Groznу resident regains custody of children from ex-husband after intervention by Aishat Kadyrova

Anna Aladysheva, a woman from Chechnya, has said she was able to regain custody of her daughters following public attention, intervention by human rights activists, and a personal effort from Aishat Kadyrova, the daughter of Chechen Head Ramzan Kadyrov. Previously, she said that after the divorce she had only been permitted to see her children for two hours a month and only under her ex-husband’s supervision.

Aladysheva herself spoke in detail about the children’s return on her Instagram page.

‘This is a victory for all women. It is a victory for every child and every mother. This day will go down in history’, she wrote.

She thanked those who supported her and made special mention of Kadyrova, who intervened in the dispute.

According to the human rights project Caucasus Without a Mother (Kavkaz Bez Materi), which also covered Aladysheva’s case, she was 18 when she met her future husband, who came from the village of Dachu-Borzoi and was nine years older. During their nine-year marriage, they had two daughters. For a long time, the family lived peacefully, but conflicts later arose and Aladysheva ultimately filed for divorce.

Human rights activists say that after the divorce, her former husband sharply limited her contact with their children, only allowing her to see them for two hours a month.

‘She accepted the rules that were explained to her as tradition: that the children belong to the father’s clan and that he bears responsibility for the family’, the project said in a statement.

According to the activists, the situation escalated after Aladysheva was summoned to a police station in Grozny. Caucasus Without a Mother claims that one of her former in-law’s attacked her. After information about the incident was published, events reportedly developed rapidly as Kadyrova became involved in the case. Shortly afterwards, Aladysheva’s children were returned to her.

Aladysheva wrote that her daughters have struggled psychologically following the separation.

‘The younger one won’t let me even go into the next room. With her, it feels as though we were never apart. The older one allows me to hug and kiss her, but she doesn’t initiate it herself yet. She stays silent or asks serious questions: “Who hit you?”, “What will happen to him now?”. She’s afraid they’ll take them away tomorrow, afraid to become attached and open up again’, she wrote.

According to Aladysheva, the children will most likely need psychological support.

She also denied claims circulating on social media that she had been forced to withdraw her complaint and delete videos ‘for the sake of the children’.

‘No, I did not withdraw the complaint. Moreover, during the proceedings many more violations against me came to light. For all of this, everyone has been held accountable’, she wrote.

Aladysheva was also a victim of online harassment during the custody dispute, with compromising materials and personal photographs of her being posted on the internet by a Telegram channel titled ‘The Exposure of Anna’. The posts were later deleted and replaced with an apology message, purportedly from Aldyasheva’s ex-husband’s new wife.

‘I offer my public apologies and sincerely repent before Anna Aladysheva, her family, her father, and her mother’, the message read.

Last year, the opposition Telegram channel Niyso also joined in criticising Aladysheva. The authors accused her of demonstratively disregarding local traditions. In particular, the channel condemned a video in which Anna rides a bicycle through central Grozny, captioned ‘you’re the only girl on a bicycle in Grozny’.

‘Aladysheva is not Chechen and, living in our society, she observes various unwritten rules, moral codes, and customs. For example, that Chechen women do not ride bicycles around the city. What does Aladysheva do with this Chechen attitude to women cycling, which arose primarily from religious prescriptions? She simply spits on all of it, gets on a bicycle, films herself riding through the centre of Grozny and uploads a reel to her Instagram with what she considers a witty comment: “you’re the only girl on a bicycle in Grozny”. For normal people, who do not regard the local population and customs as inferior, the absence of women on bicycles would lead to the thought: “okay, that means it’s not customary here, we won’t do that”. But for Aladysheva it’s the opposite. A deep-seated belief that she is above some “local natives with their medieval customs” allows her to demonstratively spit in our faces’, the channel’s authors wrote.

Niyso also claimed that Aladysheva worked at Chechnya’s Ministry of Culture and was friends with Aishat Kadyrova, who served as Culture Minister.