MEDIA RELEASE – An important day for the protection of victims of gender-based violence

Today, the SOLIDARNA Foundation must and wants to express its satisfaction with the progress seen in the measures presented by the Government led by the Prime Minister. Significant changes to the Criminal Procedure Act, the Protection Against Domestic Violence Act, the Courts Act and the Family Act have been announced. Stricter sentences, the specialization of judges, the introduction of femicide as a separate criminal offense, and the ban on the use of the pseudo-scientific term “alienation from parents”, which has caused a lot of harm to women and children who are victims and witnesses of violence, will, hopefully, significantly affect the prevention of gender-based violence against women. In order to suppress and prevent, we point out the necessity of developing programs through the educational system.

It remains to be hoped that the quality and unequivocal intentions of the Government to put victims and their protection at the center will take root in the practice of all institutions whose legal obligation is to deal with the issue of gender-based violence against women. This is a step forward, but it remains to be seen whether the public system will now take 2 steps back in implementation, as unfortunately often happens. Now it is necessary to carefully monitor and evaluate the success of the implementation. There is still a lot of work ahead of us until we can say that the protection of women, girls and all children is effective and complete. Eppur si muove!

It was a long wait, but it was welcomed. At least at this highest level. For years, organizations dedicated to the prevention and protection of women from gender-based violence have been advocating exactly these changes, but it was obviously necessary for someone “from outside”, in this case, GREVIO, to come and say what needs to be done. If we wanted to listen and cooperate together, we could have prevented many tragedies. We call on the Government and other public authorities to learn from this and prevent future tragedies together.