Each year on 8 March, we mark the International Women’s Day. The origin of this celebration lies in the fight for women’s rights and equal opportunities. This day is still considered a day of solidarity and promotion of social and economic rights of women.

Recently, the European Union’s Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) presented the largest survey ever conducted on violence against women, and its results are alarming. Thus, approximately 13 million women in the European Union have been subjected to physical violence during the 12 months preceding the survey, which represents 7% of women aged between 18 and 74 years. Half of the women in the EU (53%) avoid, at least sometimes, certain situations or places out of the fear of being physically or sexually abused, and 67% did not report the worst incidents of violence to the police or any other organization/institution.

Moldova is also faced with serious problems regarding the phenomenon of violence against women, and abuses most often occur in the family. Thus, according to the General Police Inspectorate of the Ministry of Interior, in the first nine months of 2013, of the total supervised restraining orders, in over 91% of cases, women and children were the victims, and in 2012 this figure was 97%. The activities promoted by the authorities to prevent and combat domestic violence cannot be denied, but improvements to components of the existing mechanism are needed to prevent and combat the phenomenon.

Promo-LEX takes this opportunity to remind central and local authorities empowered by law to prevent and combat domestic violence that they are responsible for taking all necessary measures to exercise due diligence to prevent, investigate, and punish offenders, and protect victims of violence family.

We also want to draw attention to the problem of domestic violence in Transnistria, where the situation is even more dramatic. If victims of domestic violence can contact constitutional authorities to obtain protection orders, such measures cannot be enforced in the eastern region of Moldova, due to the lack of effective government control over that territory. We use this opportunity to draw the attention of the central government to the fact that Law No.45 should be applied throughout the country. If this is impossible, central constitutional authorities are obliged to identify solutions to enforce that the rights of victims of domestic violence in the territory.

Note that, as part of the Human Rights Program, Promo-LEX lawyers provide free legal aid to victims of domestic violence from Moldova, including from the Transnistrian region, to those who have been subjected to family violence or continue to suffer today from such actions and their consequences.

Human Rights Program
Promo-LEX Association