Analytical Report: Analysis of Monitoring of the Criminal and Minor Offence Proceedings in the Area of Protection from Gender Based Violence in the Bosnia and Herzegovina
United Women Banja Luka and Center of legal assistance for women Zenica produced the Analytical Report: Analysis of Monitoring of the Criminal and Minor Offence Proceedings in the Area of Protection from Gender Based Violence in the Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Violence against women is still invisible, because it is actually much more represented than shown in numbers currently available to the public. Lack of recognizing of acts of violence by the victims, fear, insecurity due to economic dependence, and general mistrust in work of the judicial institutions are contributing to this, and emphasizes necessity of developing integrated policies of preventing and combating violence against women.
The issue of violence against women should not be narrowed to the committed criminal offence, but also perceived as disturbing and widespread social phenomena that should be addressed through systemic and parallel actions. criminal prosecution is only one aspect of social response on violence against women, which is insufficient and still not satisfactory.
As the first step, it is necessary to establish the common data base, and based on collected data to develop adequate policies for preventing and combating violence against women. In this process, civil society organizations with long term experience in the area of protecting women from violence are irreplaceable partners to the state institutions. Until we put in use the precise data on general prevalence of violence against women, it is of special importance to analyze available data on criminal offence cases in which violence against women is processed.
Criminal proceedings represent useful basis for identifying general prevalence of specific criminal offences of violence against women, structure of the perpetrators, and institutional reaction on acts of violence against women, and adequacy of support to women victims
