The then twelve-year-old girl, in this story we will call her Malena, was registered for the first time at the Center for Social Work (CSR) in December 2008.
That December, the police found her on the street and placed her in the Center for Children and Youth "Ljubović" because, they reasoned, "she wandered, begged, engaged in prostitution and went to other cities without the knowledge and permission of her parents."
She was trafficked, repeatedly raped and abused in various ways by people who were not responsible for those crimes. Malena is one of seven children of poor parents.
In the report of the CSW Expert Team, in which Center for Investigative Journalism of Montenegro (CIN CG) had an insight, it is written about Malena that she was hit by a car a few years earlier and that after that she suffered from epilepsy. The Republican Commission for Examination of Developmentally Disabled Children and Youth concluded that the child has severe disabilities.
Since she was first registered in the CSW, she stayed in the "Ljubović" center in December 2009 and June 2010 due to begging, vagrancy, prostitution and antisocial behavior.
In December 2010, criminal proceedings were initiated against her for aggravated theft. She committed the theft in a city that is a hundred kilometers away from the city where her parents lived.
At the time, she was also wanted to testify in court in a case against several older men who were suspected, and some were later convicted, of sexually abusing and exploiting her friend. They didn't find her.
It was found by the Serbian police a year later. Subotica police detained her because "she was staying in a foreign territory without the consent and accompaniment of her parents."
The police of Subotica informed the authorities in Montenegro that "there is a well-founded suspicion that the girl is a victim of human trafficking." The authorities in Serbia immediately placed her in the Children's Home "Kolijevka" and informed the competent institutions in Montenegro about everything.
Malena was brought to Montenegro in March 2012 and placed in the Shelter for victims of trafficking. That same month, the girl attempted suicide.
On April 12, 2012, Aida Petrović, coordinator of the Shelter for Victims of Human Trafficking, turned to the ombudsman for help and informed him that she was "very worried about the girl."
"The competent institutions are not acting in the best interest of the child, given that he is a potential victim of trafficking, violence, abuse and neglect," Petrović wrote in her address to the ombudsman.
The Protector of Human Rights of Montenegro, after learning about Malena's case, said that "by the failure of the competent authorities to take appropriate actions and measures, one of the basic rights of the child is threatened - the right to life, survival and development".
In addition, the Constitution of Montenegro, domestic legislation and numerous conventions on children's rights, which Montenegro signed, were violated.
Aida Petrović asked that the child be placed somewhere because the Government Shelter for Trafficking Victims stopped working. On the day of the closure of the shelter, April 17, 2012, fifteen-year-old Malena was again placed in the "Ljubović" Center.
When in the "Ljubović" Center, a day after the child was placed with them, they saw from the documentation that the child was a victim of trafficking, they immediately asked the CSW to take her over.
They moved her to the NGO "SOS phone for children and women victims of violence" in Nikšić.
CSW assessed at the time that it was not entirely safe for her to return to her family, "because the three people who are suspected of having trafficked her, live in the immediate vicinity of her family".
After that, they placed her with her uncle for a short time, and then, in November 2012, after an argument with her uncle's brother, she ran away and no one knew where she was.
She appeared again when unknown persons left her, half-dead, in front of the building of the Emergency Medical Service in Podgorica.
According to CIN-CG, the doctors barely revived her because she was severely beaten and raped. She was only 16 years old then.
CIN-CG was unable to find out where Malena is now, despite several months of research.
It is not known who physically and sexually abused the sick girl, who paid her for sexual services, who raped, trafficked. It is also unknown whether her parents were responsible for neglecting the child. Likewise, it is not known whether anyone in the state institutions was held accountable because the child was not protected, and they were obliged and obligated to do so.
A child in the courtroom face to face with an abusive teacher
The class teacher of an elementary school was accused of sexually abusing a student. The child reported what happened to his parents, and the parents to the police, and the painful court process began.
Everything ended with an acquittal for the educator and his express retirement.
During the procedure, the girl was interrogated several times, which is prohibited by Montenegrin legislation and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The child was questioned in court in the presence of the teacher who sexually abused her, and her hearings were even attended by children from the school she attends.
A teacher specializing in such cases warned that multiple hearings and physical confrontations with the accused, in the presence of children from the class, can have a very harmful effect on the child's psyche.
The girl cried during every hearing. The parents complained to the ombudsman and the court. And the defender of human rights dealt with this case and found that the court did not act according to the law.
In the end, the family was offered to no longer conduct the hearing of the girl in the city where the process was conducted until then, but in Podgorica, because only in the capital there are technical possibilities to do everything via video link and in accordance with the law.
Apart from offering it to the parents, the court did nothing to ensure such a hearing, and the girl's parents did not have the money to travel to another city.
The prosecutor interrogated the child for a long time
In one recent case, when a teacher sexually abused a child, the defender of human rights and freedoms wrote that the police and the Center for Social Work acted in accordance with all international and national regulations.
It was also established that the reaction of the school the child attended was quite good, but that, nevertheless, the school management and the psychological and pedagogical service did not take all the actions aimed at protecting the child's dignity and right to privacy.
"What is worrying is the actions of the state prosecutor's office in this particular case, which took a very long time to take the child's statement without taking into account his mental and emotional state," the ombudsman's report warned.
Bonus video:
