Over the past few days, police across Macedonia have recorded an alarming rise in cases of domestic violence and physical confrontations. In a large share of the incidents, the victims were women and minor children - and the result is a growing number of people detained and criminal proceedings launched.

The cases are spread across the whole country - from Skopje to Struga, where, among other things, a woman physically attacked her neighbour in an apartment building. The number of reports is rising, and the police are responding with arrests, but the question that always remains is whether the response arrives in time or only after the worst has happened.

Domestic violence in Macedonia was long a subject people kept silent about - „a matter between four walls", as the shameful folk wisdom went. A rise in reports can mean two things: either violence is genuinely increasing, or victims are finally daring more and more to report it. Both possibilities demand a different response from the institutions, and neither may pass unnoticed.

Criminal proceedings are necessary, but they come after the damage has already been done. The real test for the system is not how many abusers it arrests, but how many victims it protects before it is too late. Because behind every figure in the police statistics stands a person - most often a woman or a child - who does not feel safe in their own home.