Resonance of wedding video raises again issue of women's situation in Dagestan

Today, 11 years after the documentary film "The Fate of a Dagestani Woman", the difficult situation, in which many women find themselves, especially those living in the mountainous regions of Dagestan, has hardly changed, said Saida Sirazhudinova, President of the "Caucasus. World. Development" Centre for Studying Global Issues of Our Time and Regional Problems. The current situation of women in Dagestan was indicated by the resonance surrounding a recent video of a local wedding.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that social network users were outraged by the video from a wedding in Dagestan, where the groom behaved insultingly towards his own bride, but did not receive any repulse from her relatives.

The above documentary "The Fate of a Dagestani Woman" was filmed in 2009. It told about the difficult situation in which many women living in the mountainous regions of Dagestan found themselves.

Thus, in the film, Aishat Magomedova, a doctor and human rights defender, asked men in one of the mountain villages about who was transporting firewood from the mountains down to houses. "We carry them on a donkey. They drag it down on their backs," a man replies. "Women do it, men don't carry ..."

Every day, a woman has to bring a 25-litre canister of water into her house for 3-4 times, said one of female villagers. According to her story, it's hard for her to carry water - her back and kidneys hurt. During pregnancy, her husband helped her, but she also had to carry water herself. "What to do? Children helped. The husband also helped when I was pregnant. But when there is no pregnancy – he doesn't help," the woman said.

Eleven years have passed since the filming of the documentary, but the situation has changed slightly, experts say.

"There have been no global changes in 11 years, although there is a tendency towards an improvement in women's status ... Most women remain burdened during the haymaking period, and among some men the mentality persists that carrying water or firewood is humiliating," Saida Sirazhudinova told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on October 3, 2020 at 12:56 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.