The Ministry of Human and Minority Rights and Social Dialogue warned that in the first two months of this year, nine women were killed in family-partner relationships in Serbia, which, as stated, is a drastic increase compared to the number of femicides in the same period last year. In a statement on the occasion of March 8, International Women's Day, the department appealed to victims to report cases of domestic-partner violence to the competent institutions.
This is how a short agency news reads, the subtext of which hides the fact that since the beginning of the year in Serbia, one woman has been killed a week. We have not had this kind of trend yet. The number of femicides in Serbia averages between 25 and 30 in the last ten years, with the exception of 2014, when 42 women died in domestic and intimate partner violence.
However, where do we get these numbers from? "Vreme" has written about it several times, but it should be repeated: thanks to women's rights organizations that count media publications. Therefore, Serbia has a record of the number of women killed by men, only if these murders are found in the media, that is, if the MUP issues a statement. That is why there is a well-founded suspicion that the real numbers are higher: we do not know how many women die later as a result of the injuries they received in partner or family violence, nor do we know how many of them commit suicide because they do not know how else to escape from abusers.
CHRONICLE OF AN ANNOUNCED MURDER
The fact that the state of Serbia does not have records on the number of femicides is only the tip of the iceberg. The last case that happened in Pirot, when Miroslav M. killed his ex-partner Sanja M. in violation of the restraining order, shows that this murder could have been prevented. This is no exception: the analysis of court verdicts against female murderers in the period from 2015 to 2017 "Social and institutional response to femicide in Serbia" (Femplatz, 2019) shows that of the total number of women who turned to one of the institutions for help, only 2,9 percent received some kind of assistance.
In connection with the murder that took place in Pirot on March 5, the Basic Court in this city issued a statement that reads: "'The Basic Court in Pirot took all the measures and actions within its jurisdiction, but despite all the measures taken, yesterday's tragic event in the center of Pirot could not be prevented. The Basic Court in Pirot hereby expresses its deepest condolences to the family of the victim SM from Pirot."
The problem is that this murder (and not the tragic event) could have been prevented. On this occasion, the Autonomous Women's Center announced. Such a statement from the Basic Court in Pirot sends a devastating message to all women who survive various forms of domestic and partner violence - that despite reporting the violence, their lives will not be saved.
The AJC states that it does not dispute that the institutions in Pirot took certain measures within their competence, but also that it is clear that those measures were mild and ineffective in relation to the risk of murder that Sanja M. was in.
"What stands out from the announcement of the Basic Court in Pirot is that the murderer Miroslav M. was convicted in 2022 for stalking Sanja M., and that in the amount of 100.000 dinars. This judgment was made on the basis of the Plea Agreement that Miroslav M. entered into with the Basic Public Prosecutor's Office in Pirot on May 9, 5, and which the court accepted on July 2022, 20. If the media reports that Miroslav M. had a criminal past are correct, the Autonomous Women's Center wonders how the Basic Public Prosecutor's Office in Pirot, which manages the Coordination and Cooperation Group that had to assess the risk of further violence, carried out a security assessment victim and whether it informed the now deceased Sanja M. about the conclusion of the Agreement. The question also arises why the Basic Public Prosecutor's Office in Pirot did not request in the Agreement that a restraining order be imposed on Miroslav M. damaged from art. 7a of the Criminal Code", the announcement states.
The AŽC further reminds that after Miroslav M. continued to persecute the victim, the Basic Public Prosecutor's Office in Pirot proposed that he be detained, but the judge for the preliminary proceedings rejected the prosecution's proposal and imposed a measure of prohibition against approaching, meeting and communicating with the injured party. and ordered that the control of the measure be carried out by the Pirot Police Department, in such a way that Miroslav M. will report to the Pirot Police Department once a week.
The AJC points out that the prosecution in Pirot did not give up on the plea agreement, even though it later requested a measure of detention. Also, the court did not reject the plea agreement, even though Miroslav M. continued to persecute the victim after concluding that agreement.
This, in the opinion of the AŽC, represents a defeat for both institutions: "The murder of Sanja M. could have been prevented if the court and the prosecutor's office in Pirot had a real desire to protect her, and not act pro forma, and issue a statement in which they state that they undertook measures and actions within their jurisdiction, even though the measures they took privileged Miroslav M. and enabled him to kill Sanja M. in a monstrous way. Although the National Assembly did not accept the proposals of the Autonomous Women's Center to The Law on Judges and the Law on Public Prosecution will introduce a provision according to which the action, i.e. the failure to act by a judge/prosecutor that led to the death or serious injury of the victim or witness, will be considered a more serious disciplinary offense, we expect that the High Council of the Judiciary and the High Council of Prosecutors initiate disciplinary proceedings against the judges and public prosecutors in Pirot who, through their wrongdoing, enabled Miroslav M. to kill Sanja M.," the AŽC points out.
This organization stated that, as before, it will advocate for the establishment of the so-called femicide fruit (femicide watch), an institutional mechanism for monitoring and analyzing committed femicides and drawing conclusions in order to prevent new ones.
WHAT IS FEMICIDE WATCH?
The Femplatz Association of Citizens, which has been working together with UN Women in Serbia since 2018 to develop a model of this mechanism, is also advocating for the establishment of a femicide mechanism. In the world, there are different models according to which the femicide watch works, and Femplatz proposes a model modeled on Croatia and Georgia. It rests on three pillars: institutional (collection and analysis of data and development of protocols), professional (building the capacity of employees in centers for social work, police, justice, health, education and other institutions to analyze cases and factors that lead to femicide) and media (raising awareness and building support in the media and online sphere).
Can femicide watch help in prevention? Based on the data we have, it absolutely can. Serbia, that is, the police and the prosecutor's office, already have a mechanism for assessing the risk of femicide, but it clearly has serious shortcomings, because the number of women victims is not decreasing.
According to the data of the Victimology Society of Serbia, which conducted an analysis of femicide in 2019, it is characteristic that femicide is connected with domestic violence and that the actual killing of women most often results from the context of domestic violence, that it was preceded by psychological and physical violence, and that persecution is also often present. In 50,8 percent of cases, it is about serious murders, that is, murders with particularly brutal elements. When it comes to the risk factors that institutions are obliged to take into account, the most important thing is to examine whether the potential killer is jealous and possessive; whether the woman made the decision to leave him and communicated it to him; whether he has a weapon (not necessarily a firearm) and whether the potential victim fears that he might kill her. As we can see, a previous history of physical violence is not among the most common risk factors. This means that media coverage which, when a femicide occurs, emphasizes that there were no previous reports of violence, is meaningless if not placed in the proper context. Chances are high, namely, that there was no physical violence. However, risk assessment in Serbia gets stuck the most with the last risk factor we mentioned: the victim's subjective sense of fear. In the analysis of court judgments 2015–2017. which we mentioned, it can be seen that in almost a quarter of the cases, the institutions interpreted the woman's statement that she was in fear for her life as an exaggeration.
That not much has changed is shown by the murder of Petra B. (2), who was killed by her father in October last year, in order to take revenge on his wife Suzana B., who initiated a divorce case. Marko B. then killed himself, and the extraordinary control of the Protector of Citizens found six omissions in the work of the Center for Social Work in Vršac. Among them are Suzanne's warnings to the social workers that Marko will kill either her or the child.
"No one believes in women in this country," said Suzana at the protest held in Vršac a day after the funeral of her murdered daughter.
If the femicide watch was established in Serbia, the question of believing or not believing in women would no longer have to be raised. An adequate analysis of previous cases of femicide would result in protocols that are not based on the personal impressions of social workers, police officers or prosecutors. Of course, it is impossible to reduce femicides to zero, because no country in the world has succeeded in doing so so far, but we can succeed in not publishing any more evidence that any of them could have been prevented. And let's not wonder which one is next.
