LGBT activists tell about beatings and escape from Chechnya

Lesbian girls in Chechnya have to completely obey the will of their parents; they are forced to endure beatings from relatives and to marry forcibly. Three Chechen girls of non-traditional sexual orientation who fled from Russia, despite the attempts of families to bring them home by force, told in their interview to Radio Liberty.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that mass detentions and murders in Chechnya of men suspected of non-traditional sexual orientation, as well about a "secret prison" for gays in Argun, was reported in April 2017 by the "Novaya Gazeta". On July 30, 2018, the Russian LGBT Network announced that since the start of 2017, 125 people have left Chechnya, who fell victims to persecutions for their sexual orientation.

In Chechnya, girls with non-traditional sexual orientation face much more difficulties than gay men, since their fate is completely in the hands of their relatives and they cannot go alone to a big city to study or work, the above three LGBT girls told in their interview to Radio Liberty "I was given away as commodity; stories of Chechen lesbians", which was published on October 20.

The stories of the girls are largely similar, in particular, they all went through forced marriages, the article notes.

According to Lika, cited in the article, she tried very hard to learn and "be useful" so that she would not be married, but at 18 she got interested by an "authoritative" family. "I was really given away as a commodity," she has noted.

According to the girls, their family life was not happy; all the three were beaten up.

They managed to leave the country only after some time with the help of human rights defenders, the article reports.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on October 23, 2018 at 02:33 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.