This year, according to available data, 27 women were killed, and over 300 femicides were committed in the past ten years. The largest number of femicides occurred in the woman’s home. What are we doing wrong and where have we failed as a society? Do we understand the causes, and do we know how to recognize and provide help when violence occurs? Do we have an effective system of protection and support for the recovery of victims of domestic and partner violence? Are the punishments for the perpetrators adequate? These are some of the questions for which we are still searching for answers, says Commissioner for the Protection of Equality Brankica Janković on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and the start of the global campaign “16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence”.

The prevention of gender-based violence requires a constant assessment of the situation and an urgent response to even the smallest fissure that appears in the system of protection and prevention with appropriate measures. By adopting regulations, we have shown our willingness to tackle this problem, but legal frameworks, strategies, and protocols once adopted are not sufficient. The law must follow life with effective responses to committed violence and new challenges and circumstances. Every lost life, as well as every potential victim, is a call to urgently improve the response, which must be timely, adequate, decisive, but also preventive, Janković points out.

The Institution of the Commissioner has sent several initiatives because we believe that changes to the Criminal Code by defining sexual violence based on the concept of non-existence of consent, as well as by prescribing a special offense for abuse and publication of videos of sexually explicit content, but also by introducing the obligation that the competent authorities always and in all cases inform the victim of gender-based and domestic violence about the release of the convicted perpetrator or his escape from prison, would significantly contribute to the improvement of the position of the victims. We also pointed out the need to amend the Law on Public Order and Peace to decriminalize women involved in prostitution and punish those who sexually exploit them, adds Janković. In order to respond to gender-based violence as effectively as possible, an initiative was launched for better coordination in the work of competent state bodies and institutions for the prevention and protection of domestic violence. The Commissioner also points out the recommendation on the necessity to establish a national body for the collection, monitoring, and analysis of femicide to improve the work of institutions and advance the system of protecting women from violence, with which the Commissioner supported the initiative of numerous civil society organizations.

The United Nations information that the greatest number of women and girls in the last 20 years were killed in the world last year – about 89,000, is alarming, and data from the World Health Organization show that more than 30 percent of women in the world suffered violence from an intimate partner or family members. In Serbia, women from different social groups suffer different forms of violence, where older women, Roma women, and women with disabilities are at additional risk. The Commissioner says that they certainly cannot be encouraged to report violence when they read in the media that a particularly dangerous moment is when a woman decides to leave the abuser, and that the fact that he was a “family man” is cited as a mitigating circumstance in the bases of the court ruling.

Violence against women affects all of us, which is why we must resolutely defend the right to life and dignity of every woman, young woman and girl, because they are someone’s mothers, daughters, sisters, and wives, but also human beings who have an inviolable right to life and should not to live in fear. We all have an obligation to provide help and support to the victim, because she cannot be blamed and must not be left alone, concludes the Commissioner.