A Chechen commission tasked with harmonizing marital and family relations has 'reunited' 3,038 divorced couples out of 6,020 identified since 2017, state television channel Grozny reported.
The commission was established on July 4, 2017, on the initiative of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. It is tasked with preserving families and 'strengthening traditional family values,' according to the report. Over nine years, the commission has conducted more than 25,000 events. Another 2,344 former spouses refused to reunite, while 905 'cannot restore relations due to religious canons.'
The commission includes local police officers, district officials, and qadis — Islamic judges. According to the independent outlet Kavkazsky Uzel, commission members obtain marriage data through agreements with registry offices. Residents of Chechnya interviewed by the outlet said conversations with the commission resembled interrogations, with questions about personal lives and family conflicts. One interviewee, Ibrahim, said the questions 'had some strange subtext and were more like an interrogation,' adding that he did not feel any desire to help. A woman said the commission urged her to return to her husband and be more tolerant of her mother-in-law despite the conflict.
Human rights activists and analysts interviewed by Kavkazsky Uzel noted that some 'reunifications' occur under pressure. According to them, coercion can be particularly traumatic for women, including in cases of domestic violence. Saida Sirazhudinova, president of the Caucasus.World.Development research center, told the outlet that 'in most cases it is actually coercion' and that 'thousands of families cannot divorce without reason and be truly ready to overcome all their grievances.' According to Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), women may agree to reconciliation to be able to see their children — in divorce cases, courts typically leave children with the father. Chechen authorities, as Kavkazsky Uzel writes, do not disclose how the voluntary nature of spouses' decisions is verified or how many restored families later broke up again.
Human rights activists have previously reported cases of Chechen women fleeing out of fear of forced marriage. The legal team Ad Rem, in a study on reasons for the evacuation of women from Chechnya, Dagestan, and Ingushetia, cited domestic violence, bans on mothers meeting their children, and the risk of 'honor' killings among those reasons.