The Haven Women's Refuge

Research into Domestic Violence in Russia

The Haven Wolverhampton has been working with the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit at London Metropolitan University (http://www.cwasu.org/) to facilitate the research on Domestic Violence in Sverdlovsk Area, Russia. This research is part of the 3 year ‘Life Without Fear’ project funded by the Big Lottery Fund with The Haven’s long standing partner, the Women’s Crisis Centre ‘Ekaterina’. Download Research Proposal

Many initiatives launched by project partners include analysis of 200 DV court case, the homicide reviews and interviews with lawyers, judges, social workers and other professionals etc. The data collection and the analysis of the raw data is conducted by the Research team in Russia; results are then evaluated and analysed by CWASU. Download the Research booklet developed by "Ekaterina" which is titled: "Domestic Violence: Monitoring and Analysis – Examples from Sverdlovsk Area, Russia" (English version / Russian version). It brings together findings from various social research projects and analysis of the court statistics aimed to understand the scale and attitudes to domestic violence in Russia. The reseach helped to facilitate dialogues between professionals from different agencies involved in dealing with domestic violence.

The research booklet contains:

Studies of Women's Experiences of Dometsic Violence

Studies of Attitudes of Professionals to Domestic Violence

Studies of Domestic Violence Cases and Homicides

Studies of Awareness of Women's Trafficking

The role of CWASU is to evaluate the project as a whole and the research approach in particular. Initial conclusions by CWASU team show that “there is clear evidence of project success in terms of opportunities created that may lead to long-term improvements for women entering the legal system with DV cases and in terms of system impact such as in increase in emergency accommodation units and the introduction of joint DV response teams. It may also be the case that some or more of the project’s activities have played a role in recent drops in DV homicides and in the increase in DV cases that make it to court.” (Renate Klein, CWASU)

Alongside the great differences between the situation in Russia and the UK there are similarities in terms of the challenges women’s advocates in each country have faced when trying to make the legal system more responsive to women struggling against domestic violence. These similarities concern the need to develop and refine criminal and civil law, introduce training on domestic violence for police, prosecutors, and judges, and link legal agencies with community-based services (including victim advocates, health, employment, and child protection).