Perpetrators of domestic violence should be sentenced to community service, and not fined, because fines are often paid from the family budgets, at the expense of the women and children who suffered from domestic violence, stated Ion Oboroceanu, the chairman of the Causeni Law Center, at a recent meeting of the Investigative Journalists Club, Info-Prim Neo reports. “Domestic violence will decrease if the aggressors get serious punishments and if they know that the punishment is imminent every time they perpetrate an act of domestic violence, abuse, marginalization and neglect with regard to family members”, says Ion Oboroceanu. He thinks that the legislation concerning domestic violence has a lot of gaps; the laws are not known by those who are supposed to enforce them; there is a lack in initiatives on the part of the public functionaries, who need to change their attitude towards this problem. Marina Popovici, department head at the Ministry of Internal Affairs, reported that in eleven months of this year there have been registered 175 homicides, including 17 domestic homicides. The police supervise nearly 5,000 persons deemed to pose threats to their families, as more than 2,200 complaints of domestic violence are being investigated at present. Maria Popovici says stronger involvement is needed on the part of the local authorities, which are supposed to know the problems of their communities' families better than anyone. Iurie Perevoznic, from the General Prosecutor's Office, says domestic aggressors are not necessarily lacking in intelligence, often they are educated people with positions of authority in society. So domestic violence will exist as long as people refuse to admit that everyone has equal rights, concluded Perevoznic.