RIGHTS-SERBIA: Family Violence Finally Punishable By Law

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Mar 4 2002 (IPS) - Changes in the Serbian penal code, adopted by the parliament last week, have finally made violence in the family punishable by law.

According to the new law, a person faces up to three years of imprisonment if he or she endangers the safety and mental health of another member of the family.

Use of different objects and weapons in case of family violence brings a punishment of up to five years. Physical violence that results in injuries of a member of the family, including minors, means up to 10 years in jail.

Violence resulting in the death of a member of the family carries a prison sentence from 10 to 40 years.

“This is the first time that a law in Serbia describes, in details, family violence and names precise punishment,” says Leila Ruzdic-Trifunovic, member of the parliament and a long time activist in the field of women rights.

“It became a necessity after all the researches and statistics showed astonishing rise in family violence, first of all against women and children, that threatens to become a trademark of Serbia,” Ruzdic-Trifunovic told IPS.

Changes in Serbian laws were the result of several major studies conducted in Serbia since October 2000, when the decades long rule of communists ended with the fall of the regime of Slobodan Milosevic. The studies were done by women rights groups gathered around the NGO “Women Political Group” and the local branch of Gallup International.

“Our research showed that a third of Serbian women are victims of violence in their families,” says psychologist Jasna Milosevic. “On surface, it looks that young, educated and working women, seem to be more frequently victims of family violence.

But the truth is that they are able to recognise the violence and define it. We were horrified to learn that the peasant women, housewives or the illiterate women view the obvious family violence – beatings, physical injuries by their husbands – as part of their daily lives.”

According to the experts, in most of the cases family violence is a pattern that repeats itself. It is a model of behaviour among the men in the family the victim comes from and in the family she creates. It is almost always accompanied with the alcoholism.

Less educated women see it as “patriarchal behaviour”, while the more educated ones define it as violence.

“The astonishing results called for the laws to be changed, as it became obvious that family violence could not stay the matter of the family alone,” says Vesna Nikolic-Ristanovic, head of the Victimology Society of Serbia.

Experts say that their research, first in the past three decades, brought to the surface other astonishing results. If they work, Serbian women do not face discrimination in their pays, but that seems to be the only area where they are equal to men.

“In almost all the other areas they face discrimination” says Nikolic-Ristanovic. “Serbian women make 52 percent of population, but less than 10 percent are sitting at the important, managing or executive positions. Only seven percent have private property in their name”.

Family violence has many faces, experts say, and can lead to another form that results in the death of a member of family.

Battered daughters, sisters or wives who carry bruises or suffer mentally on a daily basis tend to cut the vicious circle by violence too. When it comes to that, it usually results in the death of their partner.

Last week two women were sentenced by a court in Belgrade to two years imprisonment each for killing their husbands. Experts agree that women usually face small sentences, as the judicial system clearly sympathises with the unbearable physical or mental suffering they faced for years.

“It is usually an act of ultimate self defence,” says lawyer Nikola Draskovic. “It can also be described as the consequence of pure survival instinct. Many women who killed their partners say they could not tolerate the fact that, beside their own, the lives of their children were in danger for years”.

There is a pattern for such a crime. Women kill in the dark of the night, when their partners are asleep. It is the only time when they can not hurt their family. “The chapter of family violence closes with the act of final violence,” he adds.