“You are destroying the family!”

- They will take away children!

- Deadline for a slap!

- Families will no longer be in Russia!

And other similar comments are now massively written by opponents of the draft project (this is not a typo) of the law on the prevention of domestic violence.

For those who have skipped the previous series, I’ll outline a summary. The topic of domestic violence and the need to counter it comes up from time to time in the Russian parliament for the past ten years, previously such bills did not even reach consideration. Now the Federation Council has joined in drafting the bill, even Secretary of the United Russia General Council Andrei Turchak has spoken out for its adoption; there are votes for even representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church. I will allow myself to compare this topic with ecology: what ten years ago seemed to be the inheritance of the interests of marginalized people, has become one of the central topics discussed in Russian society in recent weeks.

We’ll say right away: the Federation Council has so far published only a draft bill, nothing has been submitted to the State Duma, and we are discussing only a concept that, as one would expect, did not please anyone - neither the supporters of the future law, nor its opponents. Some accuse the authors of the intention to destroy Russian families, others - the exclusion from the draft bill of a number of important points and flirting with the conservatives.

Another circumstance, which is very rarely and little talked about: domestic violence does not only concern the situation “the husband beats the wife”. Unfortunately, almost more often there are reports of bullying of children by elderly parents. Children beaten to bruises go to school. There are situations of harassment by a former partner. By the way, men can also become victims of domestic violence.

Now we’ll immediately talk about the main argument of the opponents of the law: they say that they will remove children from families for the slightest “slap”. I personally don’t understand why beat children at all, but it’s not even so important.

My friends and I are often confronted with the topic of removing children from families. For example, a woman recently turned in whose custody threatens to take away children for a failed floor in a wooden house (but there is no money for repairs). Guardianship removes children from parents who are in vain waiting for relocation from emergency housing, from low-income families, from single mothers. And if something happens to the mother, then the chances for children to go to the orphanage with a living father or grandparents are very high. This is all there already now - and the current bill will not worsen or improve the situation.

Now about the position of denominations. Unfortunately, in recent years, various radicals such as the “Forty Forty” movement have strongly displaced completely rational representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church from public space, who do not share their marginal views, which only push people away from religion (in this regard, religious radicals are not just Christians, but the real adherents of Satanism on La Vey). Moreover, the same Russian Orthodox Church contains many shelters in which the same women can come in a difficult situation. For example, Metropolitan of Krasnoyarsk and Achinsk, Vladyka Panteleimon, in an interview with the Yenisei television company bluntly says: “In principle, this law is very necessary for society, and not only in Russia ... It will not have effect in a truly Christian family, there is no hint of violence, there partnerships".

Now we will consider one more popular position in the circles of opponents of the law (for example, that is how the leader of the LDPR Vladimir Zhirinovsky recently expressed himself).

“The law on domestic violence is correct, but not in our country, not in our conditions. Because the specifics of Russia are not taken into account. A man has an option to marry again, but a woman does not. This breeds her consent to domestic violence. And if we introduce the law of punishment for violence, then the man will not marry to avoid punishment, ”says LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Zhirinovsky, of course, perfectly imagines the situation in the average Russian family: he is divorced, even in the State Duma he does not move without protection.

In the view of politicians who want to appear as conservatives, their conditional voter, apparently, seems to them Vanka on a wood-burning stove, only having returned from a skirmish with neighbors and beating a cook with his wife, pouring cabbage soup to him. In the modern world, family - and not only family - relationships are completely different.

Now let's talk about the real, not fictitious shortcomings of the draft bill on family-domestic violence. The project is really raw and requires public discussion and refinement, and I want the discussion to lose its current intensity.

Firstly, the bill does not clearly formulate what it is - domestic violence at home and from whom it can come from. For example, if the partners are not acting, but former (former civilian husband and wife), is this domestic violence or not?

The second and probably the most global minus is that there is no proposal to criminalize home beatings back. Moreover, in the current version, de facto physical violence is taken beyond the scope of the project, because the current wording reads:

“Domestic violence is a deliberate act causing or containing a threat of causing physical and (or) mental suffering and (or) property damage, not containing signs of an administrative offense or a criminal offense.”

Thus, just if a person was beaten to bruises, this can be attributed to family beatings, which are now an administrative violation for the first time, or to causing minor harm to health, and not to the scope of regulation of this bill.

And now about the “mental suffering”, according to which opponents of the bill are even quite moderate people. These people are afraid that in the current form, the phrase “mental suffering” may provoke abuse with the aim of extorting or taking property (more on this later). A clearer formulation is needed here. For example, in my practice, I myself came across stories of women whom husbands simply keep locked up at home, preventing them from physically leaving the room / apartment. They don’t beat, but keep them in the position of a domestic slave. This is just the situation that should definitely fall under the law, but in its current form it is not clear whether it falls under it.

Moreover, it is precisely in the wording that one of the goals of the law is to preserve the family, I personally don’t see anything terrible, since this does not cancel the protection of the victim’s interests and only makes the bill potentially “passing” from non-radical conservatives.

Now about the most important innovation, which is proposed to introduce a bill. It contains a system for issuing a protective order (for 30 days), which imposes an immediate ban on contact between the aggressor and the victim (the Ministry of Internal Affairs is invited to give such a right), and if reconciliation is not possible, it introduces the next injunction on any attempt to interact (for up to one year). In my opinion, it is wrong that the bill provides that the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but not the victim, goes to court for a serious restraining order.

And here we come to another weak point of the draft law, since in the current version, by an injunction, the aggressor may be ordered to “leave the place of joint residence or place of joint stay with persons subjected to domestic violence for the duration of the judicial protective order, subject to availability the violator has the opportunity to live in another residential premises, including under a lease (sub-lease) agreement, a contract for the lease of specialized residential premises, or on other grounds provided for by law The Government of the Russian Federation. ”

In an ideal world, this would be correct and humanly understandable. But you and I live in a real world, in which, unfortunately, for the sake of property people go to bribe government officials, and forgery, and all kinds of crimes. This point, by the way, again causes the greatest concern among representatives of the most moderate part of society and, obviously, should be discussed in detail, since a compromise solution is needed.

And now we come to the important question: where to go to the victim? Unfortunately, there are no specific social measures for the rehabilitation of victims of domestic violence in the current version of the bill. In practice, the problem that human rights activists are constantly confronted with is, roughly speaking, “where to go” an appealing woman who, sometimes, jumps out from her husband beating her into the cold in slippers and even without documents. The existing social centers are now overwhelmed by the forces of NGOs and the state - moreover, as a rule, they require registration in the region for placement in them, and foreign citizens have virtually nowhere to run.

Finally, the question of persecution (which is precisely a clearer concept than "mental suffering") remains unresolved. For example, what if the ex-husband scribbling death threats? Can’t this also be attributed to domestic violence?

How should the law really work? Look, a tragedy happened in Tatarstan: in the middle of the day a bloody boy comes into the bakery, calls for help. His stepfather had just killed his mother and two brothers. Could the law help here?

Exactly to prevent such disasters, the law is needed. For example, if this stepfather beat an unfortunate woman and children or simply wrote threats to her, then the law on domestic violence could work: a woman would receive a court order prohibiting a sadist from contacting her and her children under threat of punishment. This is not to say that the law would definitely save these very lives, but it will put a barrier to many family maniacs - and someone's lives will be saved.

The bill is obviously needed. It is obvious that our society has matured before discussing this topic at a serious level and before the adoption of such a law. The main thing is not to replace the subject of discussion with fears and voices from your own head, but to accept just such an option that will work in our, alas, real, and not ideal world.

The author’s point of view may not coincide with the position of the publisher.