Skopje, 1 December 2025 (MIA) — The State Audit Office report on the implementation of the Council of Europe's Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence — also known as the Istanbul Convention — reveals that the state is not sufficiently committed to the protection of women, according to a public debate hosted Monday in Parliament by the parliamentary Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men.

President Gordana Siljanovska Davkova pointed out several shortcomings the report had revealed.

“My critical view is that the state has a formal, but no substantive commitment to the problem related to the protection of women. Legal acts have adopted, but not operationalized,” Siljanovska Davkova said.

She said social work centers were understaffed and there were not enough women's shelters. Also, she said, "there are strategic documents, the report says, but they are not implemented. There are institutions; they do not work. There are services; they are not of sufficient quality. There are finances; it is unclear if they are enough and if they are well distributed," the president said.

State auditor Katerina Chaloska Aleksovska said the audit report was aimed not at criticizing but at identifying flaws in the system and issuing recommendations to improve it.

Chaloska Aleksovska said important changes had been made in 2023 to align the Criminal Code with the requirements of the Istanbul Convention, but this also required the prosecution of perpetrators of all forms of violence, not only physical and sexual, but also social, psychological as well as digital. She, too, said there were not enough women's shelters nationwide.

Deputy Minister of Social Policy, Demography and Youth Gjoko Velkovski said a new National Strategy for the Prevention and Protection from Gender-Based Violence against Women and against Domestic Violence 2026–2033 was currently being drafted, with an action plan for 2026–29 set to be reviewed and adopted by Parliament.

Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men chairwoman Zhaklina Peshevska said it was not enough to pass laws and strategies but the state needed to build a culture of respect, equality and support. The statistics, she said, remained devastating and required institutional and social vigilance. 

Citing police statistics, Peshevska said there had been 512 domestic violence crimes reported between January and June 2025, 474 of them committed by men. Citing Ministry of Social Policy, Demography and Youth data, she said domestic violence against women had increased by 20% between 2020 and 2024.

Deputy Parliament Speaker Vesna Bendevska said violence started at home, stressing that children were exposed to questionable media. "What programming, and not only through educational curricula, what programming do we present to children? What content do cartoons have? What do they see? What do they hear? It is very much our duty to begin systematically addressing this problem," she said. mr/