Protection orders fail to prevent killings as NGOs seek tougher laws

LRT reported that two women were killed by their partners in Lithuania this week, including one in Vilnius District despite a protection order issued to the alleged attacker the day before.

On Tuesday, a man injured a woman with a knife in the town of Avižieniai in Vilnius District. She was pronounced dead after the incident. The man had broken a window and assaulted his former cohabiting partner before injuring himself with a knife and being taken to hospital.

Julija Samorokovskaja, head of the Communications Subdivision at the Vilnius County Chief Police Commissariat, told ELTA that a protection against domestic violence order had been issued against the alleged attacker.

Another tragedy was reported this week in Varėna District, where a husband allegedly shot his wife and then killed himself.

Most alleged perpetrators are men

According to Police Department data, 21,101 protection orders against domestic violence were issued in 2024. The figure was 18,697 last year and 8,313 in the first half of this year.

Revita Janavičiūtė, an adviser at the Police Department’s Communications Division, told ELTA that most alleged perpetrators are men.

“People posing a threat who are issued protection against domestic violence orders are most often men, at 85 percent. People experiencing the threat are most often women, at 78 percent,” Janavičiūtė said.

Repeated orders do not deter violence

Rugilė Butkevičiūtė, head of the non-governmental organisation Ribologija and co-founder of an organisation that works to prevent sexual violence, said protection orders were a useful preventive measure.

However, she said the fact that the same person can receive an order several times points to insufficient accountability and does not deter repeated violence.

“In my view, a person cannot and should not have three, five or 10 protection orders, because that already indicates systematic behaviour. At that point, we need to move to a pre-trial investigation, preventive measures and similar steps,” Butkevičiūtė told ELTA.

She said that when a person violates an order that has not been appealed, the penalty is minimal and does not provide enough motivation to comply.

“We need to talk about stricter accountability,” Butkevičiūtė said.

She also said Lithuania paid too little attention to prevention and to ensuring proper assistance for people affected by domestic violence.

“The main problem we see is the absolutely insufficient attention to prevention and work only with the results, or after the fact. Providing assistance and strengthening assistance is extremely important,” the head of Ribologija said.

Measures should be taken before people are killed, she said. People should be taught how to recognise abusive relationships, what to do when leaving them, and how to respond to stalking or retaliation, starting at school.

Butkevičiūtė said domestic violence causes victims significantly greater psychological harm than the shock experienced during a random incident. More than half of victims, she said, avoid seeking help from the responsible institutions because they fear that society will not believe them, will condemn them or may even harass them. In other cases, victims may be financially tied to an abusive partner.

“Research shows that 60 percent of people affected by domestic violence do not seek help,” she said.