Speaker of Albanian Parliament Gramoz Ruci has sent a letter to the heads of Justice and Police regarding the implementation of legislation to protect women and girls from violence.
Ruci said that “there have been positive developments regarding the drafting or improvement of legislation against domestic violence, which have significantly improved the way institutions treat cases of violence against women and girls and domestic violence.”
Unfortunately, this isn’t true.
In December 2017, the Albanian government adopted a resolution on the condemnation of violence against women and girls and ways to increase the effectiveness of legal mechanisms for its prevention. Unfortunately, since then, more than 30 women have been murdered by intimate partners or family members.
In fact, in the last 10 years, more than 100 women and girls have been killed with 90% of the perpetrators being male, and 73% being killed by their husbands.
Yesterday, the State Police announced that six women had been murdered in 2020. This is despite the fact that Exit was able to count a total of seven murders in January and February alone.
They also reported that they had 2980 reports of violence and had arrested 523 people. Unfortunately, this is not a success as it marks an arrest rate of 17.7%. The police did not provide any information on conviction rates. This arrest rate is a significant drop in the figures from the year before where there were 1140 cases and 793 convicted.
This demonstrates that women and girls access to justice for violence inflicted on them is getting much harder to attain.
Ruci did, however, note that the biggest issues in Albania were the lack of proper enforcement of protection orders and prompt execution protection orders, inadequate responses from the court system and insufficient involvement of professionals. of health, including forensic doctors.
He added that:
“The Albanian Parliament notes that the justice system (police, prosecution, courts, social services in the criminal justice system) has not been sufficiently effective in investigating and reviewing cases of domestic violence and the proper implementation of the legal provisions of the Criminal Code for punishing perpetrators and providing services to victims.”
He said the police and courts need to take a firmer stance in order to deter perpetrators and to encourage survivors to report the violence against them.
“In these circumstances, I ask you to take the necessary measures for the rigorous implementation of the provisions of the Criminal Code on domestic violence and violence against women,” he wrote in his letter
The letter was addressed to Naureda Llagami, President of the High Judicial Council, Gent Ibrahimi, Chairman of the High Council of the Prosecution, Olsian Çela, General Prosecutor and Ardi Veliu, General Director of the State Police.
