Domestic violence in Serbia

Abstract

Domestic violence is one of the most complex criminal issues, representing negation of the basic human rights and freedoms protected by a number of international documents and national legal regulations, starting with the right to life to the right to safety. The authors analyze this increasingly common form of violence (psychical, psychological, economic and sexual) as a social phenomenon that has its substantive criminal law aspect and criminal procedure aspect, neither of which eliminates the causes of its origin but only treats the consequences. Family violence primarily affects women. The authors have conducted a survey for the period of ten years of the Criminal Code application in order to examine the criminal of- fense of the domestic violence, procedure and perpetrators.