For men living in Russia’s North Caucasus, what do you do when your family considers you responsible for bringing home the bacon - and the only job you can get is as a security guard at a petrol station? Or what do you do when your father and grandfather have passed on to you the duty of defending the family’s honour, and the police can stop you and ask for a bribe at every traffic light?
Poverty, a lack of rights and prospects are all problems that have surfaced in a recent study of men’s lives in Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia and Kabardino-Balkaria, conducted by the Heinrich Böll Foundation together with the Free Happy People international centre. The study comprised 800 surveys and 80 in-depth interviews.
Here, oDR speaks to the study’s coordinator, sociologist Irina Kosterina, about the results.
