Judicial System Treats Family Violence as �Private Affair�

22 February 2006

In spite of the fact that Serbia has a very strict and rigorous legislation against family violence for over a year now, the perpetrators are still punished with fines and conditional sentences, shows the survey conducted by the Women Research Centre from Nis and the Autonomous Women Centre from Belgrade.

The Serbian Skupstina (the Parliament) adopted, one year ago, the changes and amendments to the Criminal Code, which define the violence in the family is criminal offence. Nonetheless, perpetrators of family violence rarely end behind bars and, when it happens, they are sentenced to the minimal terms of incarceration prescribed by the Law.

The results of the survey, �Legal Practice on Violence in the Family�, conducted among the members of the police force, the prosecution offices and the courts, were presented in the public debate on family and violence in Nis.

"There is a trend with the judiciary in Serbia to proclaim milder sentences for cases of family violence, even in cases when the violence was sustained over a longer period of time�, says Slobodanka Konstantinovic-Vilic from the Women Research Centre.

"According to the survey, 92 percent of all perpetrators are men, and in 57.16 percent of the cases the victims were continually abused. Among the victims of legal age, 68.75 percent were women, 31.25 percent were men, while in 17 percent of all cases it was parents that were abused by their children�, she added.

In spite of such numbers, the judicial system qualifies only a fraction of all cases as family violence, and is persecuted under provisions related to other violent offences, such as assault and grievous personal injury or attempted murder.

Nevena Petrusic from the Women Research Centre warns that the majority of policemen, prosecutors and judges interviewed for the survey continue to consider family violence a �private matter�, which should be dealt with by the social welfare centres.