Two minors aged 17 and 14 from Bosnia and Herzegovina were attacked in the Susanj village. One of them was seriously injured and was hospitalized at the Clinical Center of Montenegro in Podgorica. In Bar, six students beat one. A fourteen-year-old boy’s nose was broken at school. Pepper spray was used in the secondary school in Niksic, which caused eight children to seek medical help. In Mojkovac, an eleven-year-old boy brought a wedding gun to the classroom. In the video, three young men, dressed in sweatshirts with hoods and face masks, attack a peer in the yard of the Sutjeska elementary school in Podgorica. A brutal beating followed, and baseball bats were also used.
These are just some of the examples of peer and youth violence that has already got out of control and requires a reaction from all spheres of society. A reaction, a clear one, the one that will follow immediately, now, and not an empty story, pamphlets of announcements, mouths full of concern without concrete moves. We need reactions in order to stop this madness, and not to make something political through empty messages.
Sociologist and program director of the Center for Civic Education, Petar Djukanovic, clearly says – it is necessary to put things in order, to redefine roles and make some kind of plan that will improve the existing models of prevention, because obviously they do not work.
The answer, he underlines, must be systemic, to devise a coordinated action that will offer sustainable solutions and mobilize all stakeholders.
Simply, he adds, developing the community’s resistance to violence must be a pervasive component of all public policies, because apart from peer-to-peer violence, we also have other growing types of violence.
Djukanovic notes that as a society we have to make a clear decision against violence and to resolutely and consistently condemn every form of violence, to respond adequately and to punish violent people.
He points out that the suppression of violence must be comprehensive and continuous. This includes the cooperation of institutions that deal with young people in various aspects, the civil sector and the media, because they all have their own role and importance in combating violence.
