A Police Officer Will Be Able to Remove a Domestic Abuser From the Home for 48 Hours: Reported Cases Jumped 70 Percent

In the first ten months of 2026, police registered 1,897 cases of domestic violence. In the first ten months of 2025 the figure was 1,125. That's a 70 percent increase.

There are 1,450 criminal complaints, for a total of 1,489 criminal offences, 50 percent more than last year. 153 complaints were filed under the fast-track procedure, and 163 detention orders were imposed, 270 percent more than in 2025. On average, at least three domestic violence offences are reported in Macedonia every day.

The picture of who is hitting is clear. From 2021 to 2025, 5,699 perpetrators were registered, 91 percent of them men. Of 5,890 recorded victims over the past five years, 4,658 are women, most often wives, followed by women in common-law relationships and mothers. Every year between 90 and 100 children are victims of domestic violence.

Interior Minister Pance Toshkovski explains the increase with greater courage among victims: "They don't put up with it, they report immediately." Another part of the explanation is that the Interior Ministry can now act ex officio when there is bodily injury in domestic violence, without waiting for the victim to report.

48 hours and a verbal order

The key novelty in the draft amendments to the Law on Prevention of and Protection from Domestic Violence: if an officer on the spot, after assessing the risk, finds serious danger, they will be able to verbally order the potential abuser to leave the home for 48 hours. Regardless of whether they own the property. Within six hours the police must issue a written order, notify the competent social work centre and inform the victim, and the court decides quickly and without a hearing.

Once adopted, the law will have six months of delayed application, for bylaws and training of police officers with international partners. It also opens the possibility of electronic tags in civil proceedings. The details of how they will be used and the money needed, according to the Interior Ministry, still have to be worked out.

Bogdanci and "no failures"

The proposal comes after Bogdanci, where a 21-year-old man and a 17-year-old girl were found dead on 3 November. The young man had been reported before, and last month criminal complaints were filed against him for bodily injury and endangering safety. The Interior Ministry's internal control found no failures in how the police acted.

If the police didn't get it wrong, and the complaints existed, then the question is about the system: about the laws, deadlines and tools that weren't there. The Law on Prevention of and Protection from Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence has also been sitting in parliamentary procedure since the summer, and after Bogdanci MP Monika Zajkova collected signatures for a draft law. How long can a law on protection from violence wait in procedure while the numbers keep climbing?

48 hours is a good start. Tags without the money to pay for them are, for now, just an announcement.