New Protocol on Accession, Prevention and Protection against Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence was presented on the occasion of the “International Day Against Domestic Violence.”
Doctor in Public Health Institute, Vilnerina Ramcilovic said that the education organized by that health institution on the occasion of the “International Day Against Domestic Violence” is intended for health care providers to be informed about the obligation to report domestic violence cases and to adequately document the consequence of violence. She emphasized that medical records are very important in lawsuits to prove violence. She introduced a new flyer called “VIOLENCE IN FAMILY”, which was done in our and in Albanian language because the employees of this minority work here, said Ramcilovic.
The director of SOS Telephone in Podgorica, Biljana Zekovic, said it was extremely important for health professionals to be sensible, trained to gain experience and knowledge to recognize violence. According to her, the practice so far has shown that court cases concerning violence against women are difficult to prove, precisely because of the lack of material evidence. She added that health professionals need to know what their obligations are when it comes to laws, reporting violence, how they do it, without violating the integrity of the victim of violence itself. Zekovic emphasized that it is very important that they know the rules and procedures. “At the end of last year, the state responded to these needs, with the Ministry of Health being one of the signatories to various protocols and procedures regarding violence against women, children and domestic violence,” Zekovic said.
Organized education, she explained, is also important to finally resolve the dilemma of whether a doctor is entitled, or whether he violates a doctor’s ethics when reporting a case of domestic violence, to whom it should report violence, whether only to the police or also to the centers of social work. According to Zekovic, the dilemma is also to whom is the doctor obliged to provide health data related to the victim of violence. “It is important how to describe the injuries. In this regard, doctors will be familiar with a very clear sketch where all the information is entered,” Zekovic said.
Zekovic presented a new protocol on accessing, preventing and protecting against violence against women and domestic violence and a form for reporting violence that will be available to citizens on the website of the Ministry of Health and the Institute for Public Health.
Forensic Specialist at the Center for Forensic Medicine KCCG, Dr. Nemanja Radojevic said that great progress has been made in legal and criminal prosecution of cases related to violence against women in Montenegro over the last 15 years. He said that the peculiarity of the Montenegrin society, in terms of a highly patriarchal relationship, is one of the elements that keep the incidence of domestic violence at a high level.
“In Montenegro, in the last ten or 15 years, great progress has been made in the prosecution of these cases, with the extreme sensibility of the police, prosecution and courts to such problems,” Radojevic told the Institute of Public Health on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.” He added that, through his day-to-day expertise, he realized that the standards applied were at the highest European and world level.
Radojevic said that the medical expertise was very important to prove whether the victim had experienced violence or not, especially in the court process. The medical examiner will determine whether the victim received bruising, scratches and injuries through physical violence or otherwise. He said that in the filing of allegations, in some cases false documentation was used, that the court proceedings is initiated and that the medical experts testify that the injuries were not caused by violence but for another reason, Radojevic said.
Radojevic said that there are many cases where a victim reports that they have experienced violence, and when the application needs to be further prosecuted, the victim abandons the court proceedings against the perpetrator.
A representative of the Police Directorate, Radovan Stijovic, said that the Police Directorate reacts to every report of violence as well as to any crime. He said that first thing done by officers of the Police Directorate in some cases, after reporting the violence, is they go to the scene of the violence and separate the victim from the perpetrator, thus interrupting the continuation of the violence. Separating two people between whom violence is ongoing, thus ending the conflict and avoiding major consequences, Stijovic said.
Stijovic said that domestic violence was not known in Montenegro until 2003, but that in the period from 2003 to 2007, domestic violence was present to a lesser extent, and from 2007 to the present, domestic violence is more frequent. In 2018, there were 1,377 reports of violence, 95 of which were criminal, 580 were filed for criminal proceedings and about 500 were not prosecuted. He added that the majority of cases of domestic violence in Montenegro are in Podgorica, 92% because the majority of the population lives there, Stijovic said.
Stijovic also added that the perpetrator of domestic violence was 81% male and 16% female, and victims of violence from 14 years of age to older age. He said there were cases where victims reported and did not want to pursue the perpetrator of the violence because they felt that a report and a warning were enough to stop the violence, Stijovic said.
