Dagestani girls tell about their flight from domestic violence

The four girls from Dagestan, held by border guards, have told how they were beaten up at home, forbidden to study, and tried to force them into marriage. The girls are afraid that their relatives might kill them.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that the border guards refused to allow the four girls from Dagestan, who had escaped from domestic violence, to enter Georgia through the "Verkhniy Lars" checkpoint.

The girls left their homes three months ago and lived in "crisis apartments," said Svetlana Anokhina, a journalist and human rights defender from the "Marem" Group. "The girls were not on the wanted list, but their relatives have high connections," she said.

Anokhina has recalled the case of Khalimat Taramova, who fled from domestic violence and was taken back by her relatives.

Svetlana Anokhina's Facebook* page contains videos from the above checkpoint, in which the girls said that they were asking not to extradite them to their relatives, as they feared for their lives.

"We suffered constant beatings and were forbidden to get education," said one of the girls named Amine. According to her story, the sisters fled "for the sake of freedom" and "human rights."

The SK SOS Crisis Group reported that in childhood the sisters, who fled from the domestic violence, were subjected to female circumcision. For a long time they thought about escape; and the final decision was made when relatives to marry one of them to a cousin. The sisters waited until the youngest of them turned 18, and on August 7, with the help of the above Group, they left Dagestan.