He waited at the place where she works while she greeted her colleagues, laughed and made an appointment for a coffee that she knows she will never go to.
He hides from his colleagues that he doesn't have the money he earned and that's why he doesn't come to their weddings, birthdays...
She plays someone else all the time while she's at work, but she's actually in constant fear of what he's going to do next. He approaches her in front of his colleagues, takes her purse, checks her phone. She is terribly uncomfortable, she starts begging him and apologizing to her colleagues.
The true story of one of the interlocutors of the Safe Women's House (SŽK), which was relayed by director Ljiljana Raičević, is just one of the forms of economic violence, which, according to the latest data, is faced by every fifth woman in Montenegro.
These are the data available from the office of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Montenegro.
The research was conducted last year and should be repeated in 2019, and it showed that four percent of women declared that due to the experience of economic violence, they were prevented from working or going to work.
If you work, who will look after the child?
Among these women, according to the UNDP office, women from rural areas and those with primary education stand out more often than average.
Raičević points out that partners carry out economic violence against working women by taking money from them, and forbidding those who would like to work to look for work.
"These are very complex situations, because you have manipulations like - 'give me money, it will be better with me, you are nothing, you are incompetent, you don't know how to handle money...' She works two or three jobs, earns money and actually maintains that life in the family, and he takes her money...".
The other side of the 'medal', says Raičević, is when the partner forbids the woman to get a job, or persuades her to give up her job. First he begs her, then he blackmails her, makes jealous scenes, invents reasons like - "who will look after the child".
"She doesn't allow the child to go to kindergarten and for someone else to interfere... She thinks she earns enough on her own, even though she says she doesn't earn enough. There is always some 'logical' explanation that they will give so much money for kindergarten and the way to work, and that the children will be without parental care. He places his mother in the house and practically isolates her from everyone."
In order to have fewer arguments, women, Raičević says, often self-isolate, by quitting their job if they have been working, or stop looking for one.
"Then she deceives herself that it's better this way, because there will be less damage, fewer fights, misunderstandings that can lead to a more difficult phase, which is somewhere that physical violence, combined with all other violence."
Economic violence is accompanied by other forms
Coordinator of the Program for Gender Equality in the UNDP Office in Montenegro, Vanja Šćepović, says that it can be assumed that the data on economic violence do not reveal the real scale, because it is perceived as something that is taken for granted.
He emphasizes that economic violence is often associated with other forms of violence, such as psychological violence, which manifests itself through the control of movement, behavior and deprivation of the right to make independent decisions about income management.
"We often hear about cases in which a spouse/partner or other male family members take out loans on account of joint income. Sometimes it is even without the woman's knowledge, whereby financial institutions did not consistently implement legal norms, and sometimes the consequences are felt after a divorce where only the woman assumes the credit obligation".
Šćepović pointed out that, according to research data, 90 percent of respondents are not real estate owners.
Only four percent of houses, eight percent of land and 14 percent of cottages are owners.
"Although they are equal before the law, the customary law still prevails that women renounce inheritance in favor of male family members. This is an aggravating circumstance especially for female entrepreneurs because they do not have real estate that they could use as collateral for a loan, for example".
If a woman gets out of a marriage in which she suffers economic violence, and at the same time has children, a new disappointment awaits her, because her ex-husband often avoids paying alimony.
"And that is a kind of economic violence, because she raises her children alone. He says: 'I'm not going to pick at him, he's gone...' And what does he live on? What does she care that he doesn't have? The law is on her side because she is the guardian and because she is not the only one responsible for raising the children," says Raičević.
Often, fathers who want to avoid paying alimony "get away" with certificates that their salary is much lower than it really is. Raičević cites the example of a father who, according to the claims of his ex-wife, has an income of three to five thousand euros, and he submitted a certificate that he receives a salary of around 500 euros.
The provision of maintenance and deprivation of property are the most common complaints received by the defender of human rights and freedoms, Šućko Baković, from the sphere of economic violence.
"When it comes to economic violence, due to insufficient knowledge of the phenomenon and concept of discrimination as well as legal mechanisms for protection, such cases still remain largely unreported," the ombudsman's department states.
It is obvious, they say, that additional work needs to be done to strengthen the public's awareness of this type of domestic violence, because the focus of the campaigns was mainly on protecting the physical and psychological integrity of women.
They point out that the data indicate that violence against women and in the family is worryingly present, and that the state's response has not had the appropriate effect.
"Although the Protocol on handling, preventing and protecting against domestic violence precisely defines the responsibilities of the police, centers for social work, the judiciary, health, educational institutions and encourages the establishment of multidisciplinary cooperation between each individual body, the protection system is still characterized by the absence of timely and effective reactions, deficiencies in information exchange and interdepartmental cooperation".
Hard to prove in court
Data from the Police Directorate, which were provided to journalists by the ombudsman's office, show that in the first half of 2018, 120 criminal acts of violence in the family, or in the family community, and 13 criminal acts related to domestic violence were registered.
In the same period, the misdemeanor courts processed 1.117 cases from the area of the Law on Protection from Domestic Violence, of which 674 were in Podgorica, 254 were in the Budva Misdemeanor Court, and 189 were in the Bijelo Polje Misdemeanor Court.
"720 cases were completed, with 241 fines, 85 prison sentences, 101 suspended sentences, 53 warnings, and five educational measures. In seven cases, the request was rejected, in 28 cases the proceedings were suspended, in 182 cases an acquittal decision was made, while 18 cases were resolved in another way", according to the office of the ombudsman.
Lawyer Miloš Vuksanović says that economic violence is very difficult to prove in court, almost impossible.
"As such, it is most often only ascertained, and in the majority of cases, through the procedure of divorce and division of matrimonial assets".
Vuksanović explains that this is the most perfidious form of violence, so economic subordination of one spouse is often an introduction to other, open types of violence.
"For the reason that it is very difficult for an economically subordinate spouse to decide to start a divorce and specifically solve family problems. This gives whoever makes the financial decision a flywheel for the increasing use of other types of domestic violence," says the lawyer.
Vuksanović points out that the economic subordination of women is the most common, mostly due to the still present attitude that the husband is the one who earns and provides for the family's financial needs, while the wife takes care of the children and the household.
Protection against domestic violence and gender-based violence is regulated by the Law on protection against domestic violence, the Criminal Code, as well as laws on the prohibition of discrimination.
According to the ombudsman's office, the fine for the perpetrators of the basic type of offense is set at a fixed amount of 150 euros and is not a sufficient deterrent to the perpetrators.
"The effect of certain protective measures in misdemeanor proceedings is not certain, nor is the monitoring of their implementation fully ensured. For some of them, there is a serious dilemma about the way and place of execution, including the lack of resources, personnel and material, that accompany that execution.
Finally, the status of the victim is largely determined by measures of economic and social support, which are absent in most cases".
Despite the shortcomings, the department does not consider that the legislation is a serious obstacle for an adequate response.
"There is certainly a need for a much stronger influence in the preventive dimension, especially when it concerns raising awareness of the extent of negative consequences for victims and society as a whole".
The help of institutions is rarely sought
The UNDP office states that in the examined forms of economic violence, more than half of the women who were exposed to them did not seek any help.
"Compared to psychological forms of violence, an even lower degree of turning to anyone for help is registered, and women in particular relied to a lesser extent on the help of formal institutions and the NGO sector. In the minority of those who did, the majority turned to family or friends, while the percentage of women who turned to formal institutions did not exceed four percent in this case either."
He gives the woman from two to five euros, depending on his mood
According to Raičević, a woman who is economically dependent on her partner can hardly get out of the traumatic story she is living through.
"Even if she has been living with him for years, she is used to having someone else take care of the money. He gives her three to five, sometimes two euros, depending on his mood. He actually gives her her money. She, in fact, has no right, because she voluntarily, at least in the beginning, gave everything she earned".
Often, says Raičević, they find out that the abused woman also has a car that she claims is not hers, "even though later it turns out that it is hers as well", because she is paying it off.
The director of SŽK states that it often happens that a woman pays off a house that is not in her name.
"Rarely a woman, when buying construction or other materials or some necessities for the house, keeps receipts and evidence, because she finds it 'a bit tricky'. She says that it's all shared, that she wants a fair game, that they invest in it together... It doesn't occur to her to check in whose name the house was actually built and whose land it is on."
Bonus video:
