The System That Ignores Victims Must Change

Maja was killed by her unmarried partner. Ljudmila was killed by her unmarried partner. An unnamed woman from Bežanijska Kosa was killed by her brother.

Three women have been murdered in just over ten days. Since the beginning of the year, at least eight women have been victims of femicide.

The exact number of femicides committed in Serbia this year is unknown because the state does not maintain official records. Instead, women's non-governmental organizations compile statistics through media monitoring. The public learns about these crimes through newspaper reports and reacts only to the extent that individual cases receive attention. The state, however, has responded with little urgency. Over the past fourteen years, institutional action has weakened significantly compared to the beginning of the century, when initiatives were launched to improve cooperation among institutions and protocols were introduced to ensure a coordinated response aimed at preventing femicide, protecting women living with violence, and reducing domestic violence with the long-term goal of eliminating it entirely.

Women's organizations have worked tirelessly to raise public awareness about the unacceptable nature of this violence. For decades they have urged state institutions to implement the already adopted protocols that require police, prosecutors, courts, healthcare professionals, social welfare centers, and the media to work together effectively in preventing domestic and intimate partner violence, consistently enforcing criminal sanctions, working with perpetrators of violence, and informing the public about the true scale of femicide and the violence that often precedes it.

The Citizens' Movement Solidarity expresses its deepest condolences for the lives lost and for the suffering of the victims' families.

We call for stronger systemic support for women's organizations and endorse their demands for:

• The introduction of femicide as a separate criminal offense in the Criminal Code of Serbia.

• The recognition of Battered Woman Syndrome as a distinct legal defense within the Criminal Code.

• The establishment of an independent body to monitor the killing of women, with a legal obligation to publish regular public reports, because without accurate data there can be no accountability.

• Mandatory and effective risk assessment in every case preceding femicide, with clearly defined institutional responsibility whenever such assessments fail.

• Specialized training for prosecutors, judges, police officers, and social welfare professionals to recognize and respond appropriately to cases of domestic violence.

• Mandatory educational programs for young people addressing toxic relationships, gender equality, and non-violent conflict resolution as part of the national education system.

• Sustainable institutional support for women's organizations providing SOS services, legal assistance, and shelters, because without them the system would function even less effectively than it does today.

Preventing femicide is not the responsibility of a single ministry or a single public campaign. It is a question of how society treats violence: whether it normalizes it, tolerates it in silence, or finally recognizes it, confronts it, and punishes it.

The Citizens' Movement Solidarity stands with every woman seeking protection.

We stand with the organizations that have carried this burden for years without adequate institutional support.

We must change the system that ignores victims.

Watch the Helsinki Committee's documentary about women who were brutally abused by their husbands or partners for years, sometimes decades. They escaped these violent relationships only by killing their abusers and were subsequently sentenced to lengthy prison terms.