As many as 24 people were killed in Belarus in the first three months of the year as a result of domestic violence, or seven people more than in the same period the previous year, Aleh Karazey, head of the interior ministry's Main Law and Order Protection and Prevention Directorate, told reporters in Minsk on Monday.
A total of 5,690 people have been fined in the country since September 2013 for beating or inflicting any other physical or mental suffering on their close relative or family member, Mr. Karazey said.
According to him, a typical domestic bully is a man aged between 30 and 49. Elderly people account for four percent of those who resort to domestic violence, while those under 18 years of age account for two percent of such people, Mr. Karazey said.
About 80 percent of people who used violence at home were intoxicated, about 35 percent of them had previous convictions and more than 50 percent of them were unemployed, Mr. Karazey said.
Most of the victims of domestic violence were people aged between 30 and 49, while 13 percent of them were retired and two percent were under 18 years of age. Every one in two people fell victim to domestic violence while they were intoxicated, Mr. Karazey noted.
According to him, most quarrels between family members occur on Saturdays and Sundays between 6 p.m. and 12 p.m. "People start drinking alcohol in the afternoon and reach a certain degree of intoxication by the evening, which has its serious consequences," Mr. Karazey said.
