In Croatia, police told BIRN that the number of domestic violence cases was up from 94 in March 2019 to 120 in March this year, but stressed the rise should not be interpreted as an “overall increase in violence” but was the result of efforts to educate police officers in how to identify such offences.

Indeed, Interior Minister Damir Bozinovic told a press conference on April 8: “No increase in criminal acts of domestic violence has been registered.”

But those on the ground say this ignores a rise in calls to shelters.

The Autonomous Women’s House of Zagreb said on April 8 that in February and March it had received 19 requests from women for admission to its shelter and was receiving around 10 calls every day.

The Domine association in Croatia’s second city of Split, on the Adriatic coast, also reported an increase in calls from women seeking emergency accommodation or other assistance.

Paula Zore of the Platform for Reproductive Rights, a women’s rights initiative, said the divergence in numbers and differing interpretation of such statistics reflected the “problematic treatment” of the problem by state bodies.

“They do not take violence against women seriously and do not understand how this situation is causing an increase in [domestic] violence,” Zore told BIRN.

The fact NGOs were seeing a greater rise in domestic violence than the authorities reflects “a lack of confidence in [state] institutions,” she said.

Likewise, in Romania, lawyer Giulia Crisan of the NGO ANAIS, said that between March 13 and April 13 her association had received 74 calls seeking legal and psychological support, compared with fewer than 50 in January and again in February.

“We are getting direct calls from victims who want to know if they can leave the family home, if they can take the children with them or start divorce procedures,” Crisan told BIRN. “But we also have cases in which neighbours report that an old woman is being beaten by her son after they heard noise and the victim crying.”

In North Macedonia, the Skopje-based Association for Emancipation, Solidarity and Equality of Women – ESE wrote to the government this month called for greater protection for victims of domestic violence, including a “crisis fund” to provide financial support.

Many victims unable or afraid to report violence