Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
The documentary film "This is happening with us" about female genital mutilation in the North Caucasus has received the right to rent, the premiere of the film is scheduled in Moscow. It is not customary to discuss the practice of female circumcision in the Caucasus, but while working on the film, the Muftiate of Dagestan issued a fatwa about the inadmissibility of such operations, the co-authors of the film said.
As the "Caucasian Knot" wrote , the problem of female circumcision in the North Caucasus is most acute in Dagestan, where, according to the "Legal Initiative", at least 1,240 girls annually become victims of such operations. Criminal punishment will not eradicate the problem until a general legal background is formed that will allow women to feel safe, the authors of the FGM project for Afisha Daily said.
Female genital mutilation is a mutilating practice of damaging female genital organs that violates human rights to health, safety and bodily inviolability, the Caucasian Knot statement "Female circumcision in the Caucasus" says .
<strong>Theatrical premiere of the film is planned in Moscow</strong>
On December 13, the documentary film center in Moscow will show the film "This is happening with us" about female genital mutilation in the North Caucasus. The authors of the film are journalists Svetlana Anokhina and Vladimir Sevrinovsky. This will be the first screening of the film in the cinema, creative producer, scriptwriter and co-author of the film editing Oksana Serbinova told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent .
"I can't say that we initially aimed at this. We decided to declare several films produced on the [Russian video project] ROMB for festivals. We were taken to Stalker, which does not take films to the festival without a distribution certificate. Now we have the opportunity to show films on the big screen," said Serbinova.
The film made it to several festivals, she said. "In addition to Stalker, Artdokfest took us in the Artdoxet section. In December, due to the pandemic, they will not be held, but postponed to April," Serbinova said.
The film was published on YouTube at the end of September 2020, said Oksana Serbinova. "And they still watch it. Our SMM manager records constant activity on the views of this film. On YouTube, the film immediately gained a tangible number of views - 100 thousand during the first weeks. the content is hard. And that leaves only "organic" views. That is, views without the help of advertising, purely like a movie "seeded" on YouTube," she said.
As of 1015 hrs Moscow time on December 11, the video "This is happening here, Female circumcision in the Caucasus," posted on the YouTube channel ROMB, with 33,000 subscribers, gained 167,425 views. The publication has collected 3,500 likes.
According to the producer, viewers reacted differently because the film "hits the heart."
"The films contain living testimonies, cases of women who suffered from this procedure. It is quite difficult to deny something when a specific person talks about it. This was my producer position. Cases were needed, not just expert assessments, the history of the issue. We found women, were able to establish proper communication with the heroines to carry out. This is a great merit of the authors of the film, Sevrinovsky and Anokhina," said Serbinova.
Among YouTube viewers, there were also those who denied this problem.
"There were those who wrote: we don’t have this. Controversy ensued. There was also an aggressive, boorish reaction. Some part of the audience wondered why talk in detail with physiological details (which part of the organ was cut off, etc.). My producer position is everything. Because the phrase 'crippling operation' is not clear until they explain what was cut off and how. These are not intimate details, but a description of the crime," Serbinova said.
There were also viewers from the Caucasus who thanked for the film, she stressed. "They condemned this practice and sympathized, empathized with the heroines caught in these stories," said the producer.
In her opinion, Sevrinovsky and Anokhina did an important job.
"Because the topic of female circumcision was closed and stigmatized in the Caucasus, we were faced with the fact that many were not aware precisely because it was not customary to talk about it. And this is at the end of this film, "Serbinova said.
<strong>The co-authors of the film addressed it to viewers from the Caucasus</strong>
According to the co-author of the film, Vladimir Sevrinovsky, while working on the film, he was most impressed by the openness with which the victims of female circumcision were ready to talk about their misfortune.
"A good friend of mine underwent a mutilation operation, and I was amazed how she returned to this topic over and over again in ordinary conversations. I understood: if another director removes it, it will be just another horror story about the Caucasus. But I wanted more," he told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.
It is impossible to obtain accurate statistics on the number of female circumcisions, Sevrinovsky said.
"But I got the impression that the number of surgeries is decreasing, and the most crippling forms are giving way to less destructive to health. I hope that I was not mistaken in this,” he said.
Vladimir Sevrinovsky is a journalist, photographer and traveler. In September 2021, the publishing house "Boslen" published his book "Living Dagestan" about the history and culture of the republic and about its inhabitants. The publishers recommended using Living Dagestan as a guide. The book does not include all the collected material, therefore, its revised reprint is possible, Vladimir Sevrinovsky told the "Caucasian Knot" earlier.
Sevrinovsky does not view this film as an export product. "He was filming with Caucasians and for Caucasians in order to contribute to solving this problem. At that time I did not even think about success at festivals," he stressed.
The co-author of the film admitted that he does not like most of the "problem" films about the Caucasus precisely because of their "export, flat colonial outlook."
"I hope Sveta [Anokhina] and I managed to avoid this trap. As for changing the position of women, it is impossible to answer this question in detail without a spoiler, so I will refrain. Look, and you will see for yourself. I will not delude ourselves that our contribution is great. But even a small step in the right direction is also important," Sevrinovsky said.
Another co-author of the film, Dagestani journalist Svetlana Anokhina, said that, according to the estimates of the "Legal Initiative," 1,200 girls aged 5 to 12 years old are maimed in the North Caucasus.
"These data are all over the North Caucasus, which are given in the report of 2016. Along with the regions of Dagestan, this practice is observed among the Batalkhadzhins," she told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.
Members of the Batal-hajji brotherhood, which has great influence in modern Ingushetia, are called Batalkhadzhins. Batal-khadzhi Belkhoroev is an Ingush sheikh, the founder of one of the Qadiri branches (virds), a follower of sheikh Kunta-khadzhi, according to the "Caucasian Knot" statement.
At the state level, there is no desire to solve the problem of female genital mutilation, Anokhina believes.
"We see how the state reacts about the trial of the doctor at the Aibolit clinic in Ingushetia. The doctor has not been removed from medical practice. Doctors deliberately performed these ritual wild actions," said Anokhina.
A resident of Chechnya has achieved the initiation of a criminal case in Ingushetia on the deliberate infliction of minor harm to the health of her nine-year-old daughter. The woman claims that her ex-husband, without her knowledge, took the girl to the Magas clinic, where she was circumcised.
The Aibolit clinic, whose doctor was accused of performing a mutilation operation on a nine-year-old girl, denies having performed female circumcision. At the same time, experts recognized the ritual nature of the surgical intervention.
According to Anokhina, this was the first and so far the only statement from her mother, who said that the operation was performed forcibly.
"I talked with my mother and daughter. My daughter fought, resisted, but despite this, the doctors performed an operation," she explained.
Certain communities of Ingushetia widely practice the prohibited practice of female circumcision, and the authorities do not take this problem seriously enough, the co-authors of the report "Practices of mutilation in the republics of the North Caucasus: coping strategies," the president of the Caucasus Center for Research on Global Issues of Modernity and Regional Problems said in 2018 -- Yulia Antonova, "Saida Sirazhudinova and senior lawyer of the" Legal Initiative "project.
<strong>FGM is practiced in Dagestan, Ingushetia and Chechnya</strong>
Saida Sirazhudinova, President of the Center for Research on Global Issues of Modernity and Regional Problems "Caucasus. Peace. Development," said that she first heard about female circumcision in childhood.
But it didn't work. Then I turned to journalists and human rights activists for support. It was over 10 years ago. But no one reacted to the problem at that time," she told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.
According to Sirazhudinova, many in Dagestan have heard of such procedures, but most are "indifferent to this, unless they are personally affected. After this incident, I conducted quantitative research in several republics and realized that there were rumors about these operations in Dagestan, Ingushetia and Chechnya.
But in other republics, such as Kabardino-Balkaria, people do not have information about this. In a quantitative study, people named the districts and villages where such operations were carried out, there were already trips to try to find out the geography of the spread of the practice of such operations. As a result, our report came out," she said.
In general, in her opinion, the geography of the spread of this practice is "difficult to understand." Saida Sirazhudinova found it difficult to name an exact list of areas where this is practiced.
"There were also non-practicing areas in our minds. However, later traces of this practice were found in certain villages and these non-practicing areas. But there are those who practiced before and abandoned it completely. And there are those who practice partially now. We have encountered this phenomenon in some villages of the Tsuntinsky, Tlyaratinsky, Shamilsky districts [Dagestan]. Moreover, the latter region was considered non-practicing, but, as it turned out, this phenomenon still remains there. In Untsukulsky district, in principle, this practice was abandoned. districts, in particular, in Tabasaran," said Sirazhudinova.
There are no statistics as such on female circumcision, empirically identified cases are known, she emphasized.
"No one keeps statistics. Neither doctors, nor any authorities officially record the cases. Estimates are displayed based on how the population in a particular area treats this phenomenon," Sirazhudinova explained.
She believes that the problem is not only in the clinics that provide such services.
"In Dagestan, clinics are not particularly needed, they don’t go there. They turn to individual 'specialists' who, as a rule, take [patients] at home and perform operations. For example, the doctor who circumcised a girl in Ingushetia is connected with this community, and the story began with the fact that the girl's mother, who did not belong to this community and was already divorced from the girl's father, spoke out against circumcision daughters. People who live in this community are unlikely to go against their society and family," said Saida Sirazhudinova.
There is no direct indication of the inadmissibility of this operation in the Criminal Code of Russia, she added.
"And those who were involved in the commission of a mutilating operation were involved in“ causing slight harm to health." In Ingushetia, just under this article, a case was instituted, Sirazhudinova believes.
One of the achievements, in her opinion, can be considered the adoption of a fatwa by the DUM of Dagestan on the inadmissibility of mutilation.
"The fatwa is perceived as a rejection of this practice. And from this point of view, it is useful. But, on the other hand, the fatwa provides certain loopholes for the practice of this practice. This is largely his merit," she said.
In general, changes in attitudes towards this practice cannot be noticed because of a single film or report, says Saida Sirazhudinova.
"Probably, there was some change in the consciousness of people. But this still needs to be investigated. But, judging by the observations, there is a response. People began to discuss the problem on social networks. In fact, they began to talk about the dangers of this phenomenon. This is evident from the fact that, for example, a woman who experienced such an operation in childhood declares that she was harmed. Speaking about only one film or one report, it is impossible to say that this is a solution to the problem. This is one of the actions, one of the small steps in the chain, which, perhaps, will lead to a solution to the problem," she said.
In her opinion, public opinion can become a mechanism of protection against unacceptable practices.
"Public opinion can be both a mechanism for encouraging the commission of some actions, and a mechanism of protection. All harmful practices that exist in our region existed in spite of even the policy that interfered with family life, only because they were oriented on public opinion. This also applies to "honor killings", and these operations are often carried out by people who are dependent on local public opinion. They reason like this: if I do not do this, what will others say? There is pressure from public opinion, but it can and contribute to the abandonment of vicious practices," summed up Sirazhudinova.
<strong>The historian refused to call female circumcision a widespread practice in Ingushetia</strong>
"Unleashing" the topic of female circumcision does not present the Caucasus in the best light, says Makka Albogachieva, candidate of historical sciences and senior researcher at the Kunstkamera.
"This is not a mass phenomenon to highlight it so much. This phenomenon took place earlier in some local communities of Dagestan. Now it is not widespread in the Caucasus. At least my colleagues who study Dagestan have not observed it. Yes, they said, in the past But at the present stage, this custom is not valid, and, perhaps, there are only isolated cases. The residents of these areas themselves do not confirm the information about the prevalence of the phenomenon. There are no statistics, and even if it were a mass phenomenon, it would never have been possible to hide and not get real responses," she told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.
According to Albogachieva, the attribution of this practice to the Batalhadzhins is groundless.
"There was talk that this operation was practiced among the Batalhadzhins. But I have been in close contact with them for many years, there have been several studies about this brotherhood of Batal-Khadzhi Belkhoroev, and now they do not practice anything like this," she said.
The story with the girl, according to the scientist, has a different basis and is not related to circumcision.
"Then, when they began to understand, a completely different side of this case became clear, which is not related to circumcision. But the relatives themselves would not want to talk about it," Albogachieva said.
In the Caucasus department of the Kunstkamera, they raised this topic and came to the conclusion that in some circles it was inflated for profit and did not represent the Caucasus in the best light, she added.
"Those who purportedly research this topic receive grants for this, and it's all basically the same people. All this is done for the sake of dividends. Such researchers are invited to Europe. They speak, talk about such passions. For some reason it is not considered a problem in our country that in large numbers somewhere in the Russian provinces people are drunk and beat their wives to death. knows the Caucasian society, which is being labeled and at the same time keeping silent about the much worse that is happening in the so-called civilized societies. This is not a phenomenon that should cause a resonance," summed up Albogachieva.
Video is translatable
