Wards – NC SOS

Wards

People we have already helped

We only tell stories that have become public. Most of our mentees remain anonymous for security reasons.

Tina is a young Chechen woman who was subjected to severe domestic violence from early childhood by her mother, father, brothers, and sisters. Physical and psychological abuse were normalized within…

Aliya Ozdamirova

Aliya, a 33-year-old Chechen woman, had been in contact with the NC SOS Crisis Group since 2023. She periodically lost contact and only in October 2025 decided to leave Chechnya.…

Aishat Baymuradova

Aishat was born and raised in Chechnya. From early childhood, she was raised by her father, who separated her from her mother and forbade any contact between them. Aishat reported…

August Dobrovolsky

August is a young man who grew up in Nizhnevartovsk (a city in Western Siberia, Russia) in a Chechen family with strongly homophobic views. His father is serving a prison…

Maxim was the first person to speak openly about the anti-gay purge in Chechnya. It was through Maxim’s testimony that the world learned about the critical situation regarding the rights…

Seda Suleimanova

Seda was facing the prospect of a forced marriage, just like her sisters. Refusing to accept this imposed fate led to conflict within her family. Her mother constantly monitored her…

Rizvan, a resident of Chechnya, first encountered police discrimination due to his sexual identity in the spring of 2017. This was when the systematic persecution of gay men began in…

Vika (name changed for security reasons) lived in the village of Kirovaul in Dagestan, a republic in Russia located in the North Caucasus. After her seventh grade, her relatives forced…

Sara Bibulatova

Sara was born in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, but her passport lists Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, as her place of birth. Her father fled Russia due to being…

Marina Yandieva

Marina Yandieva, from Ingushetia—a republic in the North Caucasus region of Russia—attempted to escape from her home twice. In 2011, she began studying at a university in Moscow, but in…