MOSCOW, March 22 (UPI) -- Just over half of all Russian wives say they have been battered by their husbands, and just under one-third of husbands have been hit, a survey found.
Fifty-two percent of women said they had been beaten at least once by their husbands, and 41 percent said they had been beaten more than once, sociologist Irina Shurygina, co-head of the survey, told the Moscow Times.
"The problem of domestic violence is a universal problem," said Shurygina, who works at the Sociological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. "but in Russia it is becoming a serious one, since the numbers are high."
Only 45 percent of the women surveyed said their husbands had never struck them. In 70 percent of the reported beatings, women said their husbands became aggressive after drinking.
Thirty percent of women said they had beaten their husbands.
The survey found that women who were beaten by their husbands sustained more serious injuries than husbands who were beaten by their wives.
