Women's Rights Violations in Belarus: A Grim Reality

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Women and feminists in Belarus face severe repression by the state, with many activists being imprisoned, forced into hard labor, tortured, denied medical care, and even subjected to forced psychiatric hospitalization or deportation. This systemic discrimination highlights the human rights abuses prevalent in Belarus.

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How women and feminists in Belarus became enemies of the state Olga Karatch, ADLIGA Belarus

General statistics of repressed women activists In Belarus since the August 9, 2020: 1. Women prosecution were imprisoned 16,321 days in administrative cases. 2. In administrative cases, women paid 641,112.45 euros (of those known to human rights defenders) as fines. 3. Most of the women were brought to administrative responsibility several times. 4. The number of women were involved in criminal proceedings is 342 persons including forced emplacement as the ethnic minority 3 women, 1 woman was died as a result of being infected with covid-19 in prison who came under administrative

Torture and inhuman treatment of women in a pre-trial detention center and in prisons. 1. Forced labor / very low paid hard work. Women work in a sewing factory, knitting washcloths, cutting threads. Labor legislation does not affect them only criminal enforcement. And even the minimum payment for the work is not received by prisoners. They are not paid part-time or idle time of the enterprise, like ordinary employees. As a result, they receive little money for their work (0-15 euro per month), remaining after deductions for food and utilities, fines, for example, for an unbroken loop on the collar. 2. Inhuman detention conditions for women prisoners. KGB and police are beating the testimony of female political prisoners. The women are forced to videotape humiliating "repentances" where they Lukashenko for their activism and participation in the protests. It is obvious that the women were severely tortured before this. Psychological pressure and threats of sexual violence are often applied against detained women, including using for such purposes women who have mental disabilities. apologize to Alexander

Failure to provide medical care and lack of hygiene items. T he administration of detention center, pre-trial detention centers and colonies is much more likely to apply unbearable living conditions against women rather than men. Women political prisoners deprive them of their medication and do not allow doctors into their cells. Menstruation is not an exception - Belarusian women complain that the administration of places of detention hardly gives out even hygiene products, not to mention painkillers. Women prisoners are not only deprived of provision with sanitary pad packets, but also very often blocked from the possibility of getting sanitary pad packets from outside of the prison, they also do not have an opportunity to take a shower.

Imprisonment in a psychiatric hospital. This measure has been applied to women prisoners since the early 2000s. It continues to this day. Activists are forcibly hidden in the wards of psycho-neurological dispensaries, allegedly examinations. In fact, they are fed pills, injections of drugs, do not give letters and do not allow them to see their loved ones. for expertise and Deportation and forced emplacement. Several foreign women were immediately expelled from the country after the protests and lost their homes. There is also evidence of the forced deportation of female activists from the Polish ethnic minority, who have been forcibly deported to the border with Poland.

The pressure for women via children As of October 13, 2020, the General Prosecutor's Office of Belarus issued official warnings to more than 300 families (women) for the participation of children in protests. As of today, the number of such families is not known, but this figure can be doubled at least. Prosecutors admitted that they held so called explanatory talks with more than 400 women and children. Today, absolutely all families with children talk about threats to remove their children for participating in protests. Prosecutors also admitted the facts of the removal of children from families after the participation of women in peaceful mass actions.

Some conclusions: 1. There is a single reason for this strong repression of women: it is an ideological struggle between the new world of gender equality and the old world with the social injustice for women there. 2. It is a struggle between women who does not want to live according to the prosed by Lukashenko patriarchal models, where women are deprived of both choice and voice, and those privileged men in power, who are convinced that women and the chair are about the same thing, and that women can be forced to agree, using coercion, violence and humiliation. 3. Alexander Lukashenko's main slogan is "The beloved is not given away", and as you yourself can see from the wording, no one asks "the beloved" what she wants. As we can see from the examples of repression, women in Belarus are forced to be slaves, their human dignity is humiliated, they are threatened with everything from taking loved ones, such as children, hostage, to punitive psychiatry. Nevertheless, Belarusian feminists continue their struggle. 4. The struggle for women's rights and the active promotion of a feminist agenda within Belarus becomes the main key to success in getting Belarus back on the democratic way.