal code). Uzbekistan's recent report to CEDAW shows that 1,560 women committed suicide in 1998, but fails to acknowledge the role that domestic violence may play in these tragic instances.
The state's policy of artificially depressing the divorce rate further compounds the problems women face in obtaining relief from, and redress for, violence in the family.
The government declared 1998 the "Year of the Family," which in practice meant that courts and civil registry offices did everything possible to prevent divorce, even in cases of physical abuse. The family code gives judges the discretion to establish a six-month waiting period before granting a divorce. However, courts routinely interpret this waiting period as mandatory, even in cases of persistent family violence.
The research also showed that local officials often obstruct women's access to court in divorce cases by refusing to provide documents, such as birth certificates, necessary for filing a court case.
The failure of the Uzbek government to come to the aid of women is a cause for much concern among the international NGO community and women's advocates in the region. Although HRW is finalizing its results, a number of preliminary recommendations can be made. The Uzbek government needs to begin compiling domestic violence statistics to acknowledge how often the problem occurs. Authorities must also enforce existing laws and begin drafting specific ones that make domestic violence a criminal offense. Finally, the government should offer training sessions that teach relevant officials how to respond compassionately and effectively to reports of domestic violence.
Cassandra Cavanaugh is a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch's Europe and Central Asia Division. Martina Vandenberg is a researcher at Human Rights Watch's Women's Rights Division.
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