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A year ago, Vaida left behind a violent man. A decade of marriage set this step in motion. The woman says that at the beginning of the marriage, the man was also physically abused, but once she could not bear it, she turned to the police, the man who stopped serving was arrested.
“Then I forgave him, and he didn’t really raise his hand anymore, but the psychological violence, the constant harassment, the terrorizing, the suspicion of non-existent things, the spilling of his emotions on me, what he brings from the street, from work, lasted 10 years and all of them I lived in fear ”, says Kaunas Vaida.
PHOTO GALLERY. Ten years after the marriage, Vaida decided to end it: there was a constant psychological terror
And the psychological terror, the threats only intensified. The woman has been preparing for the change for a long time, after consulting with specialists she has decided to leave her husband and stay in a crisis center, spend a couple of months there, and today a new life is being created – that is why she advises others sisters destiny not to suffer.
“I visited a psychologist for a year, I found many answers there, I realized that our situation is terrible, that it hurts me, it hurts the children, it limits our possibilities. That the children are taking an example from us. It took me a year to understand that you have to make it clear without leaving my mother, because he finds it there, ”says Vaida.
The quarantine only exacerbated the problem of domestic violence. The constant presence of a family in the home is a major challenge, so the number of cases of violence, physical and psychological, is only increasing. If the police received 4,500 reports per month before the quarantine, the number exceeds 5,000 during the quarantine.
“We have seen a significant increase in violence during the first wave. The three Baltic states are distinguished by the level of domestic violence and this is even accompanied by criminal acts such as murder,” says Arūnas Paulauskas, Deputy Commissioner General of Police.
The violence has also led to more complaints from minors, and only phone calls have been replaced by virtual chats.
“Children communicate with us online and there are so-called online chats or so-called chatai. It is not a decrease in that aid or in those appeals, ”said Robertas Povilaitis, director of Vaikų linija.
However, as it turns out, both from women who have suffered violence and from various interviews, there are still many cases of repression. Because Lithuanians avoid seeking help. And reporting during quarantine is sometimes tricky.
“Victims of violence during quarantine do not have the opportunity to report, report or ask for help. You can do this not only by phone, but also by text message. This should be guaranteed by the general assistance center,” says the Minister of the Interior, Agnė Bilotaitė.
According to the research, 9 out of 10 perpetrators are men and almost 80 percent of the victims are women. Therefore, according to the head of the Lithuanian Organization for the Enforcement of Women’s Rights, it is necessary to pass amendments to the Law on Protection against Domestic Violence as soon as possible.
“It is necessary to establish the concept of gender violence in the Law for the Protection against Domestic Violence, which non-governmental women’s organizations have been talking about for several decades,” says the head of the organization Jurgita Cinskienė.
As the director of Frida’s Women’s Support Fund points out, helping victims of violence is just fire. And prevention is very poor.
“Prevention is bad in Lithuania, quarantine or not, we don’t have the time, the resources and worst of all we haven’t had the political will until now. We do not work with growing generations, we do not educate young people, we do not have programs ”, says Daiva Baranauskė, director of Frida.
Research shows that the number of men experiencing domestic violence is increasing slightly in Lithuania.
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