Successful escape

As a Caucasian girl to escape from home, and how you do not need to save her in case of failure. Says the correspondent of Novo-Europe Milan Chirirova

In August last year, the Chechen security officials stole and returned home to Chechnya, 26-year-old Seda Suleymanov. She was stolen directly from the apartment in St. Petersburg, where she lived with her boyfriend.

The last information about the girl who can be found in public domain is a photograph taken by the Commissioner for Human Rights in Chechnya Mansur Soltaev, which he posted at the end of August last year.

“I met with Sedoy Suleimanova. During the conversation, he was convinced that nothing threatens her, she was safe. I talked with her relatives and with the girl herself. She feels good. There are no violations of rights and oppression against her, ”Mansur Soltaev signed this photo.

In the photo, the girl looks costly, she is very different from the one that we saw in the photographs taken "in the wild." On the neck you can notice a dark spot, which seemed to many a bruise.

Of course, this photo did not convince anyone that the girl really "feels good."

On September 4, Soltaev, because of everything that does not subside public pressure, has already posted a video with a gray-haired one: in this video he leaves the courtyard of their house, and Suleimanova, dressed in a black dress, escorts him. For some reason, music is imposed on the video, so it is impossible to understand what the Chechen Commissioner for Human Rights tells the girl.

“Seda refutes rumors and various messages related to it. The girl is in a good mood, she has no complaints ",

- assured Soltaev of his readers.

From that moment on, there were no news about Sede.

In early February, rumors reached me that the girl could be killed by relatives. And two days ago, the human rights organization SOS SOS, citing its sources in Chechnya, said that Sedy may not have been alive.

Murderous facts

When last year the news that Suleimanov was stolen, I only got into the public, I, who grew up in the Caucasus, immediately began to feel anxiety due to how the journalists and human rights activists tried to draw attention to its history. In all statements, in all publications related to Seda, a special emphasis was on information about her personal life. It was reported, in particular, that she lived with her Russian guy in an apartment in St. Petersburg, and stole her from there. Some also published photos where she hugs with this very guy.

To make clarity: the girl’s escape from the house for North Caucasian families is already a tragic situation that must somehow be resolved. But the North Caucasian girl, who escaped from home and lived with a guy of a different nationality and faith, is completely different. This is an indelible shame, from which her family will not be able to “cleanse”, simply returning the girl and saying that her “demonal has been bored” (the favorite excuse of people who are forced to apologize for anything, at the Chechen State Unitary Enterprise).

And the consequences of the escape from Chechnya also, due to the characteristics of the republic, differ from the consequences of the escape from other regions of the North Caucasus. The Chechens have Kadyrov, who is personally interested in the return of all the escaped Chechens. Therefore, for example, the usual Dagestan, who are chasing relatives, can be simpler than the Chechenka, behind whom the Kadyrovites are also chasing. And the more “shame” brought the fugitive to the Chechen people, the more they are motivated.

I understand that many people made the emphasis on personal information about Sede precisely because it could somehow mobilize other Russians: here, they say, look, she wanted to live a normal human life without the pressure of traditions, she is the same as we, and it’s easier to sympathize with us. But all this information was distributed when the girl was already abducted when she was already in Chechnya and the attention of the Kadyrovites was drawn to her.

The probability that she would be able to successfully escape again is close to zero. Therefore, the main thing that we all should think about this time is that she needs to give the opportunity to save life.

After returning to the Father's House, Sede had to begin to build some life in Chechnya. And if, after the escape and forcibly returning home, some abstract girl still has the opportunity to do this, then for a girl with a background, everything is much more difficult.

The republics of the North Caucasus are quite small. There everyone is familiar with each other, connected by kinship, like a web. And there it is important what people around are talking and thinking about you. Not a single family will want to be “disgraced” in front of the whole people.

Therefore, in a situation where the girl was already in the hands of her relatives, it is necessary to help these relatives avoid a painful need to kill a girl. No matter how monstrously it sounds, you need to act as their allies. That is, do not publish sensitive information about it. Not to do not know about relations with a Russian guy out of marriage.

We observed the same mistake in the case of Halimat Taramova - Chechenka, who escaped from the house two years ago, and then the security forces abducted her directly from Shelter in Makhachkala. What could be the practical value of the information that she was in a romantic relationship with a girl?

For almost two years about Halimat there has been no news in a public field. From local residents and their sources, human rights activists only know that the girl is alive, and sometimes she is seen on the street, accompanied by relatives.

Rasteners who receive help from human rights organizations sign an agreement on whether it is possible in the case of an emergency to make their history a public. It seems to me that both the girls themselves and those who help them should think about which information can be publicized; Can not harm any information if they are again in their homeland. And in advance to stipulate that these specific facts should in no case be made public.

For example, I have a friend who, at the end of last year, escaped from a family from Ingushetia.

According to her, if she had made her own history, her family, who is very worried about her reputation, would no longer have any “restraining factor”,

And they would make every effort to return it. But no one knows about her escape, and relatives can safely pretend that nothing happened and, accordingly, can do nothing.

When the noise is useful

At the same time, a competent tradition of publicizing the abduction sometimes really saves. As, for example, this was in the situation of Ingushka Marina Yandieva, who in October lasted from the family.

During the escape, the girl was accompanied by a representative of the team against torture Magomed Alamov. Her relatives later learned about this, and they actually took the man hostage, thus trying to put pressure on Marina.

“I am at your home, surrounded by your relatives. My life and the life of my relatives are at risk. They put the condition for me: one week so that you come home. If you will not return this week, they will kill me, ”the team human rights activist told Marina against torture during a telephone conversation.

Aunt Yandieva - Minister of Health of Ingushetia Zarem Antoshoshkieva. The story with the abduction and threats of life to a man, obviously, was useless to her. Whether these are threats against Marina herself, none of the local law enforcement officers and the eye would blink, because the woman in the Caucasus is non -lawsuit. But a stranger man is another matter. And threats can cause him problems.

As a result, the family lagged behind Marina, and the human rights activist himself was released. There were no more threats to him.

The publicity also helped in the case of four adult sisters Gazimagomedov from Dagestan, who fled from the family, and whom Russian border guards detained on the border with Georgia with the intention of conveying to relatives. Most likely, it was the rising noise that frightened the border service, which decided that the state structure should not interfere in the family conflict.

Note: in none of these cases, publicity did not concern the personal stories of the fugitives themselves.

Nothing of what could be read by the Caucasian society as an intolerable shame was used to attract attention.

You can’t stay running

In late January, Ingusha Marina Yandieva stated that she also left the country and was safe. Unfortunately, Suleimanova, unfortunately, did not.

According to the experience of many fled girls, we can conclude that leaving the country is now the best solution. It is unsafe to stay in Russia. For example, if your relatives put you on the federal wanted list as missing or as suspected of theft (which the relatives of the fugitives often resort to), the Russian police are unlikely to take your side.

Your story with a story about the flight and the argument that you are adult and decide for yourself where and with whom to live - no one will impress. You are for them a headache that is easier to fuse relatives: "Understand yourself."

Appeal to the police with complaints of violence in the family will also not help. In January 2020, 22-year-old Aminat Lorsanov from Chechnya, who was able to escape from the family and leave Russia, appealed to the Investigative Committee with a statement of violence, committed against her by her close relatives and they invited by a specialist in “expulsion of genies” in Grozny. In September of the same year, the Investigative Committee transferred a complaint to the Lorsanova Chechen police, which refused to institute criminal proceedings.

So in a situation where you are subject to violence in the family, you do not have to count on the state.

If you still see the flight from the house with the only way out, then adhere to the following rules:

1. It is worth preparing in advance all the documents and personal things that you need. And keep them where you can get to them.

2. Do not use your personal phone. It is better to start the second in advance - with a SIM card not registered in your name.

3. When moving around Russia, you should not use transport, tickets for which are issued according to the passport. You can already be put on the wanted list, and you will be handed over to your relatives right at the train car or at the airport.

4. It is important to understand how you will arrange your life after the escape, and whether it will become worse for you than before. You will have to live yourself, without financial assistance from relatives. Crisis centers will only be able to help the first time - then you will need to count on yourself.

Lesson

In the end, I want to return to the story of Sedya Suleimanova again.

I will emphasize: the fault for what happened to Sedoy is completely and completely lies with her family. And many of us, the inhabitants of the Caucasus, are angry with such an attitude to women as disenfranchised creatures. And we want the situation to change. But while we must fight for the lives of specific girls, do not jeopardize them.

In the story with Sedoy, now, unfortunately, we have nothing to lose - and that is why we must betray it as much as possible, put pressure on the federal and local authorities, let Kadyrov know that the girl is not forgotten by anyone, and her family will remind the rest of what they did with their own daughter and sister.