Today was held an online presentation of the findings of the thematic report on “Addictions, domestic violence and a temporary measure for protection against gender-based and domestic violence – Mandatory treatment of the perpetrator if he uses alcohol, drugs and other psychotropic substances or has a mental illness”.
Although the issues of gender-based violence and addictions are being opened more and more often and are recognized as a problem at the individual and social level, so far in our country no research has been conducted that focuses on these two phenomena together. In addition to the actualization of these two topics, there is still a social stigma when talking about gender-based violence and about addictions.
The report includes an analysis of the connection between addiction diseases and gender-based violence, with a specific focus on the temporary measure of protection – mandatory treatment. The purpose of this research is to provide an insight into the situation with addiction diseases with a focus on the city of Skopje, in the past three years, to explain how the temporary measure of protection is pronounced and implemented in practice and whether it gives the expected results, but also to provide insight into the subjective perception and experiences of women victims of violence by a perpetrator – addict.
The key findings show that the main deficiency in the treatment of addicts who are also perpetrators of violence is insufficient cooperation and coordination between healthcare system, local government, social work centers and courts. In addition, the fact that after the end of the treatment, the perpetrators are left “on their own”, that is, there is no responsible institution or organization that follows them, is highlighted as a challenge.
You can read the full report here.
The implementation of this activity is within the framework of the project “On the way to the EU: Prevention of violence against women in the Republic of North Macedonia”, financially supported by the Foundation “Kvinna till Kvinna” (The Kvinna till Kvina Fondation), and implemented by the National Network against Violence against women and domestic violence.
