Reported domestic violence cases in Russia more than doubled during the country’s coronavirus lockdown, the human rights ombudswoman said Tuesday, painting a completely different picture than that provided by police data.
Complaints and reports made to Russian non-governmental organizations spiked from roughly 6,000 in March to more than 13,000 in April, Tatyana Moskalkova said. “The picture is rather non-optimistic,” the RIA Novosti news agency quoted her as saying.
Her statement comes a week after Russian police said the number of domestic crimes fell by 13% during the lockdown, compared to the same month last year — a report dismissed by some women’s rights campaigners as inaccurate, as many victims don’t report domestic abuse to the