A new report by the Council of Europe's independent expert group responsible for monitoring implementation of the Istanbul Convention, GREVIO, recognises progress made since October 2018 but identifies areas which require urgent action from the Montenegrin authorities to bring support, protection and justice to victims of violence against women and domestic violence.
GREVIO welcomes the fact that since the adoption of its baseline evaluation report on Montenegro, the authorities have taken important steps to further align their legal and policy framework with the requirements of the Istanbul Convention. Most notably, following GREVIO's suggestion, Montenegro adopted a National Plan for the Implementation of the Istanbul Convention.
Another positive development is the improvement of data collection by introducing a new unified database shared by Centres for Social Work and the police, although significant challenges persist regarding data collection in law enforcement agencies, the judiciary, and the healthcare sector.
While noting the progress, GREVIO has also identified areas which require urgent action by the authorities.
Harmful gender stereotypes and patriarchal attitudes persist in all sectors of Montenegrin society, including in the media and politics, and shape the attitudes of professionals dealing with victims or perpetrators, such as law-enforcement officers, prosecutors, judges, social workers, and healthcare professionals. Training of these professionals is thus urgently required.
Closely related to the issue of attitudes is an urgent need to improve the handling of cases of violence against women: there are serious shortcomings in ensuring swift and impartial response to such cases by law-enforcement officials, and in the processing of cases by courts in decisions on custody and visitation rights.
There is an urgent need to provide adequate resources to Centres for Social Work to enable them to adequately support victims of violence.
Montenegro: laudable progress in countering violence against women, but urgent action needed to fight gender stereotypes, improve investigations and prosecutions, protect victims
