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Abstract
This article examines how Russian NGOs in the field of domestic violence operate in a legal climate characterised by both state restriction and support. I conceptualise anti-violence NGOs that belong to a network as an ‘epistemic community’ and demonstrate that NGOs in my study faced challenges to the recognition of their expertise by state representatives and to the promotion of their vision of policy change. Yet, these NGOs continued to invest their resources in educational events for state specialists. I propose to theorise these educational events as a means of developing a knowledge-based network that can support domestic violence survivors despite lacking formal mechanisms of inter-agency collaboration.
Notes
1 Postanovlenie Pravitelstva RF ot 15 aprelya 2006, N 212 ‘O merakh po realizatsii otdel’nykh polozhenii federal’nykh zakonov, reguliruyushchikh deyatel’nost’ nekommercheskikh organizatsii’, 15 April 2006, available at: http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_59804/, accessed 21 August 2020.
2 Federal’nyi Zakon 129-FZ, ‘O vnesenii izmenenii v otdel’nye zakonodatel’nye akti Rossiiskoi Federatsii’, 23 May 2015, available at: http://www.consultant.ru/law, accessed 31 January 2019.
3 Fond Prezidentskikh Grantov, available at: https://xn--80afcdbalict6afooklqi5o.xn--p1ai/, accessed 5 February 2019.
4 ‘Sotsial’no orientirovannye nekommercheskie organizatsii (SONKO)’, Ministerstvo Ekonomicheskogo Razvitiya Rossiiskoi Federatsii, available at: http://economy.gov.ru/minec/activity/sections/SocOrientNoncomOrg/index, accessed 5 February 2019.
5 Federal’nyi Zakon 40-FZ, ‘O vnesenii izmenenii v otdel’nye zakonodatel’nye akty Rossiiskoi Federatsii po voprosu podderzhki sotsial’no orientirovannykh nekommercheskikh organizatsii’, 5 April 2010, available at: http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_99113/, accessed 4 February 2019.
6 At the end of 2015, the Supreme Court submitted to the State Duma a bill concerning decriminalisation of several crimes (battery; death threats; the use of forged documents; and the systemic non-payment of alimony). The article 116 of the Criminal Code (‘Battery’) included in the original bill contained no reference to ‘relatives’, but this reference appeared in the re-drafted bill which was eventually passed and came into effect on 3 July 2016. That is, according to the new law, battery, which caused physical harm but did not lead to a short-term worsening of health or a significant loss of working capacity, became an administrative offence, except for cases when battery occurred in relation to close relatives, or due to hooligan inclinations, motivated by political, ideological, racial, national or religious hatred or animosity, or motivated by hatred or animosity towards a social group. However, on 11 November 2016, another bill was submitted to the State Duma that proposed to remove the reference ‘in relation to relatives’ from article 116 of the Criminal Code. Most MPs voted for the proposal which also passed the Federal Council and was signed by the President and came into effect on 7 February 2017. It is this latter change that is colloquially referred to as ‘decriminalisation of battery in the family’. Federal’nyi Zakon 8-FZ, ‘O vnesenii izmenenii v stat’yu 116 Ugolovnogo Kodeksa Rossiiskoi Federatsii’, 7 February 2017, available at: http://www.consultant.ru, accessed 31 January 2019.
7 Given the absence of a federal law on domestic violence, the police do not collect data on the actual instances of this type of crime. The Ministry of Internal Affairs bases its statistics of crimes in the ‘sphere of family-home relationships’ on the number of reports submitted by victims. The most commonly cited estimates are 14,000–15,000 cases, with women the victims in about 9,000–10,000 cases and children in about 4,000–5,000 cases (‘MVD RF: ot semeinykh poboev v osnovnom stradayut zhenshchiny’, TASS, 8 February 2017, available at: https://tass.ru/obschestvo/4006801, accessed 17 February 2019). However, different figures are provided by the Federal State Statistics Service (Citation2018) for the year 2017 on ‘the number of women and men who have become victims of crimes involving violent acts’, in the category of ‘crimes committed against a family member’: 25,700 women (71.2%) and 10,400 men (28.8%).
8 Skype interview with director, NGO 2, 10 July 2018; interview with director, NGO 3, 1 October 2018.
9 Skype interview with director, NGO 2, 10 July 2018; interview with director, NGO 3, 1 October 2018.
10 Ministerstvo Yustitsii Rossiiskoi Federatsii, available at: http://unro.minjust.ru/NKOForeignAgent.aspx, accessed 1 April 2019.
11 Follow-up email exchange after Skype interview, director, Syostry centre, 6 October 2018.
12 ‘Novosti Soveta’, Sovet pri Prezidente Rossiiskoi Federatsii po razvitiyu grazhdanskogo obshchestva i pravam cheloveka, 15 July 2019, available at: http://president-sovet.ru/presscenter/news/read/5658/, accessed 22 August 2020.
13 ‘Proekt zakona o profilaktike semeino-bytovogo nasiliya’, 29 November 2019, available at: http://council.gov.ru/services/discussions/themes/110611/, accessed 23 August 2020.
14 ‘Opublikovan zakonoproekt o domashnem nasilii v Rossii. Chto s nim ne tak?’, Russkaya Sluzhba BBC, 29 November 2019, available at: https://www.bbc.com/russian/news-50602295, accessed 23 August 2020.
15 The official website of the ANNA centre, available at: http://anna-center.ru/index.php/ru/o-nas, accessed 22 August 2020.
16 The recordings were made with the permission of the participants.
17 Interview with director of the ANNA centre, Moscow, 1 October 2018.
18 Official website of the ANNA centre, available at: http://anna-center.ru/index.php/ru/o-nas, accessed 22 August 2020.
19 ‘Khochu—lyublyu; khochu—ub’yu’, Radio Svoboda, available at: https://www.svoboda.org/a/28256508.html, accessed 31 January 2019.
20 Interview with an activist promoting a federal law on ‘Preventing violence in the home’, Moscow, 27 January 2019.
21 Presentation of director, NGO 7, ‘Intra-network cooperation’ conference, Moscow, 29 October 2018.
22 Interview with director, NGO 6, ‘Intra-network cooperation’ conference, Moscow, 29 October 2018.
23 Interview with director, NGO 6, ‘Intra-network cooperation’ conference, Moscow, 29 October 2018.
24 Skype interview with director, NGO 2, 10 July 2018.
25 Phone interview with director, NGO 9, 5 November 2018.
26 Phone interview with director, NGO 11, 22 November 2018.
27 Phone interview with director, NGO 8, 1 November 2018.
28 Phone interview with director, NGO 8, 1 November 2018.
29 See also Skokova et al. (Citation2018, p. 556).
30 Phone interview with director, NGO 11, 22 November 2018.
31 Phone interview with psychologist, NGO 7, 26 November 2018.
32 Phone interview with director, NGO 11, 22 November 2018.
33 Phone interview with psychologist, NGO 7, 26 November 2018.
34 Skype interview with director, NGO 9, 5 November 2018.
35 Interview with deputy-director, NGO 3, Moscow, 27 July 2018.
36 Interview with director, NGO 6, informal network conference, Moscow, 29 October 2018.
37 Interview with director, NGO 3, Moscow, 1 October 2018.
38 Interviews with: director, NGO 5, ‘Intra-network cooperation’ conference, Moscow, 28 October 2018; director, NGO 6, ‘Intra-network cooperation’ conference, Moscow, 29 October 2018; phone interview with director, NGO 11, 22 November 2018.
39 Interview with director, NGO 5, ‘Intra-network cooperation’ conference, Moscow, 28 October 2018.
40 Phone interview with director, NGO 13, 24 February 2019.
41 Phone interview with director, NGO 9, 5 November 2018.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Maria Davidenko
Maria Davidenko, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, National Research University Higher School of Economics, 20 Myasnitskaya Street, Moscow, 101000, Russian Federation. Email: [email protected]