Russia must pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to victims of domestic violence, including a woman who had her hands hacked off in a brutal attack by her partner, Europe’s top civil liberties court has demanded.
On Tuesday, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that Margarita Gracheva, 29, is entitled to almost $418,000 for both past and future medical expenses, and loss of income, as a result of the ordeal inflicted by her spouse.
In 2017, Gracheva’s then husband, Dmitry Grachev, became violent, tore up her passport, sent her death threats and locked her in her car after she told him of her plans to file for divorce. Gracheva went to the police, but was advised by an inspector to withdraw the complaint as his actions were apparently merely a “manifestation of love.”
Just two months later, however, the woman’s husband kidnapped her, tied her up and hacked her hands off with an axe. Gracheva’s left hand was found in the forest and sewn back on, but never regained full function. Meanwhile, a prosthetic right hand was fitted after a crowdfunding campaign raised cash for the procedure.
Grachev, a father of two, was charged with causing grievous bodily harm and sentenced to serve a maximum of 14 years behind bars.
Russia was also ordered to pay three other women, all from the country’s capital, or Moscow region, to receive $22,545 each for allegedly facing violence at the hands of their partners.
According to the ECHR’s press release, “the Court noted that the Russian legal system lacked a definition of ‘domestic violence,’ adequate substantive and procedural provisions to prosecute its various forms, and any form of restraining or protection order.” It also implored the country’s authorities to introduce changes immediately to prevent similar attacks in future.
Research published in August as part of the ‘Algorithm of Light’ project, supported by the Russian Consortium of Women’s NGOs, found that 66% of killings where the victim was female were perpetrated as part of domestic violence. The overwhelming majority of these women (53%) were killed by their partners.
Women’s rights groups have criticized a 2017 Russian law, which they say has effectively decriminalized ‘first time’ incidences of domestic violence, in a move aimed to draw parity between supposedly one-off assaults on family members and those on strangers, which are dealt with under the Civil Code instead of by criminal courts.
Moscow, however, has previously rejected orders from the top human rights court. In July, the ECHR ruled that changes to Russia’s constitution, defining marriage as a union only between a man and a woman, violated the right to private and family life enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights in light of a case presented by three same-sex couples. In response, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said that implementing such changes were “impossible,” following a nationwide vote on constitutional reforms.