In Baku, sisters from a Chechen refugee family ask for protection from domestic violence

Four sisters from a family of Chechen refugees living in Azerbaijan have posted videos asking for help, because their parents restrict their education and medical treatment and try to force them to marry. After trying to escape from the house, the sisters fear for their lives.

Four girls, who introduced themselves as the Baikhadjieva sisters, posted three videos on the TikTok social network under the nickname of bangpidi0. In their videos, the sisters ask for help from the beatings and humiliation they are being subjected to in their family. In the first video, posted two days ago, four girls took turns reporting that they ran away from home from "violence and beatings" and that they stayed in a shelter in Baku.

In the second video, posted on the social network a day later, the sisters reported that an employee of a public institution had decided to return them to their parents.

"They want to force us to return home to our parents, who beat us, humiliated us, and restricted us in everything, including education and medical treatment. [...] they wanted to force my sister to marry at the age of 14 [...] Please repost the video, we do not want to return home," said the girls.

In the recent video, one of the girls was crying. She said in a low voice that they had been returned to their family and asked for help.

"We cannot go out [...] Who could help us?" the girl says. She is whispering, and not all the words she is saying can be understood.

The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Baku is aware of the situation in the Baikhadjiev family, and they forced the administration of the shelter where the girls were hiding to return them to their parents, the sisters are in Azerbaijan, the "Kavkaz.Realii" reports with reference to a UN officer. The edition also reports that the girls are members of a refugee family from Chechnya, living in Azerbaijan.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on October 30, 2020 at 00:12 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.