Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. [KavkazUzel] Chechen Sara Bibulatova was able to go abroad a few days before the security forces’ visit to the shelter where she was staying. The reasons for running away from home were family violence, a ban on studies and the expulsion of jinn, the CK SOS* Crisis Group reported today.
The "Caucasian Knot" wrote that the girls from Chechnya and Dagestan, who told their stories in the BBC film "When I Ran Away", were forced to decide to run away from their families by domestic violence, forced marriage and death threats. For victims of domestic violence, escape is often the only way to save life, human rights activists emphasized.
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Sara Bibulatova, an ethnic Chechen who lived her entire life in Baku, managed to escape from her family and leave Russia after her relatives sent her to Dagestan for treatment - exorcism of the jinn, the CK SOS* Crisis Group reported today.
Sarah lived in Baku in a religious Chechen family. She was raised as a God-fearing Muslim. Since childhood, she performed namaz, read the Koran, and from the age of 10 she kept Uraz - a Muslim fast. At the age of 13, Sarah began wearing the hijab. She resisted this, and her father beat her for not being religious enough, for talking with boys in her class, for playing on the street. “Ever since I was a child, I was told that I wouldn’t work or study. As a child, it was hard to accept this: all other children dream of something, but I’m not allowed to. My goal in this life is just to be a good, obedient daughter, to get married and save your marriage,” Sarah was quoted as saying in the publication.
According to her, they wanted to take her out of school immediately after the sixth grade, but the Azerbaijani authorities demanded that the girl complete the ninth grade. It was assumed that immediately after studying the girl would be married off; the family could not marry her because she did not know how to cook, and quarrels arose over this. "They tried to teach me how to cook. I took four different cooking classes four times. I just came there, ate and went home. I knew very well that the more mediocre I was in the eyes of my parents, the longer I would stay at home, so I just pretended to be such a worthless person, like, I can’t do it, it doesn’t work,” Sarah noted.
Sarah reported that for four years after graduation she stayed at home, barely leaving her room. My father did not allow me to appear on the street unaccompanied; I could not dream of further studies. In 2022, she contacted the UN office, found the organization’s contacts online and complained to them about her situation. The organization's staff invited the family to a meeting, which was attended by Sarah, her mother and brother. They were taken to different rooms, and while the employees were talking with her mother and brother, Sarah was taken away, put in a car and taken to a shelter. She lived there for several months.
And then the parents found out where Sarah was and demanded that their daughter be given to them. The employees stated that they would not hand over the girl without her consent. According to the girl, she agreed to return to the family when the psychologist who came to the shelter began to convince her. "I agreed myself. I believed my parents and returned home. I am very easily influenced, especially if it is a psychologist. Then I found out that my family bribed her. My mother told me about this. We were sitting at the table one day, and my mother said to me with humor: “But we bribed her,” Sarah said.
The girl returned home under certain conditions: the social worker promised that she would come every week and check if everything was fine with Sarah. In case of problems, they promised that the girl would be taken back to the shelter. However, exactly a week later, Sarah flew to Saratov with her mother and brother. They promised her that she would go to college there, because they have relatives in Saratov, and there are many Russian-language educational institutions there.
She believed that the situation had changed. "This week between the shelter and Russia was the best time I have ever spent with my family. There was such attention, care, understanding. My father and I talked about everything that I felt all this time, how hard it was for me , and he seemed to understand everything, and I sincerely believed that everything would be fine. But it turns out that they had a plan all along: to take me out of Azerbaijan,” the girl’s words are quoted in the publication.
Instead of studying, Sara was taken to her sister in Dagestan, asking her to wear a hijab. A few days after Sarah arrived in Dagestan, two imams came to her sister’s house - their mother invited them. The men said that Sarah had genies inside her and that she needed serious treatment. The girl managed to write to UN employees about this before her phone was taken away, but they could no longer help.
For two months, Sarah was taken twice a week to the Islamic Center in the city of Makhachkala, where the girl was persistently treated for jinn. The imam read the Koran to her for an hour and a half, then spat in her face, let her smell herbs, put her on her back and hit her hard on the body with a long stick - so that bruises remained. If Sarah tried to refuse the procedures, the imam threatened her with a stun gun. Her brother beat her if she refused to go to the center, the material says.
Her parents, especially her mother, believed that this would cure Sarah of wrong life guidelines, the girl said. “Mom sincerely believed in this, she cried every time, saying that it was hard for her to see and know that her daughter was sick. <...> In the first days I tried to convince her. I cried all the time, tried to convey to my parents, but they looked at me as if I was mentally ill. And I realized that there was no point. The more I try to convince them, the more crazy they think I am,” said Sarah.
According to her, she pretended to be recovering, at the same time contacted SOS* from her mother’s phone and was able to convince her mother to go to Saratov, where human rights activists helped arrange her escape. “I selected different days, talked with the coordinator from SOS*. It happened that we found a convenient route and time, and then it turned out that it didn’t work out for me at all, because someone was at home. And then one day my niece went to work, everyone was sleeping, and it was 09.00 in the morning. I even already knew the hours when my mother fell asleep soundly. We were with her in the same room, she was sleeping on the bed directly opposite me. And I knew that at 09.00 in the morning she would be very sound asleep . This was my chance. I packed my things, they ordered a taxi for me and wrote: “Get out.” I didn’t have time to take anything normal with me: I threw on my backpack, I had boots and a jacket in my hands. The only documents I took were my Russian passport, everything else was hidden from me. I opened the door, and my mother woke up from this sound, she said my name, and I just ran to the elevator. It seemed to me that the elevator took too long to arrive. I was very nervous, I could already hear my mother’s screams, she was waking up her nephew. And I managed to run out into the street - thank God, a taxi was waiting right at the entrance. So I ran away,” she said.
After her escape, Sara lived in a crisis apartment and became friends with other clients, including Seda Suleymanova. "I had to wait a long time to move to another country. But, fortunately, I survived the flight without any problems. And the country that accepted me is also wonderful. Everything turned out great for me. I’m very happy about it. I decided to leave because I didn’t want all life of hiding and being afraid that they will find me, that they will come for me,” she says.
On August 23, security forces came to 26-year-old Seda Suleymanova, who fled from Chechnya to St. Petersburg, and her partner and took them to the police station, explaining that the girl was suspected of stealing jewelry. Then the young man was released, and the girl was sent to Grozny, where she was interrogated as a witness in a theft case and handed over to her uncle and aunt.
The lawyers were not allowed to meet with the client, citing the girl’s refusal of their services, the SOS Crisis Group reported on August 25. On August 29, the Commissioner for Human Rights in Chechnya, Mansur Soltaev, reported on his meeting with Seda Suleymanova. He stated that the girl was not in danger and was safe, also publishing a photo of him and the girl sitting in chairs. At the same time, the SOS Crisis Group noted that Soltaev did not publish a video of the conversation, but only a photo in which a mark similar to a hematoma is visible on the girl’s neck.
A few days after Sarah left the country, police officers came to the crisis apartment of SK SOS*, looking for her as a missing person. Relatives filed a statement, although they knew that the girl left home voluntarily. Sarah was removed from the search list twice and wrote a statement that she left on her own and did not want to return home. Before leaving, she was not in the wanted database. Only after making sure that Sarah had left Russia did the employees stop searching, and the location of the shelter had to be changed.
Sara noted that the biggest shock for her was not the adaptation to the new place, but the news that the security forces had taken Seda Suleymanova to Chechnya. “I just cried for several days. I don’t think I can forget this situation,” said the girl Sarah.
She fears for Seda Suleymanova. "I know that she will never adapt to this environment. She has a very strong character, and in no case will she adapt to all this. Both then and now - it’s very difficult for me. Especially when I think about what she’s going through now may take place there,” Sarah’s words are quoted in the publication.
The "Caucasian Knot" also wrote that the European Court of Human Rights indicated a violation of the article on the prohibition of torture and degrading treatment and ordered Russia to pay compensation to human rights activists Svetlana Anokhina and Maysarat Kilyaskhanova, who were in the Makhachkala shelter during the visit of law enforcement officers who forcibly took away the native Chechnya Khalimat Taramov.
On June 10, 2021, in Dagestan, security forces and their colleagues from Chechnya came to a shelter in Makhachkala - an apartment for victims of domestic violence, detaining journalist Svetlana Anokhina, employees of the Marem project and the mother of a 15-year-old daughter who was hiding from domestic violence. Their goal was to remove from the shelter a resident of Chechnya, Khalimat Taramova, who fled the republic after complaining of domestic violence. Various injuries, some from blows with a blunt object, were recorded on the bodies of Iraida Smirnova, Maysarat Kilyaskhanova and Svetlana Anokhina, who were then in the shelter.
On March 28, it became known that the ECHR had communicated their complaint. Journalist Svetlana Anokhina and volunteers of the Marem project were detained in the shelter. They were accused of resisting the police, but all the detainees were acquitted by the Makhachkala court, which did not find any corpus delicti in their actions. Co-founder of the women's mutual assistance network “You are not alone,” Alena Popova, after Taramova was taken from the Makhachkala shelter to Chechnya, said that the head of Dagestan, Sergei Melikov, should resign if he cannot ensure the safety of women in the republic.
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[KavkazUzel] Chechen Sara Bibulatova was able to go abroad a few days before the security forces’ visit to the shelter where she was staying. The reasons for running away from home were family violence, a ban on studies and the expulsion of jinn, the CK SOS* Crisis Group reported today.