SOCIETY-BALKANS: Violence Rocks Families from Within

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Aug 1 2005 (IPS) - "Katarina died of tonsils infection," 27-year-old Ana Filipovic told her parents after her three-year-old daughter died in a Belgrade hospital last week.

But when the police came to the door of the Filipovics’ home later that evening and arrested Ana, her parents discovered the truth. Their granddaughter died after she was raped by Ana’s lover, the coroners report said. The man was arrested too.

In another case last week, a 47-year-old farmer in Pozarevac in the east lost his temper because his 18-month old stepson was too loud. He picked up a shovel, killed the toddler, and buried the body in the backyard.

In neighbouring Smederevo, a man aged 51 was arrested after admitting that he had sexually abused his stepdaughters aged eight and ten for years.

The cases shocked Serbia, and prompted President Boris Tadic to make a televised address to the nation.

"I am deeply disturbed not only as president, but also as father," Tadic said. "Perpetrators deserve the harshest punishment, but I must also warn the public that the number of such cases is on a dramatic rise and that all the relevant state organs have to do all in their power to prevent such violence."

Vesna Stanojevic who heads the Belgrade-based Shelter for Victims of Family Violence told IPS that the last cases were "only the tip of the iceberg." Her centre currently houses 61 children under the age of 15 who have been molested or sexually abused by members of their families.

"Family violence is a taboo (subject), due to the traditionally conservative Serbian society and slow action by local courts," she said.

"The only fear the perpetrators have is that they might be caught," child psychiatrist Oliver Vidojevic told IPS. "All the research in the region has come to this conclusion. Nothing else matters for them." The police rarely get involved in what they see as an internal family problem, he said.

Stanojevic says family violence begins when a husband first slaps his wife.

"This is not recognised as violence, but that is the start of it," Stanojevic said. "Years of abuse follow, and violence becomes the third partner in a marriage. Besides wives, the children become victims."

Stanojevic says her shelter has received about 2,000 calls from victimised women since January, a third more than over the same period last year.

"It does not necessarily mean there’s more violence," she said. "It means that more women are becoming aware of it."

Stanojevic and Vidojevic say men traditionally believe that their family is their property and that they can do what they want with it.

But the violence could also be due to a high tolerance of violence among a population that witnessed three wars in the past decade "and got used to everything," says Slavka Lakicevic, assistant minister for childcare at the ministry of work and social affairs.

Few statistics on family violence are available in Serbia, with its 7.5 million inhabitants, or in other countries of former Yugoslavia.

People across these countries share more or less the same values "and it comes as no surprise that there is no talk, let alone records on the taboos," Vidojevic said. Family violence and particularly violence against children remain taboo – to talk about – in neighbouring Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina as well.

According to an official statement from Croatia, "the number of cases of family violence has dramatically risen since 1991 (when the country separated from former Yugoslavia)." The number of cases of sexual abuse of children "has risen tenfold in the period 1991-2001," it said. The statement offered no figures.

Croatia has faced sharp criticism recently from several United Nations (UN) organisations dealing with children and the young. At an international conference on children’s rights held in Slovenian capital Ljubljana earlier this month, Croatia was named as a country with a low level of care for children.

That assessment followed reports in Croatian media of dozens of cases of rape, sexual abuse and exploitation of children in Catholic run homes for orphans in Brezovica near capital Zagreb, and in the coastal town Pula.

Head of the Catholic Church in Croatia cardinal Josip Bozanic has ordered an investigation into Caritas, the humanitarian organisation that runs those orphanages that house some 200 children.

In Bosnia-Herzegovina, a nation of three million, the first study on family violence against children published June cited between 50 and 65 cases of abuse a year over 2000-2004. Some 16 percent of all cases were categorised as sexual abuse of children under the age of 15.

"There is little we can do," Saliha Dzerudija from the Office for Human Rights in Bosnia-Herzegovina told local media. "Lack of finances prevents us from being more involved in the problem and, unfortunately, I must say that most of the victims of family violence, be it women or children, have to return into the same family despite reporting the crime."