Penza, 24 March 2016. PenzaNews. Pavel Astakhov, Children’s Rights Commissioner for the President of Russia, has sent an address to the prosecutor of the Penza region Natalya Kantserova due to the beating of a schoolgirl by a group of girls of her age.

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The children’s ombudsman urged the prosecutor to scrutinize the activities by the institutions and bodies responsible for prevention of juvenile crime and child neglect in their work with the families of the girls involved.

“The assailed girl must receive psychological help and support, as having such videos available online greatly aggravates psychological harm,” Pavel Astakhov stressed.

The very fact that the video in question has been widely distributed contributes to juvenile violence and compels other teenagers to follow suit, he added.

“The responsible parties that left the troubled girls not involved in preventive measures must be held responsible as well,” the press service of the Children’s Rights Commissioner for the President of Russia quotes Pavel Astakhov.

As PenzaNews reported earlier, the beating that involved girl students from schools No. 28, 57, 75/62 and 63 reportedly took place on 4 March 2016.

According to available information, a girl student of the school No. 57, born in 2003, became a victim of a beating by her peers. The girl’s parents have been deprived of parental rights in 2010, and her grandmother has been appointed her guardian.

The assailed girl refrained from informing her parents of the incident, and the teachers were told on the day after the incident that the student was absent due to an illness. The homeroom teacher visited the girl at home in person on March 12, and the latter returned to her studies on March 14.

The video of the beating, filmed by one of the girls that took part in the conflict, has been published online in the evening of March 22. The video clip shows the victim girl covered in blood and pleading for her assailants to stop, while they keep punching and kicking her and dipping her head in the snow. At the same time, the girl filming the beating can be heard making a coldblooded remark that the screen is shaking because her hands got cold. The clip ends with the assailed girl promising not to report the incident to the police.

The police has initiated a criminal case under Part 1, Art. 116 of the Criminal Code, “Battery.”

According to Elena Stolyarova, children’s ombudsman in the Penza region, the attackers come from incomplete families: their parents were divorced, and their mothers were living with new husbands. Their schools list them as troubling students, often aggressive, unruly and disobedient.

One of the assailants is already of the age when she can be subjected to punishment under Part 1, Art. 116 of the Criminal Code, “Battery,” Elena Stolyarova pointed out.