Tatyana’s (not her real name) stepfather started small.

At first, he’d get annoyed by things she did. He criticized and he lectured her. Later, the lectures would stop, and this is when the outrage began. And when the outrage stopped, the spanking and face-slaps started.

“He just went mad,” Tatyana says. “For five years, he beat me and my mother senseless.”

Tatyana’s story is far from unique. Every year, tens of thousands of Russian women and children suffer every possible kind of familial abuse — be it battery, rape, or even attempted murder. Years after escaping with her mother, Tatyana, now 29, says domestic violence must be tackled and punished before it gets out of control.

But not everyone agrees with her.

Ultraconservative Federation Council senator Yelena Mizulina, best known for her “gay propaganda” law, introduced a new bill to the State Duma on July 27 that proposed the decriminalization of battery within families. “Battery carried out toward family members should be an administrative offense,” Mizulina said. “You don’t want people to be imprisoned for two years and labeled a criminal for the rest of their lives for a slap.”

What Mizulina failed to acknowledge was that domestic violence in Russia is a serious problem, and not limited to parents spanking their children for misbehaving.

According to official Russian government statistics that undoubtedly under-report the situation, a massive 40 percent of all violent crimes are committed within the family. This correlates to 36,000 women being beaten by their partners every day and 26,000 children being assaulted by their parents every year.

Larisa Ponarina, deputy director of the Anna Center, an NGO helping victims of domestic violence, suggests that more than 14,000 women die every year as a result of domestic abuse.

She does not believe the situation is improving.

A Battle of Values

Mizulina’s bill comes on the heels of a recent amendment to the Criminal Code, introduced by the Supreme Court and signed into law by president Vladimir Putin. According to the amendment — one of the rare progressive legislative moves in fighting domestic violence — battery of family members was put on an equal footing with hooliganism and hate assaults as a criminal offense to be investigated and prosecuted by the state. It came into force in early July.

Traditional family values crusaders supported Mizulina’s attempts to undo the amendment. The Russian Orthodox Church issued a statement saying that “if reasonable and carried out with love, corporal punishment is an essential right given to parents by God.”

The All-Russian Parents’ Resistance, a movement fighting against the juvenile justice system, has warned that criminalization of familial battery will lead to prosecution of parents who were acting in their children’s best interests. “A mother spanked her son for watching porn ... but his teachers in school noticed bruises, complained, and the court made the mother pay a 8,000-ruble ($120) fine ... Parents no longer have the right to choose methods of up-bringing,” a statement on their website says.

“Traditional, or rather archaic values have become popular again,” says Alyona Popova, activist and women’s rights advocate. High-profile stories of abuse — movie stars beating their wives into a coma, female journalists posting pictures of bruised faces after fighting with their significant others— have done little to change the situation. Indeed, commentators — both male and female — have even intimated that the victims “most probably provoked” incidents, “were asking for it with frivolous behavior,” or “knew who they were marrying and should have known better.”

“Women aren’t supposed to be able to do and achieve things on their own,” says Popova. “Society tells women to get married in order to let their husbands decide things for them. If a man beats you, it is because he is stronger and has the right to beat you, and you should consider yourself lucky to be married in the first place.”

It Runs in the History

“If he beats you, it means he loves you,” as one famous Russian saying has it. According to some studies, the phrase first appeared in the late 16th century, after a book called “Domostroy” (“Household”) was published. This book, a guide for families, carried a strong Orthodox Christian message. It outlined women’s obedience as the key to a strong, lasting family, and described corporal punishment — for women and children — as a “mere blessing” that can help “avoid death of the soul.”

The Domostroy mentality was rejected for a short period in post-revolutionary Soviet Russia in favor of equality. But it made a triumphant return during later in the Soviet period, although without previous religious undertones, before embedding in the social norms of 21st century Russia. Today, police stations rarely take reports of familial battery seriously — they often dismiss victims’ complaints, citing the problem as one’s “internal family matter.” Some say that they can only intervene when a murder is committed.

Such abnegation of duty is hardly surprising, given the fact that the Russian government has never properly addressed the issue either. The UN, on the other hand, commissioned several worrying reports about the state of women’s rights in Russia in the past 10 years. Some of the earlier reports contained recommendations, such as adoption of specific legislation on domestic violence, establishment of shelters and other support for women victims of violence. Later, it became clear to the report writers that Russia had done little to implement the measures.

One of the few countries still to adopt a domestic violence law, Russia hasn’t signed or ratified the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence; this came into force exactly two years ago, in August 2014. All attempts to pass a domestic violence law in the past ten years have been unsuccessful. The most recent bill, drafted by human rights advocates and specialized NGOs, is now ready for the first reading.

But it has been sitting on a shelf in the State Duma for a year.