STATEMENT BY NIS CITY MAYOR ON THE OCCASION OF THE INTERNATIONAL DAY OF FIGHTING AGAINST THE VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

November 25^th

“Violence against women is a big problem in the whole country, and it is not enough to deal with this issue only as the part of the campaign of” 16 days of Activism in the Fight against Violence against Women.  Continuous work is required, continuous education of society, changing cultural patterns of behavior and inclusion of different social systems in order to discover, stop and prevent this phenomenon. We cannot live in a situation where violence occurs in every other household. We need to encourage and empower as many women as possible to report violence because domestic violence is not only a matter of internal family and family relations, but of society as a whole. I believe that the adoption of the new Law on the Prevention of Domestic Violence will certainly help, because violence against women in the family does not only affect a direct victim. It is important for us as a local self-government to make life better for both women and men, because everything that is good for one is good for others. We will try to act in different ways to raise the awareness of people about this phenomenon, but the contribution to the fight against violence against women must be given by the whole public. “