1Reviews and everything / An Order Granted Victim

Alex Kvartalny @ flamedragon27.blogspot.com

Group 501

An Order Granted Victim

Domestic violence in its most brutal and rough form – battering – is regarded almost as a traditional family relationship in Belarus. In 2003, 2.2 thousand of domestic crimes were committed in Belarus, among them there are 165 homicides and 380 cases of grave bodily injuries. Over 5 months in 2004, 1.3 thousand crimes, including 77 homicides and 186 cases of grave bodily injuries, were registered.

But domestic violence is not limited to criminally punishable acts. According to Anna Burovaya, Alexander Svirid and Nadezda Tsyrkun, the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of the Republic of Belarus representatives, humiliation is also an act of violence. That is why the members of the parliament have drafted and introduced into the Parliament the Prevention and Interception of Domestic Violence Act. This bill implies protecting victims of domestic violence regardless of their sex and age. (For this purpose such terms as “dependent members of the family” and “violence victims” are going to be introduced. The terms can be applied to both men and women. Children, adults, the senior). Besides the terms “physical abuse” and “sexual harassment”, some new terms for the Belarusian legislation like “psychological abuse” and “economic abuse” have been introduced. The bill also suggests certain preventive measures – a restraining order for abusers and a temporary protective order for victims. The second stage of protection is the judicial delivery of an official warning and granting a victim with a permanent protection order. An official warning will restrain an aggressor from using joint property on their own, oblige him or her to pay the accommodation expenses and provide support for the victim’s living expenses. Should the official warning be violated, administrative or criminal action can be brought against the violator. To get a temporary protection order, all the victim should do is to request it in the written for at the police department. This seems to be the bill’s weak point. Similar preventive measures are successful in the USA since the country has a different legal system. Even the conflicts among neighbours are resolved there in the written form “with the help of their own lawyer”. Belarusian people have a different idea about family and the ethics of legal relationship. Often, victims of domestic violence resort to the help of law enforcement agencies only when the police have already arrived because of the neighbours’ phone call. And they withdraw their complaints from the police department the very next day. Besides, the idea “protective order” can easily be ruined by the housing problem. Abroad the “protective order” aims at avoiding the tragedy and placing the two spouses on both sides of the “boxing ring”: one of the parties is asked to change the place of residence, this also applied to the victim of battering who has violated the protection order and the victim can also be held accountable for having violated the regulation or for the refusal to cooperate with law enforcement agencies. It will be difficult to put the law into practice because of the republic’s housing problem. And if the violator and his victim reverse roles, it will be difficult to find out “who was the first to complain”…

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