"One woman killed by domestic violence every hour in Russia"

Esther Mandelstamm/Feb 22, 2008/3:07pm/Gender Issues

This article is about domestic violence in Russia, the victims being women. 14,000 women are killed every year in Russia due to domestic violence which is about one an hour. This is "about the same number of Soviet soldiers who died fighting in the 10-year Afghan war. And at the moment there is no law to protect them." There is a population of about 11 million but there is no shelter in Moscow for abused women. "Fame and fortune couldn't’t save Russian pop singer Valeria from the fists of her ex-husband. “I had no money, no power, I didn’t have anything, if I had said something I would have been killed,” she remembers." Since there are no laws to protect victims of domestic violence this is going to keep happening. There are some organizations that are trying to raise awareness in the community of this problem but there is a lack of reliable statistics and the scale of the problem could be even worse. Campaigners say the root causes of violence aren’t simply alcoholism or drug abuse but are embedded in society.

Domestic violence is a very real problem in the United States and this article shows that its not only here but this is a problem that is world wide. The victims deserve a voice and there is a serious need for more laws to protect these women.
http://www.russiatoday.ru/features/news/20593