Azur, a small dog with a tail like an axe, barks like a choke. Aunt Iulia looks at him frowning. „You still look very much like your master. I should call you Vasile, but not Azur. No one will stop your mouths. In the cage,” she scolds him harshly. The dog is silent, whining softly.
The old woman breathes a sigh of relief. Silence. She finally has peace of mind. She sits on the porch of her house in a village in the center of Moldova and contemplates the peace in the courtyard bathed by the June sun. She says that the clear days will last until September 7, when her husband will get rid of the electronic bracelet attached to his leg and will have the right to return home.
For 15 years, since domestic violence began to be taxed as contravention and criminal, the woman has reported her husband to the police countless times. In addition to various temporary restrictions, the man has already been sentenced six times to prison, serving an average of one year in prison.
„I’m not afraid to hand him over to the police. I also call at midnight. How else? I’m tired of him. He says obscene words about me. The last time, after squirming and smearing me for days, he took a broom and slapped it all over my body, then showed me the axe and threatened me that this was the only way it would end. With a wire he wanted to choke me. But I don’t want to. I also want to enjoy the remaining years, because I have suffered a lot and I suffer from it,” the old woman complains.
Data from the Ministry of Interior show that, in the last decade, the number of reported cases of domestic violence has doubled. If, 10 years ago, the police recorded about 7,300 cases, then in 2023 they amounted to about 15,200. This means that, every two hours, a victim of domestic violence goes to the police.
Tired of accepting the psychological and physical torture to which she was subjected over the years, Aunt Iulia quickly understood that if she hands him over to law enforcement, she gains from a few months to a year of protection. „During this time, I go through a course of treatment, I calm down and recover. I have no other way with him. It’s very bad.”
On the other hand, it is the only solution that the authorities offer him at the moment. Although the legislation provides that the two should benefit from various specialized services to put an end to repeated violence, the reality shows that these services exist, for the most part, only on paper, their case having all the premises to enter the statistics of femicide.
***
The first conviction, Vasile received in 2014. The judge set him one year in prison for „Domestic violence”. But, because the old man was at his first conviction, admitted his guilt, cooperated with the investigation, repented and promised that he would not get his wife used to it anymore, the court suspended the execution of his sentence on the condition that „he will not commit a new crime, justifying by exemplary behavior the trust granted”.
De facto, Vasile was not exactly at the first offense, because half a year earlier Aunt Iulia had received a protection order against him, and the conviction in 2014 was just the beginning of a series of sentences pronounced jerkily, practically with the rhythm of a Swiss watch.
In 2015, Vasile is already convicted for the second time for the same crime – „Domestic violence”. He received 14 months in prison, but was released in less than a year, after the prison administration asked to release him early.
In 2017, after a huge scandal, preceded by countless other conflicts that ended either with sleeping with neighbors, or with death threats, or with beatings, or with a fine of 200 lei, or with a protection order, the pensioner obtained his third conviction: 18 months in prison for „Failure to execute the measures of the ordinance for the protection of the victim of domestic violence”.
This time too, the penitentiary administration asked the court to reduce the term of their sentence by a third, so in the summer of 2018, Vasile returned home, „corrected and re-educated, preventing the commission of new crimes”, as stipulated by the Criminal Code.
However, in 2019, the almost 70-year-old man is convicted for the fourth time, both for „Domestic violence” and for „Failure to execute the measures of the protection ordinance”. This time he receives a year and a half in prison, but in the end, 20 months turn into 6, largely due to the fact that the ECtHR found numerous violations regarding the conditions of detention in Penitentiary no. 13.
In 2020, just a few days after the release of Vasile from prison, Aunt Iulia obtains a new restraining order, and a few weeks later the man ends up behind bars for the fifth time. And in 2022, he also obtained his sixth conviction, of 6 months in prison.
Since his last release from prison, three other protection orders have been issued in the name of his aunt Iulia, and he got an electronic bracelet on his leg. „I don’t deserve jail every time, but if nowadays too many rights are given to women…”, remarks Vasile among the rolls of cigarette smoke.
However, the old man continues to drink alcohol, scream and swear around the household, humiliate his wife in various ways and even threaten her with death. In fact, the death threats became more and more pressing, with each return from prison, notes Aunt Iulia. „He already doesn’t care if he gets a new conviction or not.”
„Every night, before going to bed, I close the door. On the other one, I locked. I’m afraid to leave the house unlocked at night. When he has the bracelet on his leg, if he sees that I lock the doors, he bangs his fists on the windows every night, screaming that he still has the right to the house. When she doesn’t have a bracelet, I sleep in another room. I don’t have curcioc there and I’m very afraid,” confesses the old woman.
„I fear for my life.”
***
Angelina Zaporojan, founder of the Women’s Law Center, attests that this case of domestic violence can easily culminate in the death of the victim and has all the prerequisites to reach a figure in the statistics of femicide in Moldova, a new term introduced in the legislation in the summer of this year, in the attempt of the authorities to prevent the large number of women and girls killed by men.
In the world, in 2022 alone, almost 90,000 women were intentionally killed, that is, every 6 minutes, according to UN reports. Of these, 23 were from Moldova.
This is a high figure for our country, if we compare it with Sweden, whose population is four times larger than Moldova’s, but with the same number of cases of femicide.
„The presence of long-term physical violence, associated with other forms of violence, including murder threats,” signals a possible case of femicide, note the authors of a national study.
Aunt Iulia and Grandpa Vasile got married 52 years ago. He came from a family with 12 children, a lot of poverty and domestic violence. She came from a family with 3 children and, likewise, domestic violence. „My father killed my mother in front of me, after beating her for years, and I remained a parent to my two younger sisters at just 16 years old. Her fate was transmitted to me, I think,” she says with tears in her eyes.
A few months must have passed since the wedding, when husband Vasile „showed his face”: drinking, swearing, scandals, beatings and death threats.
At that time, there was no law to protect victims of domestic violence. It was something absolutely normal „and welcomed”. So, Aunt Iulia accepted, as most women tacitly accepted. „Be patient. That’s how we all endure. What should we do?” was the basic counseling from godmothers and relatives.
While she worked at the kindergarten, she slept there, until her husband calmed down. After retiring, she started to spend the night at the neighbors’ house, sometimes in the vineyard in front of the house, sometimes at the two girls in the city.
People and Kilometers analyzed most of the 2023 convictions of men who killed their wives, concubines, or another female relative. In more than 70% of cases, as specified in the study above, violence was the order of the day in those families, and some men ended their circle of violence by strangling them with a rope or bare hands, hitting them with their fists or objects such as an ax or hoe or stabbing them with a knife and 50 times.
Aunt Iulia thought about divorce several times, but when she communicated her intention to Vasile, he became even more violent, throwing words at her that deepened the fear in her.
„He told me that if I do this, he will set fire to the house and the whole household, and we will both stay on the roads. And I think he could do that. And the girls asked me to be patient. I’ve worked a lifetime in this household and now, at 72 years old, even if I’m going for a divorce, where should I go?”, the woman asks rhetorically.
***
Not only the „presence of long-term physical violence” signals a possible case of femicide, but also „previous convictions„, the same study shows. In the 21 cases of femicide registered last year in Moldova, half of the aggressors had a criminal record (52%), and every fifth of them had been previously convicted of acts of domestic violence.
„As a rule, in most cases of domestic violence, a conviction is enough for the aggressor to behave, but for Vasile this no longer has an effect,” says Mihai Burca, head of the Criminal Investigation Section in the district.
And the fact that a significant number of aggressors have a criminal record and reoffend shows the state’s failure to protect the victim by applying punishments that do not discourage the aggressors, that is, they did not have an effect of changing the violent behavior of the aggressor, admits prosecutor Mariana Gornea.
„All victims have the right to life without violence, all victims have the right to adequate protection, to a safe living environment, including in the family. And, in this sense, the state has a positive obligation to take all measures to ensure and guarantee these rights. Including by applying serious and harsh punishments to aggressors, in order to re-educate them and discourage them from committing other criminal acts,” Gornea explains.
At least, in the case of the last conviction of Vasile, prosecutor Alexandr Guzic did not agree with the decision of the judge of the first instance, who set a sentence of six months in prison. He appealed the decision and insisted on the initially requested term – one year and six months of detention.
According to the prosecutor, the punishment set by the trial court „will not achieve its purpose, neither of correction nor of preventing the commission of other crimes”, resulting from the fact that, previously, the man was convicted numerous times for „Domestic violence” and „Non-execution of the measures of the protection ordinance”, circumstances that „denote that the defendant is prone to commit such crimes”.
Respectively, „the application of a harsher punishment is also conditioned by the social danger posed by the person of the defendant, or all the actions of violence of the aggressor are committed against one and the same victim – the wife”. But the judges of the Appeal qualified the prosecutor’s request as unfounded and maintained the decision of the first instance „without modifications”.
Lawyer Arina Țurcanu mentions that, de facto, aggressors can easily obtain a reduction in the sentence because this is what the law provides. It is enough for them only to ask for the case to be examined in a simplified procedure.
„The simplified procedure does not apply only to particularly serious crimes, to aggravated murder and others. Since old Vasile admits his guilt, repents of what he committed, when his case is investigated and asks for the examination of the case in a simplified procedure, even if he comes for the sixth time on 201/1 of the Criminal Code (Domestic Violence – editor’s note), the judge is obliged to reduce his sentence by 1/3. And the fact that he is 74 years old, this is again taken into account and, likewise, reduces the sentence,” explains the lawyer.
„We discussed to exclude the simplified procedure for domestic violence. When this will be and if it will be, I don’t know,” Arina Țurcanu emphasizes.
***
„I’m tired of going to jail for so long. I don’t want it anymore. For as long as I can remember, I’ve had peat on my back and on the roads,” confesses Vasile while sipping a cigarette.
With the electronic bracelet on his leg, the old man stayed for three months in an abandoned house, about 300 meters from his household. She stayed in the same house this winter. It was harder then, the man remembers, that firewood was needed, but in the summer it was easier.
When he first ended up behind bars, it was terrible, he says. Then he got used to it. He is already making jokes, laughing „that he is going to kurort (sanatorium – from Russian)”. Even so, he doesn’t want to step on the threshold of prisons anymore. „You have to sit all day and do nothing. That’s great. But if I go one more time, I’m going to go for a long time,” the man grins, as if by implication.
He half-heartedly admits that he kind of hits him with a glass, but whoever doesn’t drink today, Santa apologizes. „It’s not really God forbid if I say a few words. She gets upset that I drink a glass of wine. Why won’t they let me drink? He only sees me coming out of the basement, that’s it, it’s starting. But I work in the yard…” puzzles the angry old man.
„He does things when he’s awake, I don’t deny it, but he’s more drunk,” Aunt Iulia explains later. „And when he’s drunk, he’s a crazy man. You don’t know what laughs he makes when he’s drunk. He doesn’t realize what he’s doing and jumps into the fight, if I tell him something.”
The alcohol addiction of aggressors is also one of the major risk factors associated with femicide in Moldova. 15 out of 21 aggressors (71%) suffered from this vice last year, when they killed their female partners or relatives.
Although Vasile has been on the narcologist’s record for a long time, he has not followed an alcoholic detoxification treatment for years. „We can’t force them, and they don’t want it of their own free will, because they don’t admit that they have such a problem. And we take them to treatment when they become delirious,” explains family doctor Natalia Starostenco.
„Toughening sanctions, publicizing sentences and protection and prevention measures, working permanently with both abusers and victims or potential victims, will contribute to preventing and combating gender-based violence and femicide,” the same national study also mentions.
But the analysis of the cases of femicide committed last year revealed that, before the tragedy happened, no victim or aggressor benefited from specialized services, including no aggressor followed correction programs.
If we draw a parallel with the case of the two spouses from central Moldova, they did not „bathe” in specialized services or programs either. It is true that, about ten years ago, Aunt Iulia went to the psychologist twice, then gave up due to lack of money to pay for her journey to the district center. At the same time, Vasile was never included in any program to reduce aggression and underwent alcohol detoxification treatment in Chisinau only once.
This happens because, as experts, studies and statistical data confirm, in addition to the fact that the existing state services for victims and aggressors are few, many do not even know about their existence. Moreover, there is a shortage of specialists, and those employed are not sufficiently trained.
The public authorities do not have any day center where victims can benefit from psychological counseling, says Angelina Zaporojan, founder of the Women’s Law Center. „The existing ones, about 10 in number, belong to NGOs specialized in assisting victims.”
In order to meet European standards, we would need one counseling center for every 50 thousand women. Compared to the number of women in Moldova, at least 25 such centers would be needed, practically one in each district.
At the moment, nine state centers are available in Moldova (with only 182 shelter places) out of the total need of 356 centers, according to a recent report. „These (state) centers serve a diverse group of people, and most of the services are crisis, providing emergency and not long-term intervention for victims of violence.”
The only rehabilitation center for family aggressors in Moldova is located in Drochia. In 2023, 96 people managed to benefit from the assistance of this center.
***
The prevention of cases of femicide, but also of the phenomenon of domestic violence, are closely linked to the specialized services that should be available, efficient and accessible for victims and aggressors, says Daniela Misail-Nichitin, Secretary of State at the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
„Given the budgetary limitations that we have, at the moment, the development partners in the social, medical field are the ones who could contribute for a short or medium period of time in the development of these services, which are extremely expensive. In addition to this, the big challenge is also for the multidisciplinary team, which has a major role,” says Misail-Nichitin.
Multidisciplinary teams, usually made up of the mayor, social worker, policeman, doctor and teacher, as the case may be, should play a primary role in the prevention and protection of victims of domestic violence. They are the ones who draw up intervention plans, assess the situation and risks, identify the mental and physical needs of victims and aggressors, decide which services to direct them to or whether emergency help should be provided, writes an analysis.
But the activity of these multidisciplinary teams is more than vicious, says Viorica Țâmbalari, director of the National Agency for Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence.
Analyzing the work of these teams, the official discovered that its members do not even know when they should convene, who should convene them and what they should do when they are convened, respectively, they do not even convene. The explanation is as simple as it is banal: „because they are not obliged to do so”. „We plan to train all multidisciplinary teams,” Țâmbalari assures.
The social worker from the village of aunt Iulia and old man Vasile confirms that the two have been on the record of the local public authorities since the woman started calling the police, that is, for about 12 years.
„At the beginning, we gathered with the multidisciplinary team and called Vasile to the town hall, we talked to him, we informed about the violence, we gave advice, but it did not and does not have any effect. He continues to mock her anyway and not give her peace. Then, some of the members of the commission said: ‘What am I going to discuss with the old man so much, when I alone have problems in the family?’ And we are no longer addressing this case.”
In order to prevent and reduce the large number of women and girls killed by men, on August 15, 2024, the notion of femicide was introduced in the Law on Preventing and Combating Domestic Violence. „Violence against women, in its extreme forms, can result in their death, as could be the case with Aunt Iulia,” admits Angelina Zaporojan, founder of the Women’s Law Center.
However, the appearance of a new term in the anti-violence legislation does not imply a rapid change in the existing realities, the authorities will propose an action plan by February 15, 2025, which provides for clear prevention measures. Even so, „this plan does not mean that in six months everything will be implemented,” explains lawyer Arina Țurcanu, „but that it will be planned, and the cases of femicide, unfortunately, that will happen in these six months, will not be judged according to the new law.”
Most prevention measures related to femicide and victim protection are the responsibility of the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection (MMPS). Felicia Bechtoldt, Secretary of State at the MMPS, assures that measures are already being taken on the entire segment of domestic violence.
„From 2024, we have hired a specialist in each district to be responsible for all cases of domestic violence in the district and to provide support. All 10 territorial social assistance agencies were equipped with a car to be used especially for cases of domestic violence. We train 980 community assistants on how to approach a case of domestic violence and what services are in their communities. We will invest the 133 thousand euros offered by the Council of Europe in some spaces that we have identified in localities where there are no placement and/or day services for victims of domestic violence,” the secretary of state lists the measures taken by the ministry.
But the effects of the law and of all the prevention measures identified this year will be seen in time, both officials and experts confess, without specifying how many years it would take to have zero cases of femicide.
***
It’s a warm autumn day. Azur almost breaks the chain, spitting dung on the ground. Vasile looks at him proudly and shouts to him from the front of the house, while preparing a cigarette: „Azur, you are my heart!”
In the morning he was just at another end of the village and mowed the wild and yellowish grass on the side of the road. He still has five of the 45 hours of unpaid work and escapes the punishment he received after violating the protection ordinance in the summer.
He returned home a few weeks ago. Together with Aunt Iulia, they picked the apple and the corn. The wine is already boiling in barrels. Apparently, everything seems quiet and well-intentioned in the lives of the two retirees. But Aunt Iulia has no peace and quiet and looks at her husband with fear. One evening, after drinking some must and a couple of glasses of wine, he yelled at him when the whole slum heard him: „Because of you I’m walking on the roads and I’m going to hit you in the head with a hoe…”
„You know, I have to take it with the good guy, otherwise it won’t work. He is always arrogant. But I told him: just try to do something to me and I’ll call the police. I don’t know how I’m going to get out of all this. I don’t know what the story between the two of us will end with,” the old woman confesses in whispers, so that the man does not hear her.
Now Vasile is waiting for a new trial. „It’s criminal, bl*a,” he hisses under his silver whiskers. „I don’t understand, what keeps taking me on the roads? Either to give me more, or to kill me, or…”
He looks at Aunt Iulia with glassy eyes, then leaves the yard.
If you are abused or have witnessed an incident of domestic violence, call 112.
At the same time, you can call the women’s helpline 08008 8008 or the free legal advice line for victims of violence 0800 80000 between 08:00 and 17:00.
Also, turn to any of the NGOs that provide counseling and assistance to victims of domestic violence – https://stopviolenta.md.
Photo – Polina Cupcea and Mihail Călărășan