Country Profile Montenegro

General Country Information

Summary

There is a national women’s helpline in Montenegro that operates free of charge and is available 24/7. There are four women-only shelters with 64 beds, seven women’s centres, and one helpline specialised in sexualised violence. Although the National Plan for the implementation of the Istanbul Convention includes references to prevention, no budget is allocated, and state authorities do not conduct data collection and evaluation of such activities. The Ministry of Social Welfare, Family Care and Demography collects limited statistical data only on support services for women survivors of violence that receive state funding.

Women’s Specialist Services

There is a national women’s helpline in Montenegro called the National SOS Hotline for Victims of Domestic Violence (Nacionalna SOS linija za žrtve nasilja u porodici, tel.: +382 80111111), which is run by the SOS Hotline for Women and Children Victims of Violence Nikšić. The helpline is free of charge and available 24/7, meeting the standards of the Istanbul Convention. It offers multilingual support in Montenegrin, Albanian, English, Russian and Ukrainian to survivors of all forms of violence against women, and the most common forms of violence reported by women in 2024 were domestic, physical and psychological violence. The helpline is run through state funding, and in 2024, it received 2,114 calls from 409 callers.

In addition to the National SOS Hotline for Victims of Domestic Violence, five additional local helplines can provide support to women survivors of violence. These include: SOS Hotline Podgorica, SOS Hotline Ulcinj, SOS Hotline Plav, SOS Hotline Bijelo Polje, and SOS Hotline Berane. The mobile application Be Safe, which was launched during the COVID-19 pandemic, is no longer active.

There are four women-only shelters in Montenegro, offering 64 bed spaces. They offer 24/7 access, and women are not expected to pay for their accommodation. On average, women can stay in the shelters up to one year, but shelters can decide to extend the length of the stay based on the needs assessment. The types of in-house services most often provided by women-only shelters are casework, counselling and psychological support, referrals and collaboration with other services, as well as practical and legal advice. Additionally, survivors can be accompanied to the police, social services, courts, as well as other institutions such as healthcare and educational facilities. This service is not limited solely to proceedings directly related to violence against women, but also includes all institutional procedures involving survivors, such as divorce proceedings, custody cases, child support, and visitation arrangements.

In terms of accessibility, out of the four shelters, one is not accessible to undocumented women, refugee women, homeless women and women with sensory disabilities, while another shelter is not accessible to women with physical disabilities, with sensory disabilities, to older women and women with children with disabilities. On the other hand, all shelters can be accessed by and are accessible to women with substance abuse issues and transgender women, while no shelter can accommodate women with older sons over the age of 14 and unaccompanied girls under the age of 18. There are no shelters in the country specialised in supporting particular groups of survivors.

Women-only shelters are funded by national/local authorities, donations, and international funding. Two of them are run by women’s NGOs with a gender-specific approach, while the other two are run by other women’s NGOs. Shelters are located in the central and southern regions of Montenegro. In the northern region, there are no shelters for women survivors of violence and domestic violence, as the shelter which was operating in Pljevlja is no longer operating. In some cases, shelters had to decline referrals due to the lack of space, and the women and children were redirected to other shelters that could accommodate and support them. The most common forms of violence reported by survivors were domestic, physical and psychological violence. In 2024, women-only shelters in Montenegro supported 154 women. There are no other shelters in the country that support survivors of violence against women.

There are seven women’s centres in Montenegro, supporting women and children who are survivors of violence. Women’s centres provide counselling, psychological support, legal advice, housing advice, referrals and collaboration with other services, as well as representation at court/police/social services. Additionally, women’s centres also support survivors of sexualised violence with legal advice, community awareness and education for prevention.

Although detailed accessibility information is not available for some women’s centres, most centres can be accessed by and are accessible to women with uncertain residence permits/undocumented women, refugee women, women with physical, cognitive and sensory disabilities, older women, transgender women, and unaccompanied girls under the age of 18. There is one centre for girls and women survivors of forced/arranged marriage, operated by the NGO Centre for Roma Initiatives. In 2024, this NGO identified 26 potential victims of arranged marriage. There is also one shelter for women survivors of human trafficking, operated by the NGO SOS Hotline Nikšić. In 2024, this NGO identified six potential victims of human trafficking.

Women’s NGOs run the centres in Montenegro; they receive state funding and international funding, and are present in all regions. Four centres that provided statistical data supported 815 women in 2024.

There are no specific support services, such as rape crisis centres for women and girls who have experienced sexualised violence, in Montenegro. There is a helpline providing specialist support for survivors of sexualised violence, which is run by the NGO Montenegrin Women’s Lobby (tel.: +382 20250750; mobile: +382 67998977).

In 2023, Montenegro adopted a National Action Plan for the implementation of the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention) for the period 2023–2027. The National Plan foresees efforts to conduct training for professionals and awareness-raising programmes about all forms of violence covered by the Convention, including reference to specific groups of women, such as Roma women and women with disabilities. Nevertheless, no specific budget line is allocated to such activities. The state did not engage in scaling up primary prevention measures to tackle violence against women, and there are no long-term campaigns and initiatives in the country. Primary prevention activities are carried out by women’s NGOs based on projects usually funded by international donors. Such activities¹ include awareness-raising campaigns on topics such as sexism and different forms of gender-based violence, and training for professionals, students and young people. There is no evaluation on the impact of primary prevention activities in the country, nor data collection on the activities conducted.

1. Information from GREVIO’s First thematic evaluation report “Building trust by delivering support, protection and justice – MONTENEGRO”, published on 22
   November 2024. ↩︎