Mental violence hit me harder than physical violence, he insulted me, called me various names, tried to make my life less valuable... it hurt me terribly... When he hurt me physically, he hit me on the head, making sure that the consequences were not visible... I wanted to kill him, but I overcame myself, telling myself that it is not worth it to put my children and grandchildren in prison and because of him, Vanja from Podgorica, who turned to the Safe Women's House for help, told "Vijesta" a week ago.
She is the wife who, as she claims, was mistreated by her husband for several years while they were married, she left a week ago, since then she has been hiding from him. Some time ago, Vanja says, he appeared and started threatening to kill her, which is why the SŽK appealed to the Security Center and filed a report.
- He is a completely different man from the one I met and lived with. The last three years with him have been hell for me. At one point, he said that he wanted to destroy me psychologically - Vanja said.
The violence that the middle-aged woman from Podgorica suffered for years was family violence, and everyone "from the youngest to the oldest was treated with great evil." She says she is not afraid of his repeated physical attack, but of what she can do to him in a fit of rage.
Vanja is not the only one. Activists of the SŽK say that they encounter murder attempts with a knife, gun, wooden or metal rod, beating until unconsciousness, tying them to a bed, a chair, where the victim sometimes spends the whole day.
- Women sometimes have internal bleeding, and when they come to the hospital out of fear, they say that the injury was caused by a fall. We condemn the relaxed attitude of the doctor towards the injuries of those women, and we appeal that if the doctor notices something like that, and suspects that it is not a case of a fall, to report such a case to the police, which, after all, is his obligation - SŽK director Ljiljana Raičević told "Vijesti" .
During October, 225 women came to the SŽK office, and according to Raičević, "they haven't recorded as many calls as they received last month for a long time."
In addition to the office located in the very center of Podgorica, not even the police know about the premises of the house, where many women save their "naked lives". Raičević says that four people currently live in the house, while the arrival of another woman from abroad is expected.
- It is good that an increasing number of middle-aged and older women, who after many years of violence, are coming forward to say "enough is enough, I want to spend the rest of my life in peace". In ten years, more than 2.200 women have passed through this house - says Raičević.
Girls with drug addiction problems, attempted murders that leave lasting consequences for the victim's health, rape, are the problems faced by volunteers in SŽK.
Raičević also says that calls from the north are more frequent than from the south, which, according to her, does not mean that there is no violence in that part of Montenegro, but "that it is well hidden." He also claims that women from the Budva and Kotor areas come forward asking to be anonymous, because, as they report, "it is a big scandal and shame for the family".
The SŽK says that the profile that characterizes the abuser and the victim does not exist. They claim that, although there is a common opinion that intellectuals are not prone to violence, cases of violence occur very often in that stratum of society.
- The more intelligent men are, the more perfidious their violence is, because people of that profile play with the victim. According to the description of the injuries, sometimes it seems to us that in the evening he thinks about what he is going to do to her today or tomorrow. In rural areas, women are isolated and therefore at risk because it is difficult for them to get help. Adultery, beatings, economic isolation are endured there, where a woman can be beaten for days without anyone seeing or everyone being silent because it is normal for the boss in the house to ask questions - Raičević said.
She warns that women in Montenegro do not know their rights, nor that marital rape is a criminal offense. All married women who call for help, claim in the SŽK, when asked if they have been raped in marriage, they say that they have not.
- However, the answers are in the affirmative if they are asked whether, after the beating, the husband insisted on sexual intercourse without their consent. Only then, most of them realized that it was, after all, rape - says Raičević.
In the first half of 2009, the legal office of SOS telephone Podgorica had 57 interventions, and in addition to the number of clients, another 85 people called for help, of which 60 were women and 25 were men.
According to that office, out of the total number of men who came forward, five asked for support in family conflicts, seven reported violence against their parents by another family member, while 13 of them reported cases of violence against a sister, daughter or acquaintance.
The number of calls from family members, friends, neighbors who report violence against women has increased by 40 percent compared to the previous year, which is a clear indication that an increasing number of citizens of Montenegro do not want to see domestic violence as a normal and acceptable form of behavior. .
The executive director of the SOS telephone, Biljana Zeković, told "Vijesta" that it did not happen that women called during the actual act of violence, because in those moments they could not even reach the phone.
Every third family in Montenegro has faced violence, women are the victims in 95 percent of cases, and men are the most frequent abusers. The state, however, says that it will not tolerate violence and is preparing a draft law on protection against domestic violence.
Since the beginning of 2009, the police administration has registered a smaller number of criminal acts of violence in the family or family community than last year. From the beginning of January to November, there were 395 criminal acts. Due to the well-founded suspicion that, to the detriment of 429 persons, they committed these criminal acts, 394 reports against 406 persons were submitted to the competent prosecutors.
Of the total number of those prosecuted, as stated in the announcement of the Police Administration, 95 percent are male, of which 144 are returnees, while 429 of the 359 victims of violence are female.
- There is no area in Montenegro where the republic meets any European average when it comes to women. Only, to some extent, in education, measured by the number of female students. Women are the first to lose their jobs, they are not in management structures, employers abuse them in every way, they do not even respect the rights defined by the bad law - said Ljupka Kovačević from the Center for Women's and Peace Education "Anima".
When asked by the "Vijesti" journalist how much is talked about in Montenegro about other types of violence such as sexual harassment at work, forced labor, dismissals due to going on maternity leave, Kovačević answered that violence is "generally silent".
She added that the story makes no sense when people in the most responsible positions for those areas say the same thing about discrimination against women as they do about the LGBT population - we don't have that here.
- It is usually elaborated that in Montenegro women are the "most respected" in Europe. Women are the "largest minority" and politicians should consider them as such. Some politicians even say it, and they don't understand what it means, but they understand what it means - Albanian, Serbian, Croatian and other minorities. The problem is that someone thinks they should have more rights because they are something, in this case a man - she added.
According to Kovačević, violence and types of violence become the focus of interest of politicians and the media when a report for international organizations is to be prepared. According to her, this year too it will be said that there are no real data, and the Strategy on eliminating violence against women, which was adopted by the Government in 2003, "is sitting in the drawers and nothing has been done since the written text".
From "Anime" they believe that institutions are of crucial importance for supporting and helping women, but there are no such institutions in Montenegro, instead some NGOs do it, which is not enough to solve the situation.
Immediate ban on property
When there is a divorce case, the husband very often transfers the joint property, acquired during the marriage, to one of the family members, so the wife, as a victim, remains in an economically unenviable position. The Safe Women's House appealed to the victims to report to the cadastre as soon as there is a problem and place a ban on the sale of joint property. Most often, due to the financial situation and the impossibility of the woman getting a job, under a big campaign by her and his to return home, the victim returns to the abuser.
Thugs also lie in life
Honeymoon, as Raičević calls the period when a man begs and cries for his wife to return, is often accompanied by various declarations of love, requests and promises.
- At the moment of the worst violence, which is interesting, a large number of women told us that their husbands took them under Ostrog and swore over the relics of St. Basil that they would never marry her again. It happened that he would sleep there, and returning home, somewhere on the way to Podgorica, she would get a good beating in the car, just because he had to go to Ostrog, swear, talk to the priest - adds Raičević.
Kovačević: Krivokapić took the vote away from women
Regarding the statement of Parliament Speaker Ranko Krivokapić that Montenegro has a "healthy patriarchy", the coordinator of the Anime women's program Ljupka Kovačević said that such statements clearly show that the government has no intention of democratizing society.
- The next thing we can expect from the president of the parliament is that he advocates for religious education and a religious state, because we know who advocates for a "healthy patriarchy", they are exclusively for heterosexuality, for women in the home, unquestioning obedience to authority in all situations and on all places - she said.
Kovačević added that Krivokapić, with his statement that "children should be listened to when it comes to violence against women", excluded and took away the voice of all women in Montenegro to represent themselves and "reduced them to such immature and incapable that they need children to represent them".
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