About a third of Russian women suffer domestic violence but put up with beatings from their partners and husbands in order not to lose them, Moscow's Anna National Center for the Prevention of Violence reported on Wednesday.
Last year the center launched the first free helpline in Russia for women who suffer domestic violence.
“The first problem is the number of physical domestic violence, more than 30 percent of callers faced it, and the second is family relationship problems (about 20 percent of requests). The majority of Russian women put up with violence from their husbands in order to preserve the family,” the report says.
According to the results of the national free telephone hotline for women, last year women aged 30-40 years (30 percent of callers) were the most frequent victims of domestic violence. Most of the women seeking help said they are regularly beaten by their husbands, sometimes several times a month.
Unofficial data collected by the Anna Center show that as many as 14,000 women die in Russia annually from domestic violence, around four times more per capita than in the United States.
While crisis centers are usually ready to provide psychological and legal help to women facing family problems, the issue is much more complicated when it comes to accommodation. Most of the crisis centers only provide accommodation to those who are registered to reside in the local region.
