Stop the murder of women!
Encourage women who are living in violence to turn to women’s organizations for help and support!
Republic Square
Wednesday, December 6th 2023, from noon to 1 pm
The Autonomous Women’s Center and Dah Theater from Belgrade, with the support of Anima from Dulic, are organizing a street action on Wednesday, December 6th 2023, from noon to 1 pm, at the Republic Square, in order to call on everyone who knows women living in violence to encourage them to contact women’s organizations that provide help and support.
Today a woman has died in Serbia. She had been shot by her partner on November 13th 2023, when she left her home to go to work. She is the 28th victim of femicide in Serbia in 2023, and ninth who was murdered with a firearm. The same number of women were murdered with knives, seven were beaten to death or strangled, one woman was murdered with a large hammer, and another a wooden stick, and one with an ax.
As in previous years, women over 46 years of age were most likely to be murdered (20 of them this year), not only in a family-partner context but also as a consequence of rape where the woman tried to resist.
Data again shows that women in Serbia are murdered by their current or former husbands and partners (20 cases), sons (2), stepfathers and stepsons with whom they lived together in the same household (in 17 cases). Murders of two young women happened one after another after they left their violent partners, which is why we are once again reminding everyone that the most dangerous moment for a woman to be murdered is once she tells her violent partner that she is leaving him or that she will report him, that is, right after she leaves him. One woman was beaten to death by her common law husband and his two brothers, and in two cases the femicide was followed by suicide. A total of 10 murderers committed suicide after committing murder, and one attempted to.
The fact that in 2023 25 women were murdered, and two girls and one trans woman – while we can claim with any certainty that in only four cases that the perpetrator had previously been reported to authorities – shows that women in Serbia don’t trust institutions and don’t believe that they will protect them.
We are therefore concerned by such a high number of murdered women who had never reported the abuse they were suffering – even though newspapers reported that their primary families and friends knew for years that the victims had been suffering violence, and are calling on everyone who knows of a woman living in violence to encourage them to call women’s organizations that provide help and support. Lives of women living in violence can be saved if they are explained exactly what the risk of murder is, and grievous injury, and if they’re advised on how to make a safety plan.
React and support women who live in violence before it’s too late!
Media contact person:
Vanja Macanovic, Autonomous Women’s Center
