Moscow Domestic Violence Conference
October 15-17, 1997

 

Conference Documents

The conference "Violence in the Family, Violence in Society" was held October 15-17, 1997 in Zvenigorod and Moscow, Russia with support from the Ford Foundation and the Office of Women in Development of the U.S. Agency for International Development. The conference was co-organized by the NIS-US Women's Consortium and the Crisis Center "Anna." The NIS-US Women's Consortium is a coalition of over 170 women's NGOs in Armenia, Moldova, Ukraine, Russia and the US that is administered by Winrock International with support from USAID. The Consortium and its members have been at the forefront of collaborative efforts in Russia and Ukraine to ensure that domestic violence is addressed as a critical social issue rather than an isolated women's issue.

Over 40 participants from international and Russian women's NGOs, crisis centers, hotlines, regional and municipal government organs, universities and institutes, and USAID attended the first 2 days of the conference in Zvenigorod, where they worked together to analyze the shortcomings of the recently (September 1997) defeated draft legislation "On Social Protection for Victims of Violence in the Family" and develop alternative language based on their diverse experience.

Following work in small groups to share expertise and lessons learned, all participants received documents to prepare them for the legal discussions. These included the defeated draft legislation, the July 1997 decree of the Ministry of Labour and Social Development "On the Status of Crisis Centers for Women," an excerpt on domestic violence from the Beijing Platform of Action, CEDAW, the December 1993 UN Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Violence Against Women and the UN model legislation on domestic violence.

[These Russian language documents are available from the Consortium's Washington and Moscow offices at [email protected] OR [email protected]]

Participants wrote a petition to the mass media calling for less stereotypical and inaccurate coverage of domestic violence (often dismissed as the result of family scandals borne of alcohol abuse) and an expert analysis of the draft legislation. Also, in preparation for Day 3 in Moscow, a resolution to the Presidential Commission on Women Family and Demography was written with recommendations for developing government mechanisms to deal with domestic violence.

On October 17 conference participants joined representatives from the Ministries of Education, Health, Internal Affairs and the press at Day 3 of the roundtable co-sponsored by the Presidential Commission on Women, the Family and Demography in Moscow. In addition to presenting the resolution mentioned earlier, 6 conference participants (all NGO activists) made presentations following those of the Ministry officials which led to some discussion of the statistics presented and the dire need for training of government officials and legal and medical professionals to prevent and respond to domestic violence.

IMMEDIATE RESULTS

The Presidential Commission immediately adopted one recommendation from the resolution: a working group on domestic violence is to be established under the Commission with both NGO and government representatives. There was consensus that the defeat of the draft legislation under discussion was a positive development, as it relied exclusively on the social services system, which is so understaffed and underfunded that it can only meet 7% of the demand. Participants agreed that an alternate law needs to be developed that stipulates the interaction between the social service and law enforcement systems, and most importantly, that focuses on prevention as well as treatment of domestic violence. It was suggested that the Ministry of Internal Affairs would be the most politically palatable initiator of such a law, given the conservatism of the current Federal Duma. The Ministry official present gave his consent to be a contact point. Conference organizers were very encouraged to learn later that the official had immediately followed up by calling the branch of the militia in the Sverdlovsk Oblast who had been cited in one NGO presentation as positive collaborators on a local project.

For more information, contact Sheila Scott (US Coordinator, NIS-US Women's Consortium) at:

[email protected]

Last updated:    December 1997

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