One police bulletin, covering two days, gathers five cases of violence inside families. In three of them men reported being attacked by their wives, in one a father beat his own son, and in one a brother attacked his brother.

That is not the kind of statistic usually quoted, so it is worth setting out in detail.

In Veles, police officers detained a 54-year-old woman and a 51-year-old man. Earlier, a 56-year-old man from Veles reported that his wife had physically attacked him at home, and that before that the husband of his common-law partner had threatened him by telephone. The public prosecutor and the Centre for Social Work were notified.

In Berovo, a 45-year-old man reported that after an argument at the family home his 34-year-old wife physically attacked him and their underage son.

In Skopje, in the Centar area, a 44-year-old man reported that his 37-year-old wife attacked him.

In Prilep, police detained a 39-year-old man who physically attacked his own son and injured him. In Tetovo, a criminal complaint was filed against a 28-year-old who attacked his brother at the family home.

What the bulletin shows and the statistics rarely catch

In public debate, domestic violence is almost always told as violence against women - and there is a reason for that, because the numbers there are the heaviest. But that is precisely why these five cases deserve attention: they show that the same problem has directions that remain invisible, including children attacked by their own parents.

What they have in common is something else. In every case, for it to appear in a bulletin, somebody had to go and report it themselves. The 44-year-old man from Centar waited four days before contacting the police - the incident was on 6 September, the report on the 10th. From Berovo, the same gap: the attack on 6 September, the report on the 10th.

Four days. That is how long it takes people to decide that what happened to them in their own home is a matter for the police at all.

In each of the cases the public prosecutor and the Centre for Social Work were notified, and after documentation the appropriate filings will follow. That is the procedure and it works. The question the bulletin leaves behind is how many cases never reached it because nobody went and reported them.