During 2017, over 200 criminal acts of domestic violence were registered, and 203 persons were suspected of that criminal act, a fifth of whom are returnees, Minister of the Interior Mevludin Nuhodžić announced at a joint session of three parliamentary committees.
Nuhožić and his fellow ministers of labor and health, Kemal Purišić and Kenan Hrapović, were heard in the Parliament before members of the committee for political system, health and gender equality, as well as civil sector activists.
"Tradition and the conditions in which we live do not justify these statistics. Any violence in the family and against children will be a priority of the MUP, we will not tolerate it and we will punish it severely," he said.
The Minister of Labor said that 2017 cases of domestic violence were reported to social work centers in 1.290.
"We must strengthen the institutions and the people who work in them to work with victims of violence," he added.
Hrapović assessed that no society should tolerate violence:
"We must devote ourselves to the full implementation of the law and other acts that we have adopted".
Ljiljana Raičević from the Safe Women's House told the ministers and MPs that "the state does not care".
"Because if it was, we would boast today that we have a hidden place for victims. The whole town knows where the house where we put the victims is. Foreigners paint it for us, buy furniture, feed our women and children, victims of violence. No mayor has ever visited us. So you don't care," she said.
She added that there are abusers in the police ranks and in state bodies, but they are protected by their colleagues.
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