Country Profile The Russian Federation

General Country Information

Summary

The Russian Federation has one national women’s helpline which is free of charge and operates 24/7, although it does not offer multilingual support. There are an estimated 30 to 40 women-only shelters in Russia, as well an estimated 134 crisis centres offering shelter accommodation to women survivors of violence with 2,423 available beds. There are women’s centres in Russia, although the exact number is unknown, but different estimations give an approximate number of 150-180 centres across the country. There are two rape crisis centres in Russia for survivors of sexualised violence as well as a specialised helpline. There is a National Strategy which does not focus on, but does address, violence against women and girls. However, it does not include specific provisions on primary prevention nor is there a budget allocated to such activities. The state does collect data on women’s specialist support services and is data is publicly available, although it only refers to state-affiliated services and does not include primary prevention activities. Different NGOs also collect data on women’s specialist services, however, due to the size of the country and limited resources, this data is often not accurate enough or up to date.

Women’s Specialist Services

The Russian Federation has one national women’s helpline called the National Helpline for Women Suffering from Domestic Violence (Всероссийский круглосуточный телефон доверия для женщин, пострадавших от домашнего насилия, tel.: +7 8007000600). This helpline is run by the autonomous NGO for social rehabilitation and adaptation of women and children “Resource Assistance Center”. The helpline is free of charge and available 24/7 but does not offer multilingual support. Therefore, the helpline does meet the Istanbul Convention minimum standards for the provision of a national women’s helpline. It should be noted that although the helpline is available around the clock, in practice, calls are often not answered. This helpline provides support mainly to survivors of domestic violence. According to data published by the Resource Assistance Center, the helpline received a total of 21,360 calls in 2024.

There is another national women’s helpline in Russia operated by POLINA – Crisis Center for Women (Горячая линия организации «ПОЛИНА. Кризисный центр для женщин», tel.: +7 8123273000). The helpline is free of charge but is not available 24/7 nor does it offer multilingual support. This helpline provides psychological and legal support for women survivors of any form of domestic or sexualised violence, including commercial sexual exploitation, and also supports women experiencing cyberviolence and stalking. Due to the extremely complicated context and circumstances, communication between different women’s NGOs in Russia is very limited. In this sense, information regarding sources of funding for the helpline is sensitive. POLINA Center specifically relies on various funding opportunities and for years their main sources of funding were international funds and donations. This helpline received a total number of 6,889 requests in 2024, which includes 1,561 calls and 5,328 online requests. The most common forms of violence reported by callers to the helplines in 2024 were physical violence and technology-facilitated violence against women.

There are other regional helplines supporting survivors of violence against women in Russia, but the exact number is unknown. It is important to note that in 2024, many Russian women’s organisations that continue to operate in Russia have reported a decreased number of calls, due to a sharp reduction in funding as well as a number of call operators having to leave the country. On the other hand, the number of help requests via chat and online channels has increased year after year as this service is more flexible and allows operators to cover a wider geographical area.

There are an estimated 30 to 40 women-only shelters in Russia, most of which are run by the municipality or faith-based organisations, but the exact number of beds is unknown. There are no official statistics on the number of shelters and beds available for women survivors of violence in Russia and the numbers reported are based on unofficial information provided by services supporting women in crisis situations. The number of beds is drastically insufficient to meet the needs for women survivors of violence, even in major cities, and in most other regions shelter accommodation is not an available option. Moreover, most of the shelters have a set of strict requirements (for example, the survivors must be legally registered to access the shelter), which makes the available services even less accessible. Women-only shelters generally do not offer 24/7 access as women are required to provide specific documents to enter a shelter. Women are not expected to pay for their accommodation in the women-only shelters, but in some shelters run by faith-based organisations, they may be required to do chores. In some state-run shelters, a woman must provide a document proving her income. If her income is higher than the official subsistence rate, she needs to pay for her accommodation. The types of in-house services most often provided by women-only shelters are casework, practical advice, and legal advice.

Some women-only shelters can accommodate and are accessible to women with sensory disabilities, women with substance abuse issues, and women with children with disabilities. No women-only shelters are equipped to support women with uncertain residence permits/undocumented women, refugee women, homeless women, women with cognitive disabilities, and older women (65 years and above). There are no specialised shelters supporting particular groups of survivors nor women survivors or those at risk of specific forms of violence in Russia. An informal shelter for LGBTQI+ individuals exists, however, it is not specifically for survivors of violence. Additionally, as state oppression against civil society representatives grows, many services offering support to specific groups of survivors are underfunded and receive no governmental support.

Funding for women-only shelters comes from the state as well as donations. Women-only shelters exist in major cities only and women are allowed to stay there for up to three months. If women-only shelters had to decline referrals the three main reasons were no space/capacity to support the survivor, no space/capacity to accommodate survivors with children, and the survivor being ineligible for support. The three most common forms of violence reported by survivors to women-only shelters in 2024 were domestic violence, physical violence, and violence directly/indirectly affecting children.

There are other shelters in Russia which operate as crisis centres for women in difficult life circumstances and can provide support to survivors of violence. According to official data from the Department of Social Protection and Social Services of the Ministry of Labor of Russia, there are 134 crisis centres/units in 57 regions including 81 shelters run by state organisations, 19 shelters run by state crisis centres, 18 shelters run by non-governmental social service organisations, and 16 by non-profit organisations. In total, there are an estimated 2,423 available beds. In addition, the Russian Orthodox Church runs 75 crisis centres which includes shelters for teenage mothers, people with substance abuse issues and women released from prisons. Gender affirming medical procedures are banned in Russia, meaning that transgender and non-binary people face serious risks when accessing shelters, and there is a lack of services for LGBTQI+ survivors to receive support.

There are women’s centres in Russia, although the exact number is unknown, but different estimations give an approximate number of 150-180 centres across the country. The types of services provided by women’s centres include counselling/psychological support, legal advice, referrals/collaboration with other services, and representation at court/police/social services. However, women’s centres do not provide financial and social welfare support/advocacy, housing advice, and employment. Most women’s centres provide only non-residential support services, although all women-only shelters offer both residential and non-residential support. Some women’s centres also provide specialist support to survivors of sexualised violence in Russia, including specialist psychological care, specialist sexualised violence advocacy services, community awareness and education for prevention, and legal advice.

Some women’s centres are equipped to support women with uncertain residence permits/undocumented women, refugee women, women with physical disabilities, women with sensory disabilities, and older women (65 years and above). There are women’s centres specialised in supporting survivors (at risk of) forced marriage, honour-based violence, and trafficking. Additionally, there are grassroots initiatives which provide support to transgender women and non-binary people.

Women’s centres in Russia are located only in major cities and are funded by the state and through donations. International funding is no longer available. Information on which entities are running women’s centres is not available, and it is furthermore not the case that all women’s centres have a feminist and gender-sensitive approach. In fact, some centres may reinforce negative gender stereotypes and use victim-blaming language.

There are two rape crisis centres in Russia, the Sexual Assault Recovery Centre Sisters (Syostri), which also runs a specialised helpline (tel., +7 4999010201), and We Believe You (Tebe Poveryat). These centres provide psychological counselling and support to sexualised violence survivors. Tebe Poveryat works offline in St. Petersburg and online across Russia and other countries for Russian-speaking survivors. These services are located in the capital city and funded through donations. Syostri supports all survivors of sexualised violence, no matter how long ago the violence took place, and Tebe Poveryat supports all survivors who experienced sexualised violence as a child and young adults. Additionally, some women’s centres also provide online counselling and support to adult female survivors of sexualised violence, although these are not specialised sexualised violence centres. There are no other services in Russia for women and girls who have experienced sexualised violence.

Russia has no stand-alone National Action Plan (NAP) on violence against women and girls. The main federal policy document is the National Strategy for Action in the Interests of Women, 2023–2030, plus a 2023–2026 implementation plan. These focus broadly on women’s health, economic participation, “prevention of social disadvantage,” political participation and improving official statistics, rather than setting out a dedicated violence against women plan with prevention pillars. In practice, violence is referenced only indirectly—largely folded into the umbrella of “social disadvantage”—and not addressed as a separate prevention stream.

Public authorities do not publish consolidated data on primary prevention activities; available federal documents list actions and reporting duties but no national indicators specific to primary prevention, and international reviews have repeatedly flagged fragmented data systems in this area. The Strategy’s narrative claims domestic violence figures have decreased, but this is misleading: the apparent drop follows the 2017 partial decriminalisation of first instance “light” domestic assault, which pushed many incidents out of criminal statistics and is widely associated with under-reporting.

There is no statutory definition of “domestic violence” in Russian law—and, consequently, no official legal definition of “primary prevention” of violence. The strategy/plan contain no earmarked budget lines for primary prevention measures, and implementation is left to the responsible bodies.

1. Latest available data on Eurostat’s database is from 2014. ↩︎
2. Ibid. ↩︎
3. This figure comes from the Department of Social Protection and Social Services of the Ministry of Labor of Russia and is repeatedly cited by officials in 2024–2025. However, it is not possible to know if this figure includes the estimated 30–40 women-only shelters based on unofficial information collected by NGOs. Additionally, this figure does not include the crisis centres run by the Russian Orthodox Church. ↩︎
4. Ibid. ↩︎
5. This figure is from the WAVE Country Report 2023. Mappings estimate that there around 200 services for survivors of violence (state/faith-based organisations/NGOs) available nationwide, but this figure lumps all services together including helplines, counselling centres, and shelters. ↩︎