April 4, Pozirk. At least three female victims of domestic violence were killed in Belarus last month, Pozirk‘s analysis of the Investigative Committee’s reports showed.
In March, a 44-year-old woman was murdered in Hrodna after being beaten and strangled by her husband, who committed suicide.
Later the same month, a 73-year-old man stabbed his 71-year-old wife to death and jumped out of the window.
In mid-March, a man from Stolin, Brest region, tried to commit suicide by crashing his car after murdering his wife.
About 17.6 percent of Belarusian women experience various types of domestic violence at the hands of partners, found a survey conducted by the oliviahelp.org hotline and Chatham House.
Belarus does not have a law against domestic violence, even though it was drafted several times.
In 2018, Alaksandar Łukašenka sharply criticized one bill, calling it a stupidity imported from the West.
A year ago, he demanded that security forces root out violence against women and children.
The interior ministry records about 80,000 domestic violence incidents annually and has some 21,000 people on its watch list.
Belarusian victims of domestic violence have nowhere to turn to for help except the police, following the government’s large-scale crackdown on NGOs and civil society, including the ones that helped victims.
Volha Harbunova, the former head of the Radzisłava nonprofit that helped female victims of domestic violence, was arrested by police in November 2021 and later forced to flee from persecution seen by human rights groups as politically motivated.
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