Violence against women after separation and divorce of the partners: Challenges in assessments and decisions on protection measures
Authors: Ignjatovic Tanja 
Published: January 2020

The subject of this paper is violence against women in the period of
separation and after the partners? divorce/separation. Leaving a violent
partner can be a risk factor for the continuation or emergence of violence,
the primary motive being the male partner?s desire to maintain control over
his female partner. Experts May perceive pre-existing violence as a problem
of an ended relationship, or consider that women raise this issue, and even
play it up because they are emotionally hurt or trying to gain an advantage
in court. The root of violence is misinterpreted, as a response to a
stressful divorce situation, ranging from the man?s anger and deprivation
due to separation, as a passing ?incident?, to mutual partner violence. The
purpose of our research, which is of exploratory character, is to look at
the situation and the behaviour of experts from the two services - the
Welfare Center and the Court - in the context of the described problem. A
qualitative approach was applied, i.e. documentation relative to 62 court
cases has been analyzed, with a special focus on cases (25) in which the
lawsuit for domestic violence protection measures was filed after the
divorce/ separation of the partner, after the procedures of determining
custody of children were completed. The analysis revealed that in nearly all
the examined cases (96,8%) it was the woman who sought protection measures
to be imposed. Most of the women (80,6%) had been exposed to physical
violence and frequent threats, whereas all of them had suffered diverse
forms of psychological violence. In nearly all of those cases (95,2%) the
children had witnessed their fathers? violent behaviour towards their
mothers, and were often direct victims of manipulation against their
mothers; or the women had received threats involving their children. The
analysis has detected two types of situations with several variations. The
first type relates to situations where violence was present during the
marriage, sometimes from the very beginning, and continued after the
partners? separation/ divorce, while the second type relates to cases where
violence was predominantly connected to the context of visitation and
maintaining contact between the child and the parent who was not granted
custody. It has been shown that the complexity of the phenomena and
situations, coupled with the lack of clear and practical information on the
process and content of assessments, pose serious challenges and
responsibilities to experts. Bearing in mind that the principle of the
protection of the victim?s safety is primary and guiding all expert
procedures, it would be necessary to improve the understanding of the
difference between conflict and violence, the impact of coercive control and
abuse, including the abuse of children in this context, when assessing and
deciding on protection measures and determining the visitation model between
the children and the parent who was not entrusted with custody, so as to
guarantee the protection and welfare of both women and children.