News

PROFESSOR EDWARDS ADDRESSES MOSCOW CONFERENCE

Wednesday 4th June 2003

Professor Susan Edwards, as the UK Expert, addressed an International Conference on Domestic Violence in Moscow between May 26th and 27th 2003, in which she outlined the international legal framework as well as detailing ‘good practice’ in the UK .

The Conference was jointly organised by AIDOS (external link) (an Italian association for Women in Development) and the Focus Foundation in Russia, co-financed by the European Commission and UNFPA and held at the Hotel Arbat. It was attended by over fifty participants including members of the State Duma, (amongst others, Tatyana Kholshchevnikova), representatives from Government Departments, academia, and the legal profession as well as five European experts from France, Sweden, Italy, Austria and Finland.

14,000 women die every year at the hands of male partners, producing an intimate female homicide rate of 9.3 per 100,000 population, higher than in the UK where the rate is 0.16 or the US where the rate is 4.4. Women make up only seven per cent of the State Duma, their subordinated position in the political process seems strange for a country that exported feminism and the woman struggle to the West. After all it was Alexandra Kollontai (the first woman in Lenin’s Government) who said, “Make yourselves free from the enslavement of man".

The European Commission needs to continue funding such meetings where leading experts can assist in fighting domestic violence by ensuring that the Russian Federation honour the several Conventions it has signed pledging to eliminate gender based violence.

Learn more about:

• Centre for Multi-Cultural Studies of which Professor Edwards is Co-Director
• The Law School
• Professor Susan Edwards

Report by Susan Edwards and the Web Team