A 32-year-old man has shot a 23-year-old woman in a hotel on the Tirana-Durres highway.
The suspected perpetrator is an Albanian citizen who had returned from Spain some days before. It is alleged he was in a relationship with the woman, however, when in a drunken state, his gun accidentally fired and injured her in the shoulder.
Following the incident, he fled the scene, leaving the woman alone in the hotel room. The hotel staff notified the police, and she was transported to the hospital.
Police said they have set up multiple checkpoints to try and apprehend the man.
Over the weekend, a 36-year-old man was arrested for psychically and psychologically abusing his wife. Another man, aged 56, was also arrested for assaulting his partner.
Albania saw a 13% increase in murders during 2021, with almost a third being women or girls being killed by their partner, ex-partner, or a family member.
Domestic violence remains a significant issue for the EU-hopeful, with over 50% of women and girls experiencing at least one form of domestic violence during their lifetime. According to the World Health Organisation, this is above the global average of 30%.
A senior police official released the data on homicides at the end of 2021. It found that most of those murdered by a family member or intimate partner had taken out protection orders against their assailant. This highlights another issue with a lack of enforcement for such orders.
On average, an Albanian woman was killed every three weeks in Albania during 2021. Thousands more reported assault, stalking, and other forms of abusive behaviour to the police.
While data for 2021 has not yet been made available, in 2020, 12 cases of domestic violence were reported each day. From this, the police only prosecuted 13% of cases, and no data was available on the number that were convicted.
Asides from the concerning murder rate, a recent UN Women survey found that a third of Albanian women feel unsafe in their own homes due to domestic violence. Some 53% said they had experienced violence, and 80% said they thought the risk had increased since the start of the pandemic.
Meanwhile, the vast majority of domestic violence incidents remain unreported due to the victim’s fear of reprisals or a lack of trust in police authorities. Domestic violence is also a driver of many asylum applications in the EU and UK from women fleeing abusive partners.
