ESE documentary on the violence against women

Life in a shadow

The Association for Emancipation, Solidarity and Equality of the women in the Republic of Macedonia – ESE, on the occasion of the International Women’s Day, 8 March, promoted the short documentary on the problem of family violence – “Life in a shadow”. The film is divided in three parts, each one consisting of a confession of a woman who has been victim of family violence, as well as statistics and citizens’ attitudes regarding this problem, information on the services one can get at the help institutions and the ways of supporting the victims of family violence. The documentary, which is also translated in Albanian, was produced by ESE and realized in cooperation with the Macedonian Institute for Media. In order to make it more present among the female population, the film will be shown on several national TV stations, and ESE is negotiating with MTV, ALSAT and several other media houses.

“The documentary’s goal is to remind that half of the women, as many as 50.6% are still suffering mental violence”, said Vesna Jovananova, development coordinator at ESE at the presentation. He pointed to some data of their research according to which, 17.7% of the women are faced with physical violence every day and 10.6% are victims of sexual abuse. The law in our country foresees punishment for family violence lasting from three months to a lifetime in prison. They say at ESE that the women’s position is only declared to be equal to the men’s position, but in reality, women are not involved enough in the government; in the rural areas, very often they do not have the right to vote due to some traditional customs in certain ethnic communities; they are not allowed to get a job; they rarely possess any real estate; and in certain ethnic communities, there are still marriages among juveniles”.

 

S.N.