OSCE training strengthens criminal justice response to violence against women and girls in North Macedonia

From 16 to 20 October 2023, the OSCE delivered a national training course on gender-responsive policing of violence against women and girls in Popova Šapka. The course – organized by the OSCE Secretariat’s Transnational Threats Department (TNTD), the OSCE Mission to Skopje, and the Police Training Centre of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in North Macedonia – was delivered by the six national police officers and prosecutors who had previously benefited from the TNTD’s train-the-trainers course in Warsaw. Twenty-two police officers and prosecutors from various municipalities in North Macedonia - twelve women and ten men – learned to respond to cases of violence against women and girls while maintaining a victim-centred approach.

“This training course contributes to the institutionalization of the curriculum for the continuous training of police officers and prosecutors from North Macedonia on the topic of gender-responsive policing of violence against women and girls. The participants act as agents of change in their respective units, enabling law enforcement responses to cases of gender-based violence in North Macedonia,” said Suza Trajkovska, Assistant Minister and Director of the Police Training Centre under the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

“After participating in the OSCE training in Warsaw last year, I understand much more about the gender aspects of gender-based violence, especially the fact that perpetrators take advantage of their physical superiority. Once, when I interrogated a perpetrator and asked if he would have treated a male the same way, he answered that he would not have done so because a man would have the strength to defend himself. I now understand that perpetrators of gender-based violence deserve a stronger reaction from the judge, something I take into consideration in my cases,” said Gazmend Mehmeti, prosecutor and one of the trainers.

“This training is crucially important in the current context in which – according to the research recently conducted by the Council of Europe Expert Group GREVIO (Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence) – 'traditional beliefs pose a serious challenge to combating violence against women in North Macedonia, including the views that domestic violence is a private matter,” said Bjorn Tore Saltvik, project manager and OSCE Adviser on Police Development and Reform.

 “The focus must always be on the victim. Women and girls who have been victimized must be able to have full confidence and trust in the state and its agencies, not least in the police, that they will meet officers who understand their situation, who are sensitive to their traumatic experience, who will support them, and who will help them to get justice. I was very happy to see how much attention the programme of this training has paid to the victim’s perspective,” emphasized Florian Träger-Steintjes, representative of the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Skopje.

TNTD will continue to support the criminal justice practitioners from South-Eastern Europe in their fight against violence against women and girls and deliver similar training courses to law enforcement also in Albania and Serbia throughout November 2023, in addition to the ones already organized in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro.

These activities contribute to the implementation of the Council of Europe’s Istanbul Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence. Organized in the framework of the OSCE project Enhancing Criminal Justice Capacities for Combating Gender-based Violence in South-Eastern Europe, they are funded by Germany, Norway, Finland, Austria, France and Italy.