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’. 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.

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)

The BLF is also satisfied with the project progress and commented that “it demonstrated the strong success that the project is achieving which is great news” (Sarah Nash, Grants Officer)

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).

The next meeting at CWASU will take place on 1st December 2008, where the Professor Liz Kelly, Director of CWASU will interview Ludmila Ermakova, Director of “Ekaterina” and Natalia Gaidardzhiskaya, Project Researcher. All research conducted as part of the project will published in a separate publication which will be available from The Haven Wolverhampton soon.