By Mariam Karmazanashvili
The Caucasus region is situated between Europe and Asia and encompasses republics within the Russian Federation as well as independent states such as Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. In international policy discourse, the region is often described as a place of “frozen conflicts” and “fragile stability.” Yet there is nothing frozen about the violence that continues to shape the region. Beneath the language of stability lies a political and social reality marked by forced disappearances, repression and systems of fear that have become easier for the international community to ignore. Across the region, violence persists in ways that are unevenly recorded, inconsistently acknowledged, and frequently displaced from international attention.
Among the least documented patterns of violence in the Caucasus is the persecution of individuals based on sexual orientation and gender expression, alongside broader systems of gendered repression. Elena Milashina is a Russian journalist who was the first to report coordinated kidnappings, detentions and the disappearances of LGBTQI+ individuals in the Chechen Republic, which is a federal republic of Russia located in the North Caucasus region. Milashina’s findings were later corroborated and expanded upon by Human Rights Watch and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), whose investigations documented campaigns of torture, enforced disappearance, and extrajudicial killing targeting individuals perceived to be part of the LGBTQI+ community. Survivors described being taken to unofficial detention sites, often referred to as basements or camps, where they were beaten, interrogated, and subjected to physical and sexual violence while being forced under coercion to identify others.
Some detainees were later released into environments where families faced implicit pressure to “conceal” the situation through so-called honour-based violence. In fact, because of family complicity, there is no official record of detention, disappearance, or death in many cases. The violence is therefore not only physical, but administrative: individuals are removed not only from public and family life, but from systems of recognition themselves.
Regional organizations and activists continue to challenge this erasure. Groups such as Gender Hub Azerbaijan have worked to expand discussions on gender, peace, and security in the South Caucasus, including advocacy for LGBTQI+ inclusion, feminist peacebuilding, and addressing structural violence. The organization does this work by incorporating key frameworks, such as Women, Peace and Security (WPS), into its strategic priorities and applying gender-sensitive lenses to critical areas such as education, climate change, and peacebuilding. On the other hand, North Caucasus remains significantly more isolated and overlooked, particularly regarding the daily realities faced by LGBTQI+ communities.
Investigations by the OSCE and international human rights organizations found that Russian federal authorities repeatedly failed to properly investigate disappearances connected to the LGBTQI+ community despite extensive evidence and survivor testimony. In some cases, individuals who fled Chechnya were tracked down and forcibly returned with the assistance or cooperation of Russian security structures, including the 2021 abduction of Salekh Magamadov and Ismail Isaev from Nizhny Novgorod back to Chechnya. The 2023 ruling by the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Maxim Lapunov further concluded that Russian authorities had failed to investigate his abduction and torture, reinforcing broader concerns regarding institutional complicity and systemic impunity.
Lapunov’s case in particular became visible because it entered a legal framework capable of recognizing it. It became an international case and went through the European court system. Most cases do not. The disappearance of singer Zelim Bakaev after returning to Chechnya for his sister’s wedding further illustrated how disappearance itself functions politically: a person can vanish publicly while the State simultaneously denies that any persecution exists at all.
These patterns have direct implications for the WPS agenda established through United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325. Over the past two and a half decades, WPS has significantly reshaped discussions surrounding gender, conflict, participation and protection. Although some organizations, such as Gender Hub Azerbaijan, have made a concerted effort to integrate WPS into their work, key gaps remain across the wider Caucasus region. The WPS framework relies on systems of visibility, categorization and institutional recognition that do not fully account for populations whose existence is formally denied or politically erased, such as those in the North Caucasus.
The example of Chechnya highlights the limitations of peace and security frameworks. Looking specifically at protection, one of the pillars of the WPS agenda, violence in the region frequently operates through disappearance, which is rarely, if ever, publicly acknowledged. Individuals may be detained without a record, displaced into informal systems of coercion, or removed from legal recognition altogether. Under such conditions, those who are the most at risk, such as LGBTQI+ individuals, are excluded and unable to access the mechanisms and structures meant to protect communities. Expanding WPS requires more than simply adding additional identities to existing categories. It requires recognizing how State power itself determines whose experiences become visible within international security frameworks and whose suffering remains politically unrecognized.
Expanding WPS requires more than simply adding additional identities to existing categories. It requires recognizing how state power itself determines whose experiences become visible within international security frameworks and whose suffering remains politically unrecognized. This work is already being advanced by organizations, such as OutRight International, which has consistently advocated for the inclusion of LGBTQI+ perspectives within the WPS agenda. It has also been led by regional and local initiatives, exemplified by Gender Hub Azerbaijan, which has highlighted how exclusion, discrimination, and structural violence shape experiences of peace and security in the Caucasus. Their work suggests that inclusion is not merely a matter of representation but of challenging the political processes through which some lives become visible and others remain unseen.
The views in this blog are those of the author only and do not necessarily represent those of the WPSN-C or its membership.
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