last updated September 30, 2005
Contributed in part by: Jolanta Reingardiene and Vilana Pilinkaite, National VAW Monitors
This survey of legislation on violence against women in Lithuania provides the existing legal measures in the Criminal and Civil Codes in Lithuania.
On 9 November 2004, the Lithuanian Parliament approved the changes of the Lithuanian Criminal Process Code, which came into force on 26 November 2004. Due to changes in articles 120, 121, 126 and the incorporation of a new article 132, in the Lithuanian Criminal Process Code, a domestic violence offender can now be removed from the household and must remain separate from the victim. This forbids offenders from contacting and communicating with the victim or other family members or approaching a victim in public places. The criminal code still does not specifically criminalize domestic violence. If such violence takes place in the home, the victim must file a complaint. Very few such complaints have been filed because women still prefer to avoid publicity and are not confident that the courts punish their assailants.
For Commentary on the Lithuanian Law, click here.
Legislation on Trafficking in Persons in Lithuania
This section briefly presents Lithuanian national legal basis in terms of prevention of trafficking in persons. Analysis and evaluation of existing legal basis show the legal provisions and problems of their application in practice due to lack of legal mechanisms and judicial precedents. More information Summary of analysis and evaluation of existing legal basis (summary composed from the material of Ministry of Inner Affairs)
Article 21 of the Constitution of The Republic of Lithuania declares: “Human person shall be inviolable”
On July 29th, 1998 the Amendment to the Criminal Code of The Republic of Lithuania (further called the Criminal Code) was put into order, which added Article 1313 “Trafficking in Human Beings” to the Criminal Code.
Article 1313 . Trafficking in Human BeingsAdditionally, trafficking in human beings was attributed to hard crimes and an obligatory punishment was determined for it – confiscation of property (Articles 81 and 1313 of the Criminal Code).
However, legal practitioners identify certain problems in regard to practical application of this article. Firstly, content of the above article demands to prove the goal – sexual exploitation of a person, forcing to get involved in prostitution or acquire material or other personal profit, and it complicates proving of guilt very much. That is why it would be purposeful to correct the active Article 1313 of the Criminal Code by determining, that criminal amenability arises from the very fact of trafficking in human beings, independent of the goal. Other problem – wide latency of these problems, i.e. victims refuse to appeal to the police (for example, almost half of all criminal cases brought against trafficking in human beings are brought during special police operations, by realizing existing operative information, and victims have almost been persuaded to write appeals to the police). Latency can be reduced by constant organization and carrying out of information campaigns against trafficking in human beings, during which society would be informed about rights of victims of trafficking in human beings (including declaration of their right to appeal to legal institutions, and legal, social, medical and safety guarantees provided for victims).
Trafficking in human beings is related to other crimes such as illegal migration, procuration, involving in prostitution, falsification of documents, violation of the state border, production and spread of pornography etc. There are specific articles in the Criminal Code, which determine criminal amenability for execution of those crimes.
Legal nature of prostitution
According to the Laws of the Republic of Lithuania, prostitution is not a crime. An administrative amenability is determined in part 1 of Article 1821 of the Code of Administrative Offences of The Republic of Lithuania, for prostitution business. Such activity is fined from three hundred to five hundred litas ($110-180), and the same actions carried out by a person, who have already been fined by administrative fine for prostitution business, are fined from five hundred to one thousand litas ($180-350), or administrative arrest up to thirty days.