Girls Fleeing North Caucasus Face Honor Violence and Forced Returns

In January, the story of Aina Mankieva made headlines: to save her life, she fled from Ingushetia to Moscow. However, her parents accused her of theft, tracked her down, and tried to bring her back home — to where she had been systematically abused. Thanks to help from human rights activists, Aina managed to escape. But far from all girls fleeing the North Caucasus succeed in starting a new life. Some are returned home by their families — and then face brutal punishment.

«Death Would Be the Most Painless Outcome»

Liya Zaurbekova was born and spent her entire childhood in the Chechen Republic, in a village near Grozny. According to the girl, she almost never saw her father — he would go to Moscow to work and could disappear for months.

«He came once a year for a few days. According to him, he was supposedly earning money in Moscow, but in fact we never saw any money from him,» Liya recalled.

Her relationship with her mother and grandmother, with whom she lived, was also not easy. They kept her under strict control. After school, Liya had only two activities: helping with housework and caring for her younger brothers. Zaurbekova did not blame her mother, because she knew that her mother herself was unhappy. According to the girl, her father had kidnapped her mother and forcibly married her — she had no chance to return home, as her family simply would not have accepted her.

«Mom was never happy with him (father — Ed.). He was constantly in some kind of trouble, she constantly worried about him. I still have some memories of them arguing, him breaking things, punching walls, raising his hand at her,» Liya said.

When the girl finished 9th grade, the whole family moved to the Moscow region to be closer to the father. Liya hoped this would be an opportunity for her to see the world, continue her studies, find a prestigious job, but in reality almost nothing changed. The only concession her parents made was to allow her to enroll in a college. But every day began with a lecture on how she should behave.

«You must not have Russian friends, do not mix with them, do not become like them, on the contrary, show that you are different, show your culture, your virtues,» Liya«s parents instructed her.

If Liya left the house, her parents controlled her every step: what she would wear, which bus and at what time she would take, they knew when her classes ended. If she was delayed somewhere longer than usual — a scandal was unavoidable.

«Every day, when I was getting ready for school, they told me: »Show us what you«re wearing.» No open shoulders, skirts knee-length or lower, ideally — also a headscarf, but I never agreed to that at all,« Liya admitted.

In 2024, when Zaurbekova was already 19, she decided to run away. She informed her friend Artyom, with whom she had often texted before, and a human rights group about her plans. She was advised before leaving to file a police report stating that she was leaving voluntarily, and to record a video of herself packing her belongings so she wouldn«t be accused of theft. Liya did so, but it didn»t help her.

When her parents realized Liya had left, they filed a police report stating she was a minor. Using surveillance cameras, her father found the girl within three days. To save herself, Zaurbekova called the police and explained that she feared for her life. She and Artyom were taken to the police station. Relatives were already waiting near the station.

«Outside the police station, there are, if not more, at least ten people standing. When we first came out, they grabbed me right in front of the police officers,» Zaurbekova recorded a video from the station. «Out of fear, we can»t leave the police station yet, because if they are doing this right in front of the police, I don«t know what they might do to me outside the territory.»

Liya first tried to file a report that she was being threatened, but it was not accepted. Then she wrote another one, again repeating that she had left home voluntarily. The girl begged the police to help her. But they just shrugged, not understanding why they should interfere in family matters.

«They just let us go, even though a crowd was waiting outside. They told me: »Just go, sort it out, talk, why don«t you just want to meet your parents?» One after another, officers came up and said: «Why did you run away if you knew this would happen?»« the girl recalls those terrible minutes.

Liya and Artyom contacted the organization «Marem,» which helps women from the North Caucasus. Zaurbekova«s father continued to demand that his daughter be handed over to him, but, as journalists and volunteers gathered at the station, he did not take decisive action.

When the father finally entered the station, it turned out that Liya and her friend were no longer there. Human rights activists and volunteers managed to take them out through a back exit and took them to a safe place.

«If I had been returned and taken to Chechnya, death would have been the best and most painless outcome,» Liya wrote after she managed to hide from her relatives.

«She Did Not Want to Be Forced into Marriage»

Seda Suleymanova«s story happened in 2023. The girl had a relatively happy childhood: a loving mother, an older brother who adored her and acted as a father. Problems began when Seda became an adult.

Suleymanova dreamed of leaving her small Chechen town for a metropolis, getting an education, and living a full life. But her family had completely different plans for her.

«She did not want to be forced into marriage, did not want to be subservient, to wear a hijab,» Seda«s friend Elena Patyaeva later said.

Realizing she would not leave her family on her own, Suleymanova contacted human rights activists from the crisis group «SK SOS» (recognized as a foreign agent in Russia in 2023). They took the girl to St. Petersburg and helped her rent an apartment.

For a time, it seemed to Seda that the worst was behind her: she got a job, made new friends, moved in with her new boyfriend Stanislav Kudryavtsev. However, Seda did not enjoy her new life for long. The girl was very attached to her mother, so she continued to communicate with her using someone else«s SIM card. In August 2023, she wrote to her mother for the last time.

«Soon after Seda told her mother that she was going to marry her boyfriend, she was kidnapped,» Elena said.

Relatives filed a police report accusing Suleymanova of stealing jewelry. Law enforcement officers raided the girl«s apartment and, after detaining her, handed her over to relatives in Chechnya.

«She said that her older brother loved her, that she was the closest of the sisters to him. At the same time, about this same person she said that if she were caught, he could be one of those capable of killing her,» Patyaeva shared.

Seda«s friends and fiancé feared an »honor killing« most of all — a tradition where relatives would kill a girl to wash away the family»s shame.

«The fact that Seda ran away — that»s already a sufficient reason to kill her. A relationship with a Russian guy, of course, too. On one hand, the girl had serious intentions, she was going to get married, but the fact that the fiancé was not Chechen was very much disliked by the family,« commented Alexandra Mitroshkina, press secretary of »SK SOS« (recognized as a foreign agent in Russia in 2023).

To convince everyone that Seda was alive, Chechen ombudsman Mansur Soltaev intervened. In his blog, he published a photo with Suleymanova and captioned it that he had visited the family and the girl was fine.

«During the conversation, I became convinced that nothing threatens her, she is safe. I spoke with her relatives and with the girl herself. She feels well. There are no violations of her rights or oppression,» Mansur Soltaev assured.

However, the photo did not calm but instead frightened Seda«s friends and human rights activists. In it, the girl looked frightened at the floor and did not look like herself.

For six months there was no news from Seda. In February 2024, the Chechen Investigative Committee put the girl on the wanted list. In April, a case was initiated regarding the disappearance of Seda Suleymanova under Article 105 of the Russian Criminal Code, «Murder.»

«Going Out for a Walk Is Considered a Crime»

In previous stories, girls often decided to run away alone, afraid to share their plans with anyone. However, in 2022, the media actively discussed the case of the Gazimagomedov sisters, who ran away from home as a group of four.

The girls lived in Dagestan and were raised under total control: no walks, no friends, no online communication. They were even allowed to study only until the 6th grade.

«The older we got, the more we understood how unfair it was. Why are boys allowed, but we are not? Why is simply going out for a walk, if you are a girl, considered some kind of crime in our village? Just leaving the house unaccompanied? What if someone sees, what if they think something? And even that could perhaps be endured if not for the daily beatings,» the sisters said.

They often thought about running away, but fear stopped them. The sisters were afraid that their parents would not bear such shame and would die. But with each day, it became harder to endure.

«In childhood, the sisters underwent female genital mutilation. For a long time, the girls thought about running away, and made the final decision when one of them was to be married off to a cousin,» human rights activists from the group «SK SOS» (recognized as a foreign agent in Russia in 2023) told the sisters« story.

The sisters fled to Moscow to get foreign passports and then go on to Georgia. While the girls were in the capital, they had to stay in a shelter and eat scraps, and when lucky, bread with butter. Their family found them, but could not get into the shelter and temporarily retreated.

When the documents were ready, the girls went to the Russian border with Georgia, where border guards detained them.

«At first they said relatives were coming, and when we said we were afraid of them, they replied that no one was coming for us. And then (the border guards — Ed.) said we had violated the moral code. That shocked me the most,» recalled one of the sisters, Khadizhat Khizrieva.

The girls were held for ten hours, waiting for the family«s arrival. During that time, they contacted human rights activists, who sent a lawyer and attracted media attention. The sisters managed to tell their story and all the horrors to journalists, while they continued to be accused of unpaid debts and were refused release.

Only when the lawyer provided a tax office statement confirming that the girls owed nothing did the police have no grounds to detain them, and the sisters were released.

«Thanks to this publicity, we were able to get out, escape, leave Russia. Now we are in Georgia, we are doing well. Now we are in relative safety. Of course, they are looking for us, our relatives promised to find us even in Georgia. But we hope everything will be fine,» the sisters reported after their escape.

«Father Threatened to Break Her Legs»

Selima Ismailova was born in Chechnya, but when the girl was 12, the family moved to Germany. The parents brought their way of life with them to Europe. The girl was often beaten and raised according to their customs. In 2021, Ismailova could not take it anymore and filed a police report. However, under pressure from her mother, she soon withdrew it.

After such an act, the parents wanted to teach Selima a lesson and sent her to live with relatives in her homeland.

«After returning to Chechnya, the father often beat the girl and threatened to kill her. For any misconduct, the girl received voice messages from her father in which he threatened to break her legs,» representatives of the «Marem» project said.

In 2023, the girl contacted the «Marem» group and with its help fled to Moscow.

In the capital, they were preparing new documents for her and planned to send her to Germany, but they didn«t have time. Relatives raised the alarm and filed a police report accusing Ismailova of theft. The girl was detained right at the airport and, without being given a chance to defend herself, was sent to Chechnya.

After some time, the ombudsman from Chechnya, Mansur Soltaev, published a video and assured everyone that Selima was fine, she was living with relatives.

«Now she is with relatives: with her grandmother, aunt, and father. Her father loves her very much, she also loves her father very much, her own brothers and sisters. There are five children in the family,» Soltaev said.

On camera, the girl confirmed that she was fine and asked not to look for her. After this appeal, nothing more was heard from her. Human rights activists cannot contact her, nor can they prove to the investigative committee that a criminal case should be initiated, since the girl herself confirmed on video that she does not need help.