Almost half of the male population in Montenegro believes that women like it when the men they work with give them sexual attention, while every third man claims that women sometimes make up stories about sexual violence in order to extort money from their employers.
As announced by the non-governmental organization (NGO) Safe Women's House, these are the findings of research on the perception of sexual violence against girls and women in Montenegro, conducted by the agency Defacto Consultancy.
The research was conducted as part of the project "Protected and safe - Fight against sexual violence in Montenegro", said the NGO, emphasizing that the results are alarming.
"Almost half of the men, or 44,8 percent of the respondents, think that women like it when the men they work with give them sexual attention," the announcement says.
It is stated that every third man, or 34,5 percent of respondents, claims that women sometimes make up stories about sexual violence in order to extort money from their employers.
More than a quarter of respondents, or 26.2 percent of them, believe that women who say they have experienced sexual violence often make up or exaggerate their claims of abuse or rape.
From that NGO, they stated that 25.4 respondents think that rape victims are actually women who had sexual intercourse, but "changed their minds" after it.
"Every fifth man believes that when women say "No", they actually mean "Yes", said the Safe Women's House.
They added that almost a fifth of respondents, or 18.8 percent of them, believe that if a woman is raped, she most often did something that led to it.
As stated by Sigurna ženka, the research showed that sexual violence, for women, is one of the most important problems in Montenegro.
"A greater number of women, 55.9 percent of them compared to 40.4 percent of men, believe that sexual violence occurs often," said the NGO.
They said that every third woman between the ages of 18 and 34 believes that she is at risk of sexual violence.
"The most common reason given is that we live in a violent society," the NGO added.
The research showed that, in terms of sexual violence, girls and women feel the least safe in the cafes and bars where they go out.
"Every seventh respondent feels unsafe. "One in ten claims that they do not feel safe in the city where they live, while 5.8 percent of respondents do not feel safe at their job," stated the Safe Women's House.
The dominant majority of respondents, 77.7 percent of them, agree that the punishments for perpetrators of sexual violence in Montenegro are too light.
As they said from the Safe Women's House, 69.6 percent of respondents believe that victims of this type of violence are condemned in advance by society.
"Out of 80 cases of sexual violence, which we recorded during the conduct of public opinion research, the case was reported in only ten, prosecuted in two, and the perpetrator legally sanctioned in only one," said the NGO.
As they added, the most common reasons for not reporting sexual violence are fear and embarrassment from the public, lack of trust in institutions, patriarchal upbringing and tradition, as well as the victim's doubt that anyone would believe them.
A third of respondents claim that they are not informed about sexual violence, and the main reasons are the lack of information in the media and the fact that the information is superficial and too general.
"More than 40 percent of respondents would like to receive additional information about ways to protect themselves from sexual violence, most often through TV, 41.7 percent of them, or through Internet portals, 31.7 percent of them," said the NGO.
As they explained, the research was conducted on a sample of 800 respondents aged 18 to 65.
The project "Protected and safe - the fight against sexual violence in Montenegro" is implemented by the Safe Women's House and financed by the Embassy of the Kingdom of Norway and the Balkan Fund for Democracy of the German Marshall Fund of the USA.
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