Our partner, Transitions Online, has posted an interview with Byubyusara Ryskulova by Anna Kirey, who runs Genderstan, a blog about gender in Central Asia.

The interview looks at Ryskulova’s work with the domestic violence crisis centre Sezim, which was founded in April 1998 and is Bishkek’s only such centre. In the last nine years the centre has seen almost 21,000 people, reports Anna.

As well as talking about how Ryskulova came to found the centre and the impressive achievements of the last decade, the interview also touches upon attitudes to domestic violence in Kyrgyzstan, which have caused antipathy towards Ryskulova’s work in some cases:

… critics of the shelter say there is no need to bring such numbers and realities to light. They have accused Sezim of “making people divorce,” Ryskulova explains, by arguing that women and children endured beatings in Kyrgyz families for centuries without turning to counselors. Doing so now, critics say, threatens marriages.

Ryskulova is quick to quash such reactionary views:

… Ryskulova points out that the effects of domestic violence have fractured families for decades. “We know of so many cases of suicides and murders that followed a domestic violence situation,” she says. “For five years we have been working with women who were sentenced to imprisonment because they killed their husbands out of self-defense.”

She also emphasizes that Sezim’s main goal is to encourage healthy relationships in which women are empowered and treated as equals. “Our slogan is ‘peace to your home,’ but not at the price of suffering,” Ryskulova says.

Read the full interview here or read excerpts here and visit Genderstan here.