This paper presents the history of the gender-based violence victims within the criminal justice system, addressing the arch that starts with them being an almost dispensable third party and ends with them getting a renewed attention embraced by the feminist political agenda. By adopting a theoretical perspective aligned with the Marxist critique of Law the victim is here analysed as part of the changes undergone by the criminal justice system, from its embryonic forms to the modern criminal law and lastly to the transformations caused by the punitive turn experienced in the late XX century. In this process, the historically established place for gender-based violence victims has been challenged in the last decades by feminist scholars and activists who have proposed two sets of distinct measures to design an victim-centred justice model. The first one consists of reforms to avoid institutional victimization, while the second is affiliated with an abolitionist perspective and centred on a replacement of the current criminal justice mechanisms with restorative justice practices. In conclusion, both these paths taken by feminists show the duality of the challenges faced by those who view society critically, meaning that what exists today must be reformed while the work of constructing a revolutionary alternative must be simultaneously in motion.