Slapping Law
The “Slapping law”-passed by the Duma in January and Putin in February-is a law that decriminalizes domestic violence laws in Russia. It has women and women’s activists worrying that women will be in more danger than ever and that domestic violence with become seen as okay, becoming more common.
The penalties for abuse are less compared to what they had been previously in a substantial way.
Before this Law, it would be about 2 years in prison for someone who has beaten their wife.
Now, a first offense carries a punishment of around 30000 rubles (about 500 dollars), community service up to 120 hours, or 15 days in jail. If you are a repeat offender it raises to 40000 rubles (about 680 dollars), six months of community service, or put in jail for 3 months.
The only way someone will be charged, though, is if the injury is reported and is bad enough to have physical lasting effects on the victim.
The issue is that under this law, domestic violence is tolerated to an extent where it shouldn’t be tolerated at all. As long as there are no long lasting effects from the beating, not much will be done. And because of how the law is set up, repeat offenses are classified as criminal infractions but only within a year of them getting caught for battery within the same year-which can only be done by the victim conjuring up their own case and providing evidence themselves.
Proof of domestic abuse is not easily acquired. Physical abuse leaves marks, but they don’t stay forever. Without picture documentation and date and time references, no one is to say that it is the first or second time it has happened.
Mental abuse is even harder to capture because he can’t be captured as easily with a camera. The mental abuse is what keeps victims waiting so long to tell anyone this is happening to them. There have been cases where women have filed a report and then canceled them even though the abuse has not stopped.
The burden of proof is put upon these women and when they finally get the courage to gather all the abuse data from their lives and go to the police, they might still be asked, “Are you sure?” or “Think it over.”
The whole situation feels backwards because the bill was written up to provide what the activists and women’s group in the country wanted, but it only seems to be backtracking a nation’s women’s rights.
Activists that are opposing the law have started petition to try to make the Duma write a whole new law against domestic violence.
Supporters of this law are all people who have had their hands in other controversial laws and/or are known for their staunch belief in keeping the traditional Russian family alive. Vyacheslav Volodin is one supporter who is also the speaker of the Duma ,which passed the bill with 85 percent of votes, who explained that he thinks that the bill will help build “strong families”.
Another supporter is the Russian Orthodox Church that along with it’s traditional family influences, reminds the Russians of the century-old manual Domostroi that tells of strict, stern rules of acquiring complete submission from everyone in the household as head of the house.
Then there is Yelena Mizulina, the conservative Senator that drafted the law. She was one of the people responsible for the earlier bill the stop “gay propaganda.” She’s also been quoted saying that it is more embarrassing for a woman to go to court against her husband than it is to be beaten by him. She has a strong belief in preserving the traditional Russian home in which the man has the right to punish his family in whatever ways he needs to.
The Law was easily passed because in traditional Russian households it is not uncommon for the head of the household — in other words the father, husband, oldest/only male, etc.- the hit someone who is not following the rules. But getting these people in trouble for beating their spouses is a hard thing to do and data on how often domestic abuse occurs is hard to collect because it isn’t documented often enough.
This bill will do no good for anyone but the men that can now get away with abusing there families even longer.
