Experience has shown that support and rehabilitation of perpetrators alone are not enough to reduce domestic violence. The Counselling Line for Men and Boys (CLMB) is the first point of contact for perpetrator counselling in Albania. It was founded in 2012 by the Counselling Line for Women and Girls (CLWG). The services offered by the drop-in centre include counselling for perpetrators and isolated female perpetrators, violence prevention and gender-reflective work with male youth, capacity building for teachers and social workers, as well as awareness raising, lobbying and advocacy work.
The aim of the project is to reduce violence against women and girls through prevention, to ensure social condemnation of this violence and to systematically hold perpetrators of VAWG accountable.
In the current phase, perpetrator counselling remains the core of the project; counselling sessions take place both in prisons and at the men’s centre run by CLMB. In addition to individual counselling, group therapy is increasingly offered. Next to therapeutic counselling, gender-transformative work with young people, more intensive work is also being done with fathers and fathers-to-be, so that they too break through gender stereotypes and their children grow up with different images of men and so that patriarchal thinking and behaviour gradually become a thing of the past.
The Counselling Line for Men and Boys is located in Tirana, but also offers its services at national level.
In 2022, thanks to the efforts of CLWG and CLBM, as well as cooperation with other civil society organisations, a draft law was passed to increase the public visibility of violence against women. This legislative push received widespread popular support, including from many men who showed solidarity with women.
