Victims of domestic violence appeal to law enforcement bodies more often

More and more victims of family violence and trafficking in human beings appeal to court to have their rights respected. In Anenii Noi district alone, eight cases of abuse in the family were reported over the first five months of this year. Seven such cases were identified and solved in Moldova throughout 2008, lawyer Ion Oboroceanu said at a news conference on Friday, Info-Prim Neo reports. “In order to make more victims of abuse report the violence, the judiciary procedure must be improved and the population must be informed. The authorities should involve more actively. The state institutions should not shift the responsibility for informing, preventing and rehabilitating the victims of violence and solving these cases onto nongovernmental organizations,” said Ion Oboroceanu, president of the Law Center in Causeni. “The law obliges the state to set up rehabilitation centers for the victims of domestic violence and human trafficking. But the centers that we have are financed by NGOs and when the money is used up, the centers are closed,” the lawyer said. Most of the cases of abuse happen when the people are not informed. The family violence is no more a private, but a social problem. It was proven that if a person abuses one time, they will abuse the second time and will continue until they are punished,” Oboroceanu said. “The judiciary procedure for examining cases of abuse is difficult. We will demand that the legislation is amended so that the prosecuting officer hears the victim only one time,” the lawyer said. At a press club meeting, Maria Popovici, head of the Interior Ministry’s Minors and Vices Department, said that the law enforcement bodies during the first five months of this year have opened 192 legal cases over child abuse. 45 of them concerned sexual abuse. In four cases, the children died after abused. Since March this year until present, the Law Center in Causeni has implemented a project titled “Say No to Family Violence and Human Trafficking” with financial support from the American Bar Association – Rule of Law Initiative, through the United States Agency for International Development.