Policemen from Chechnya took the detained girl to Vnukovo

Employees of law enforcement agencies from Chechnya took with them a 20-year-old native of Chechnya, Selima Ismailova, who fled domestic violence with the help of human rights defenders. The day before, she tried to fly out of Russia through Moscow’s Vnukovo airport, but was detained. Her relatives filed a theft complaint against her.

“After nine o’clock in the evening, with the second request, the police officers allowed Selima to be taken to the hospital, she was not well. She was examined, nothing was found, and she was returned to the department in Vnukovo. In the morning, the lawyers were informed that now there will be a transfer procedure,” the employee told the website Kavkaz.Realii Sofya Rusova of the Center for the Protection of Victims of Domestic Violence.

According to data on Vnukov’s website, the Utair flight to Grozny left at 10:13 Moscow time.

• Ismailova says that she wanted to run away from incessant violence at home, beaten and threatened by her father.
• At the age of 12, Ismailova moved to Germany with her parents, brothers and sisters. There she was subjected to violence due to conflicts with her mother. In the summer of 2021, Selima was sent to live with her grandmother in Achkhoi-Martan, her father, who had flown there from Germany, beat the girl and threatened to kill her.
• Human rights activists helped Ismailova to leave Chechnya, she was in a shelter in Moscow for several months while waiting for documents to be issued to leave the country.
• According to the human rights center “Marem”, which provided assistance to Ismailova, the reason for the girl’s detention was the statement of her relatives to the police that she allegedly stole 85 thousand rubles from her paternal relative. Human rights activists emphasize that theft charges are standard for similar cases, in which women fleeing from domestic violence in the North Caucasus are often caught.
• Domestic violence is one of the systemic problems of the North Caucasus. Local residents are subjected to it by their husbands and other family members. As a rule, the police ignore such cases, and in the case of criminal cases, the courts impose minimal punishments.
• Over the past ten years, draft laws on the prevention of domestic violence have been submitted to the State Duma more than 40 times, but have not passed a single reading. In 2017, the article on beatings was removed from the Russian Criminal Code, and administrative liability was introduced for domestic violence.