On September 28th and 29th, The Autonomous Women's Center (AWC) held an expert meeting named Reviewing positions of women's organizations regarding the initiative for femicide to become a criminal offense, the improvement of the way of monitoring femicide, the relationship between femicide and filicide, and the initiative to introduce child allowance for children whose mothers are victims of femicide.

Over the two days, more than 40 representatives from institutions, media, women's organizations, and other civil society organizations participated in the meeting. The second day of the meeting was also available online, allowing participants from the region to join discussions about the introduction of femicide as a criminal offense.

On the first day, participants were introduced to insights into the experiences of countries that have introduced femicide as a criminal offense. Independent consultant Nataša Škrbić, an expert on violence against women from Croatia, shared experiences from the United States and the United Kingdom, presenting a formula for calculating the femicide rate relative to the population size.

Following this, Professor Anita Lauri Korajlija from the Department of Psychology at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Zagreb discussed the connection between femicide, filicide, and post-separation violence as a risk factor for femicide.

The day ended with a presentation by Vanja Macanović, a lawyer with AWC, who introduced the initiative for child benefits for children whose mothers were victims of femicide. AŽC had submitted this proposal to the Ministry for Family Care and Demography during the public debate on amendments to the Law on Financial Support for Families with Children, but the proposal was rejected. Following this, AWC made an appeal to members of parliament to adopt a new law article that would regulate child benefits for children of femicide victims.

The second day's topic was the experiences of North Macedonia and Croatia, neighboring countries that have introduced femicide as a criminal offense. Lawyer Nataša Boškova spoke about North Macedonia's experience, while Kristina Kulić from the Autonomous Women's House Zagreb shared Croatia's experience.

Participants engaged in lively discussions about the advantages and potential pitfalls of introducing this criminal offense in Serbia. Both in-person and online participants deemed the topic inspiring and necessary.

The meeting concluded with the presentation of the Femicide Memorial, a platform created to monitor femicide cases in Serbia and to honor the memory of women who have been killed.

Many participants emphasized the importance of discussing femicide, strengthening the network of women's organizations working on its prevention and consequences, and increasing the number of similar meetings to foster dialogue and joint action. More than 80% of participants stated that the knowledge gained during the meeting was applicable to their future work.

The expert meeting Reviewing positions of women's organizations regarding the initiative for femicide to become a criminal offense, the improvement of the way of monitoring femicide, the relationship between femicide and filicide, and the initiative to introduce child allowance for children whose mothers are victims of femicide was organized as part of the Strong resistance movement of women defenders of human rights for the protection of women victims/survivors of gender-based violence and their children financed by the European Union.