More NGOs ask for urgent actions following recent cases of violence against women

The network for preventing and countering violence against women, consisting in several NGOs, has asked Interior minister Marcel Vela in an open letter today to take urgent actions in this area after the recent cases of violence against women, the one of the 17yo girl set on fire by a man sentenced to life and released on parole and the case of vlogger Colo, after which the young woman who file a complaint against him had received threats. At the same time, female members of FILIA, an NGO who filed a criminal complaint, have also received threat.

The NGOs ask that those directly involved in the violence cases to be held accountable and also urged for raising awareness campaigns among citizens.

“The widespread cases of violence in the society prove the urgency these measures must be adopted by the Government”, reads an open letter.

The network shows that one in four women in Romania is physically or sexually abused by her partner at least one in a lifetime and that last year there were around 25,000 cases of hitting and other domestic violence cases, with most of the aggressors being men (91%) and most of the victims being women (70%). The same survey reveals that more than a half of Romanians (55%) considers rape justified in certain circumstances, for instance amid alcohol consumption or because a woman wears “provocative clothes”.

“We ask that laws on monitoring aggressors by electronic devices to be adopted at once,” the NGOs also asked, reminding the case of a woman in Chitila, killed by her partner this year, despite the protection order against him.

The activists also asked for the permanent training of the Interior Ministry staff that is working with case of violence against women who are victims or survivors, in order to counter prejudices related to the women’s ethnicity, social statute, religion or sexual orientation.

“Moreover, we also endorsing the establishment of a mixed woman-man police squads to handle these cases, considering the existing conservative attitudes in the Romanian society and implicitly, also among the experts handling domestic violence cases”, the documents further says.

According to Pew Research, 2017, 72% of the Romanians consider that a wife must obey to her husband, while the 2018 Gender Barometer revealed that 70% of the Romanians consider the man to be the head of the family.