Exiled activists launch hotline for Belarusian domestic violence victims

February 8, BPN. A free hotline for women who have suffered from domestic violence has been set up permanently after a trial period at oliviahelp.org, the Olivia initiative reported.

All requests are safe, anonymous and confidential, calls are not recorded and information is not passed to third parties, it stressed. The initiative is based outside Belarus.

Some 40 women contacted the hotline during a trial period in December 2022 and most of them needed several types of assistance, the initiative said.

Belarusian victims of domestic violence have nowhere to turn for help following the government’s large-scale crackdown on NGOs, Oliviahelp said.

In September 2021, the Supreme Court shut down Gender Perspectives, an organization that dealt with domestic violence and sexual discrimination.

In March 2022, a court in Minsk ruled to shut down Radzisłava, an association established in 2002 by domestic violence victims. Its shelter and the 24-hour hotline for domestic violence victims stopped working as well.

In 11 months of 2022, the interior ministry recorded 70,000 cases of domestic violence in Belarus, with only 15,000 qualified as minor offenses and about 2,500 as criminal offenses.