06 March 2009
Woman Brings Comfort to Families of Russian Soldiers
Veronika Marchenko investigates peacetime deaths of military personnel
Washington — Veronika Marchenko started the Mother’s Right Foundation in 1990, while she was still a student, to publicize vicious hazing practices in the Soviet armed forces. She worked out of a small room in downtown Moscow, with one table, one chair and a telephone.
That modest beginning grew into a nongovernmental organization (NGO) with a mission to expose the true circumstances surrounding peacetime deaths in the army. It provides moral and legal support to surviving families and lobbies against corruption in the armed forces.
Marchenko still presses for eliminating the hazing and bullying, which she claims take up to 3,000 lives each year among the men obligated to serve. “The basic postulate from the Soviet era until now says a conscript is a nobody,” Marchenko told a Los Angeles Times reporter. “He’s a cogwheel in a machine, and this cogwheel is a very inexpensive element of that machine which, if it breaks down, can be replaced very easily.”
Because most of these deaths are classified as suicides regardless of additional or contributing factors, the soldiers’ families find it difficult to collect survivors’ benefits. Marchenko’s group leads investigations into the circumstances of conscripts’ deaths, often helping to prove that a suicide was provoked or was in fact murder, and brings accurate information to grieving families.
“When we don’t win quickly,” she told French reporters, “we are ready for a long fight in order to make the law prevail.”
Lawyers from Mother’s Right participated in 132 pro bono litigations in 21 cities across Russia in 2007. That same year, the foundation assisted 5,323 families of servicemen who died in noncombat incidents during military service.
The organization is an outstanding example of a grass-roots endeavor that began with little more than a commitment to social justice and evolved into an influential and powerful group, due in large part to Marchenko’s courage in defying official pressures and perseverance in her quest for nearly 20 years.
Mother’s Right continues to bring public scrutiny to bear on human rights abuses despite a large and opaque bureaucracy.
Marchenko’s exceptional leadership and bravery was recognized by the United States. On March 11, she will be presented with a 2009 International Women of Courage Award by the U.S. secretary of state. (See “United States Recognizes Women of Courage.”)
