Domestic violence in Romania

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Domestic violence in Romania constitutes a social issue.

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Domestic violence (DV) in the country was largely ignored during the Communist era, and development has been slow during the transition period in the 1990s, but it has started to be addressed, socially and legally, in the 21st century. In 2016, Romania ratified the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (Istanbul Convention). [1]

History

Before 1990, DV was not treated as a social issue. Public awareness of the problem of DV is a relatively recent development, which stated to develop in the mid-1990s, with the most prominent issue at that time being that of child abandonment. [2]

The Penal Code was amended by Law no. 197/2000 creating sanctions for persons who perpetrate acts of violence against family members; and stipulating that in case of the rape of a family member, the punishment is harsher. Since the law acknowledged that rape can be committed by a family member, with a family member being defined as including a spouse, this had the effect to criminalize marital rape. Other important changes that were made to the rape law were the removal of the stipulation that a perpetrator could escape punishment if, after the rape, he married the victim. [2] [3] [4]

Law no. 217/2003 on the prevention of family violence was Romania's first specific law dealing with DV. This law was substantially amended in 2012.

The current 2012 DV law brought important new changes, especially in regard to protection orders. [5] This law describes seven types of DV: [6]

a) verbal violence (aggressive language, insults, threats, humiliation)

b) psychological violence (includes controlling behavior, provoking psychological harm and tensions on the victim, endangering animals, destroying property, threats, displaying weapons, excessive jealousy, and other controlling behaviors)

c) physical violence (several acts are described by the law, including hitting, punching, poisoning)

d) sexual violence (coercion and harassment into sexual activity, including marital rape. Marital rape, in Romanian viol conjugal, is explicitly listed as sexual violence)

e) economic violence (includes the prohibition of working outside the home, depriving family members of food or clothes, as well as forced child labor of a minor child)

f) social violence (includes isolating the victim, forbidding them to see family or friends, it also includes stopping family members from attending school)

g) spiritual violence (stopping family members from pursuing cultural, ethic or religious interests, or forcing them to pursue certain beliefs/spiritual practices)

Current situation

In Romania, 800 people were killed in DV incidents between 2004 and 2011. [7] The laws on DV are not strictly enforced - one year after the 2012 law, there had been 1009 files for protection orders; only 23% ended in criminal proceedings as they were supposed to. [8]

Social views

In the 2010 Eurobarometer poll on violence against women, 39% of Romanian respondents said that they thought DV in their country was "very common", 45% "fairly common", 8% "not very common", 0% "not at all common", and 8% did not know/did not answer. [9] Victim blaming attitudes are common in Romania. In a 2013 Romanian survey, 30.9% of respondents agreed with the assertion that "women are sometimes beaten due to their own fault". [10] In the 2010 Eurobarometer survey, 58% of Romanians agreed that the "provocative behaviour of women" was a cause of violence against women. [9]

See also

Related Research Articles

Acquaintance rape is rape that is perpetrated by a person who knows the victim. Examples of acquaintances include someone the victim is dating, a classmate, co-worker, employer, family member, spouse, counselor, therapist, religious official, or medical doctor. Acquaintance rape includes a subcategory of incidents labeled date rape that involves people who are in romantic or sexual relationships with each other. When a rape is perpetrated by a college student on another student, the term campus rape is sometimes used.

Marital rape or spousal rape is the act of sexual intercourse with one's spouse without the spouse's consent. The lack of consent is the essential element and need not involve physical violence. Marital rape is considered a form of domestic violence and sexual abuse. Although, historically, sexual intercourse within marriage was regarded as a right of spouses, engaging in the act without the spouse's consent is now widely classified as rape by many societies around the world, repudiated by international conventions, and increasingly criminalized.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LGBT rights in Romania</span>

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons in Romania may face legal challenges and discrimination not experienced by non-LGBT residents. Attitudes in Romania are generally conservative, with regard to the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender citizens. Nevertheless, the country has made significant changes in LGBT rights legislation since 2000. In the past two decades, it fully decriminalised homosexuality, introduced and enforced wide-ranging anti-discrimination laws, equalised the age of consent and introduced laws against homophobic hate crimes. Furthermore, LGBT communities have become more visible in recent years, as a result of events such as Bucharest's annual pride parade and Cluj-Napoca's Gay Film Nights festival.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Violence against women</span> Violent acts committed primarily against women and girls

Violence against women (VAW), also known as gender-based violence and sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), are violent acts primarily or exclusively committed by men or boys against women or girls. Such violence is often considered a form of hate crime, committed against women or girls specifically because they are female, and can take many forms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Human rights in Romania</span> The problems and the constitutional rights.

Human rights in Romania are generally respected by the government. However, there have been concerns regarding allegations of police brutality, mistreatment of the Romani minority, government corruption, poor prison conditions, and compromised judicial independence. Romania was ranked 59th out of 167 countries in the 2015 Democracy Index and is described as a "flawed democracy", similar to other countries in Central or Eastern Europe.

Statistics on rape and other sexual assaults are commonly available in industrialized countries, and have become better documented throughout the world. Inconsistent definitions of rape, different rates of reporting, recording, prosecution and conviction for rape create controversial statistical disparities, and lead to accusations that many rape statistics are unreliable or misleading.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rape</span> Type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse without consent

Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or against a person who is incapable of giving valid consent, such as one who is unconscious, incapacitated, has an intellectual disability, or is below the legal age of consent. The term rape is sometimes used interchangeably with the term sexual assault.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Domestic violence</span> Abuse of members of the same household

Domestic violence is violence or other abuse that occurs in a domestic setting, such as in a marriage or cohabitation. Domestic violence is often used as a synonym for intimate partner violence, which is committed by one of the people in an intimate relationship against the other person, and can take place in relationships or between former spouses or partners. In its broadest sense, domestic violence also involves violence against children, parents, or the elderly. It can assume multiple forms, including physical, verbal, emotional, economic, religious, reproductive, or sexual abuse. It can range from subtle, coercive forms to marital rape and other violent physical abuse, such as choking, beating, female genital mutilation, and acid throwing that may result in disfigurement or death, and includes the use of technology to harass, control, monitor, stalk or hack. Domestic murder includes stoning, bride burning, honor killing, and dowry death, which sometimes involves non-cohabitating family members. In 2015, the United Kingdom's Home Office widened the definition of domestic violence to include coercive control.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women in Malaysia</span> Overview of the status of women in Malaysia

Women in Malaysia receive support from the Malaysian government concerning their rights to advance, to make decisions, to health, education and social welfare, and to the removal of legal obstacles. The Malaysian government has ensured these factors through the establishment of Ministry of National Unity and Social Development in 1997. This was followed by the formation of the Women's Affairs Ministry in 2001 to recognise the roles and contributions of Malaysian women.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crime in Romania</span> Ongoing crime in Romania

Crime in Romania is combated by the Romanian Police, Gendarmerie and other agencies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Domestic violence in India</span>

Domestic violence in India includes any form of violence suffered by a person from a biological relative but typically is the violence suffered by a woman by male members of her family or relatives. Although Men also suffer Domestic violence, the law under IPC 498A specifically protects only women. Specifically only a woman can file a case of domestic violence. According to a National Family and Health Survey in 2005, total lifetime prevalence of domestic violence was 33.5% and 8.5% for sexual violence among women aged 15–49. A 2014 study in The Lancet reports that although the reported sexual violence rate in India is among the lowest in the world, the large population of India means that the violence affects 27.5 million women over their lifetimes. However, an opinion survey among experts carried out by the Thomson Reuters Foundation ranked India as the most dangerous country in the world for women.

Prosecution of gender-targeted crimes is the legal proceedings to prosecute crimes such as rape and domestic violence. The earliest documented prosecution of gender-based/targeted crimes is from 1474 when Sir Peter von Hagenbach was convicted for rapes committed by his troops. However, the trial was only successful in indicting Sir von Hagenbach with the charge of rape because the war in which the rapes occurred was "undeclared" and thus the rapes were considered illegal only because of this. Gender-targeted crimes continued to be prosecuted, but it was not until after World War II when an international criminal tribunal – the International Military Tribunal for the Far East – were officers charged for being responsible of the gender-targeted crimes and other crimes against humanity. Despite the various rape charges, the Charter of the Tokyo Tribunal did not make references to rape, and rape was considered as subordinate to other war crimes. This is also the situation for other tribunals that followed, but with the establishments of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), there was more attention to the prosecution of gender-targeted crimes with each of the statutes explicitly referring to rape and other forms of gender-targeted violence.

Domestic violence in Lithuania is a pervasive social problem.

Violence against women, particularly intimate partner violence and sexual violence, is a major public health problem and a violation of women's human rights in Pakistan. Violence against women in Pakistan is part of an issue that faces the entire region the country is situated in. Pakistan is a highly patriarchal society, and took a long time to enact laws for the protection of women. In the 2019 Women, Peace and Security Index, Pakistan ranked 164 out of 167 countries. Pakistan is worst among nine South Asian countries on access to mobile phones, financial inclusion, and discriminatory norms for women. Around 12.2 million girls, compared with 10.6 million boys, remain out of school in Pakistan, poverty compounding challenges to girls' educational opportunities. The only positive to take from the Index was Pakistan's achievement of 20 per cent representation for women in parliament and a slightly better indicator than India on bias towards sons. In 2017 there were an estimated 746 honour crimes, 24 stove burnings, 18 cases of settlement marriages. Many cases go unreported, and many of these reported cases go unprosecuted. Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) system in 2017 has been hailed as a success in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Legal experts are critical of the system, noting that ADR can delay action. Many remain concerned with patriarchal influence in a decision-making process that has traditionally disadvantaged women. In 2019, the Ombudsman for Sindh province informed the Supreme Court that out of 350 cases, action was taken in just eight cases. The largest province, Punjab, has received 116 complaints since the establishment of the office in 2013, resulted in 42 convictions, 15 acquittals, 27 withdrawals, and 24 still ongoing cases. It also reviewed 13 appeals. Four decisions were set aside, five decisions upheld, two cases were declared time-barred, while two remain ongoing. Women in Pakistan mainly encounter violence by being forced into marriage, through workplace sexual harassment, domestic violence and by honour killings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Violence against women in India</span> Public health issue of violent acts against women

Violence against women in India refers to physical or sexual violence committed against a woman, typically by a man. Common forms of violence against women in India include acts such as domestic abuse, sexual assault, and murder. In order to be considered violence against women, the act must be committed solely because the victim is female. Most typically, these acts are committed by men as a result of the long-standing gender inequalities present in the country.

Domestic violence in Kenya constitutes any harmful behavior against a family member or partner, including rape, assault, physical abuse, and forced prostitution. Domestic violence in Kenya reflects worldwide statistics in that women are the overwhelming majority of victims. Over 40% of married women in Kenya have reported being victims of either domestic violence or sexual abuse. Worldwide, over 30% of "ever-partnered women" aged 15 and older have experienced physical or sexual partner violence. The distinct factors and causes of this high percentage have often not been studied due to lack of data.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coaliția pentru Familie</span> Romanian NGO association

Coaliția pentru Familie is an association of about 30 Romanian non-governmental organizations. It seeks to promote the traditional family, and it is also involved in the anti-abortion movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sexual assault of LGBT persons</span>

Sexual assault of LGBT people, also known as sexual and gender minorities (SGM), is a form of violence that occurs within the LGBT community. While sexual assault and other forms of interpersonal violence can occur in all forms of relationships, it is found that sexual minorities experience it at rates that are equal to or higher than their heterosexual counterparts. There is a lack of research on this specific problem for the LGBT population as a whole, but there does exist a substantial amount of research on college LGBT students who have experienced sexual assault and sexual harassment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marital rape laws by country</span>

This article provides an overview of marital rape laws by country.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Domestic violence in South Korea</span> Domestic violence directed against women in South Korea

Domestic violence in South Korea is the mental, physical, verbal or sexual abuses or crimes of violence committed towards a victim in a domestic setting of marital relations and cohabitation. Domestic violence describes violence towards a domestic partner, towards children and between siblings. According to the Domestic Violence Survey of South Korea in 2010, elder abuse was estimated to be 10%, physical abuse accounted for 2.2%, emotional abuse 9%, economic abuse 1.2%, and neglect 2.5%. Marital violence has been the most prevalent form of family violence in South Korea. One out of six couples in South Korea had more than one episode of physical violence from their spouse.

References

  1. ↑ "Full list".
  2. 1 2 "American Bar Association : Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative" (PDF). Apps.americanbvar.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-03. Retrieved 2016-04-21.
  3. ↑ "The Secretary Generals database on violence against women". Sgdatabase.unwomen.org. Archived from the original on 2014-04-08. Retrieved 2014-04-08.
  4. ↑ "Role of Traditions: Rape and sexual assault in Romania". impowr.org. Archived from the original on 2014-04-08. Retrieved 2014-04-08.
  5. ↑ "Take action Say NO UNiTE | UN Women - Headquarters" (PDF). Saynotoviolence.org. 2013-12-10. Retrieved 2014-04-08.[ permanent dead link ]
  6. ↑ "Legea 25/2012 privind modificarea si completarea Legii nr. 217/2003 pentru prevenirea si combaterea violentei in familie. Lege nr. 25/2012". Dreptonline.ro. Retrieved 2014-04-08.
  7. ↑ "STRATEGIA NAŢIONALĂ PENTRU PREVENIREA ŞI COMBATEREA FENOMENULUI VIOLENŢEI ÎN FAMILIE" (PDF). Mmuncii.ro. Retrieved 2016-04-21.
  8. ↑ "Harta violentei domestice din Romania: Aradul se numara printre judetele cu cele mai putine cazuri raportate! | Arad" (in Romanian). Ziare.com. Retrieved 2014-04-08.
  9. 1 2 "Domestic Violence against Women Report" (PDF). Ec.europa.eu. 2010. Retrieved 2016-04-21.
  10. ↑ "AUGUST 2013:VIOLENŢA ÎN FAMILIE (I) | INSCOP". Inscop.ro. Retrieved 2014-04-08.
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