Abuse in the Ranks: Dedovshchina in the Russian Armed Services

Russia has ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and respects this convention by keeping youthful offenders in juvenile court/facilities with sentences that do not exceed 10 years.

However, Russia does face crisis in its armed services – a group whose members' human rights are all too often ignored or it is assumed that the group is immune. Conscription laws in Russia require that all men between the ages of 18 – 27 to serve at least 1 year in the armed services. Conscription laws are not rare and are seen in several countries around the world according to numerous human rights organizations.  However, annually Russia's policy leads to several hundred suicides, several thousand men engaging in illegal bribes, self harm and illegal emigration to avoid The Service.  This desperation is caused largely by the illegal hazing practice known in Russia as Dedovshchina (roughly translated as Grandfathering).

Dedovshchina is internal military violence that is based on rank – with the youngest troops as the primary victims. Annually, hundreds of deaths are attributed directly to this violence. Fear of  this abuse has lead to rapid decline in enlistment with only 10% of those required to serve actually complying with the law. This decline has not only weakened the Russian Armed Services, it has severely harmed the Russian family unit – due to those who engage in illegal means to avoid conscription and those who fall victim to its abuses and are left with little support from their Government.  Although the situation is dire and many site the Government's lack of attention to the problem as the root cause, one organization (composed entirely of women) has turned this misery into a source of action, fighting to directly support men and their families in The Service and to reform this ailing institution.