STATUS QUO REPORT ON GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE, LEGAL FRAMEWORK AND

In accordance with the Article 118 of the Constitution of the Republic of North Macedonia, the text of the Istanbul Convention is part of the state’s legal system47 but its ratification has also created an obligation for the competent institutions to revise the existing legal framework and to take action to effectively address the causes and consequences of violence against women. [...] The drafters of the Convention have no intention of detailing the way these programmes are established and functioning, however, the ultimate goal of these programmes must be to prevent the re-execution of violence and to promote successful reintegration of the perpetrators of violence in the community. [...] Namely, the definition in the Criminal Code requires an additional criterion for prosecution and that is the existence of physical and mental injury, emotional suffering, material loss or another injury or endangerment of the freedoms and rights of the victim as a consequence of the committed crime,53 which narrows down the meaning of the status of the victim. [...] The actions of the SCW result in encouraging the perpetrator to continue with the violence – they do not prevent future violence; reaffirm the gender role of the mother as solely responsible for the care and upbringing of children and compromise the role of the victim by depriving her of services for protection from violence and of motivation to report cases of violence in the future. [...] The provider of the service for psychosocial treatment of perpetrators of violence against women and domestic violence has to inform the Centre for Social Work, at least once a month, about the course of the treatment and after the treatment it also has to submit a report on the effects of the treatment and the change of the eventual change in the perpetrator’s behaviour.87 In the event of non-com.