In late 2011, Lithuania adopted the Law on Protection against Domestic Violence, which provided for the creation of a system of integrated and specialized support for victims. Thus, the Ministry of Social Security and Labor developed a program to ensure immediate assistance to those suffering from this situation.

The Internal Audit Department, under the Ministry, assessed in 2013 the results of the plan of assistance centers and found that "protection for individuals is not always effective."

Specialists who provide comprehensive assistance immediately -attendance "do not quite cover more than 10% of the victims." Even of that percentage "almost half" of the cases received assistance the next day and in others delayed up to two weeks.

One of the agencies audited was the Police Department under the Ministry of Interior of Lithuania which recorded between 2012 and 2014 "almost 70,000 complaints of domestic violence."

Once the police received the complaint and arrives at the location where the violent event occurred, the suspect is detained for 48 hours after initiating an investigation.

According to the audit report, they were conducted 28,000 investigations into domestic violence, "but there is no systematic data showing how many cases the measures defined by the Law against Domestic Violence were used".

The Recommendations

The audit suggests the Government to "improve the legal acts" in order to properly implement protective measures for victims who need it and thus "reducing the number of the cases of violence."