Protest against femicide: Two more pairs of red women's shoes

The activist group "Women for Change" organized an action today at Freedom Square in Novi Sad on the occasion of the double femicide that took place on February 18 in the village of Rakovac.

The protest started with sirens, followed by a minute of silence.

"The last four victims of femicide in our city would not have happened if the restraining order had been effective." The curfew did not stop them from planning to take the lives of these women," said one of the organizers of the protest, Maja Vasić.

It happened in Serbia in 2023 28 femicide, where the youngest victim was 3 and the oldest 85. 

"They were killed by husbands, partners, fathers, sons, grandsons, relatives... Blows, knives, sharp objects, guns... Until today, the institutions have not done anything to change this image." – emphasized Vasić.

Vasić added that "Women for Change" joins the requests of numerous other organizations for institutions to protect women, to ensure monitoring and compliance with the imposed measures, to enable the police to use devices for monitoring restraining orders, to ensure that punishments are such as to discourage violent people, and not to encourage them to commit crimes and to classify femicide as a separate crime.

Activists held banners that read: "No more dead", "Stop violence against women", and two pairs of red shoes were also left behind, symbolically for the victims in Rakovac.

The higher public prosecutor's office in Novi Sad proposed on Tuesday, after questioning the suspect for the murder of his ex-wife and her mother in Rakovac, that he be placed in custody. The Prosecutor's Office qualified the act as aggravated murder, for which the penalty is between 10 years and life imprisonment. Suspect BR is accused of brutally killing DR's ex-wife and her mother N. Č, at the same time violating the restraining order imposed on him due to domestic violence.