Crossing Continents: Chechnya

Lucy Ash travels to Chechnya to investigate the treatment of women there, amid reports of of the police failing to investigate the increasingly common practice of the abduction of women, and of a recent series of murders and disappearances of women allegedly because of their 'amoral' lifestyle. After suppressing a violent civil war, the leader of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, says his republic is now just a normal part of the Russian Federation. But there are questions about just how normal life is for Chechen women. Kadyrov has spoken in favour of polygamy, acknowledges the practice of honour killings, and appears happy to allow legislation which discriminates against women, all of which is illegal elsewhere in the Federation