What can you do if you are in a domestic violence situation?
Beatings, swearing, threats, scandals, abuse, fear and helplessness.
These are just some of the awful things that victims of domestic violence, often women and children, face every day. It seems like a hopeless situation, but it's not. It is important to realise that what is happening is illegal and must be punished. In Romania, domestic violence is punished !
Do you need help?
Call 112 (The single nationwide emergency number that can be called from all public telephone networks). The police can offer you protection on the spot (by means of a temporary restraining order). They can prohibit the offender from approaching you, your children or other family members, your workplace, your children's school.
The judge can issue you a restraining order. A restraining order is an order given by a judge prohibiting the abuser from coming near you, where you live or where you work, or prohibiting him from calling you. With a restraining order, the judge can order the abuser to leave your home or pay your rent if you leave. These measures can last up to 6 months.
If the restraining order is infriged, the agressor can go to jail.
The restraining order does not cost anything. The Romanian state will provide you with a free lawyer to assist you in court. If you do not speak Romanian, you will also have an interpreter at the court, free of charge, to translate into your language.
If you need urgent medical care you can go to the hospital free of charge.
If you are a victim of domestic violence you don't lose your children.
If you don't want to talk about your problems with a man, you can ask to talk to a woman when you go to the hospital, the police or when you will be offered an interpreter at the court.
You have the right to confidentiality. The doctors, policemen, judges, IGI centre staff and NGO staff are obliged to keep everything you tell them secret and not to tell anyone, not even your family or community.