The Efforts of the Republic of North Macedonia in Improving the Fight Against Gender-Based Violence by Harmonizing the National Legislation with International and European Standards

The need for permanent discussion of gender-based violence (GBV) in academic circles and its sociological and criminological analysis, stems from the fact that gender-based violence is often a trigger and cause for multiple violations of basic human rights and vital interests. In particular, gender-based violence is a violation of human rights because it seriously threatens the safety, health and life of an individual. It is an umbrella term for any harmful act that is perpetrated against a person’s will and that is based on socially ascribed (i.e. gender) differences between males and females. It includes acts that inflict
physical, sexual, or mental harm or suffering, threats of such acts, coercion, and other deprivations of liberty. GBV stems from unequal power relations between men and
women and the resulting discrimination against women. For the reasons that women and girls are still the most frequent victims of gender�based violence, despite the fact that it is already recognized as a violation of human rights,we believe that a permanent monitoring of criminological elements, development of national legislations and implementation of good practices in this area are necessary. On the one hand, for keeping up with the new trends and developing the tools for adequate response, but also to determine the omissions that are being made in practice – which lead to constant statistics with no prospect of their reduction – and are alarming us for the need of improvement.