A participant of the rally held to promote the military reforms in Russia carries poster which reads "No to Dedovshchina!" The rally staged at the Russian Cabinet headquarters by the Union of Right Forces (SPS) party was headlined "Military Reform - Now!" and "Professional Army - Strong Russia."
Photo: Pavel Smertin
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Human Rights Watch Reports Dedovshchina in the Russian Army
October 21, According to Human Rights Watch report published Wednesday, bullying known as “dedovshchina” is on the increase in the Russian army with many recruits dying of injuries or killing themselves after mistreatment that ranges from cigarette burns to sexual abuse. Meanwhile, authorities take no steps to fight it, BBC News reports.
The report says that a total of 25 conscripts died from bullying and 109 soldiers committed suicide in the first half of 2004, which is 38 percent more than the same period in 2003.
Author of the report, Diederik Lohman gives the testimonies of the dedovshchina victims. Soldiers tell of being made to beg money from people in the street to buy liquor for the senior soldiers, or of fixing senior soldiers’ clothes and cleaning their shoes.
The report mentions the game called “dried crocodile,” when the recruit has to hang with his hands and feet against the bed’s boards.
Many soldiers describe how their senior soldiers beat them using a wet towel wrapped around their fists, so there would not be any bruises and burn them with cigarettes.
Moreover, there are numerous cases of sexual abuse, to say nothing of psychological traumas, the report says.
"Any sort of an initiation system in an army ... has a tendency to lead to excess. When a line is not clearly drawn by higher officers these excesses become the rule and that is what has happened in Russia," Reuters quotes Diederik Lohman as saying.
"It's already so bad, you wonder how much worse it can get… We'll continue to see thousands of people running away from their units every year. We'll continue to see the killings, the suicides, the physical injuries, the psychological damage," author of the report notes.
The author notes that many solders view new recruits as a chance to pay back for the humiliations of their first year.
Lohman blames officers’ low salaries and lost prestige of the post-Soviet army for the situation among the military. However, he says, “government initiatives to reform the military avoid any mention of the need to stamp out bullying.”
Let us remind you, military service is compulsory in Russia, but many young men seek to dodge the draft in all possible ways from going to universities to escaping their place of residence or pretending to unsuitable for military service for health conditions.
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