This year it was the first time that the Women Violence Victims’ National Remembrance Day was commemorated in Serbia on May 18. …IZ KRUGA – VOJVODINA organization did it by organizing a street action in the Novi Sad Freedom Square. Similar activities on the occasion of the Women Violence Victims’ National Remembrance Day were organized in Užice, Kruševac, Tutin, Leskovac, Kraljevo, Belgrade and other settlements. On this occasion, the private space of a home was exposed in a street installation presenting it as the least safe place and murder site.
The event also served as a reminder that at least 20 women in Serbia lost their lives to domestic and partnership violence since the beginning of the year.
Photo: Maja Tomić
About the Women Violence Victims’ National Remembrance Day
In 2017, the Government of the Republic of Serbia declared May 18 the Women Violence Victims’ National Remembrance Day after over 8,000 citizens from 25 Serbian towns and municipalities signed a petition for it in an action initiated by the Women Against Violence Network supported by 32 civil society organizations. The public advocacy action for declaration of such a commemorative day was organized in order to remind the public, as well as the relevant institutions, of the risks from femicide and its consequences, especially after seven women in Serbia had been killed in 72 hours from May 16-18, 2015. Besides the femicide victims’ family members, friends and citizens supporting them, numerous public figures and politicians, including representatives of human rights institutions, had also signed the petition. The signatories of the petition were united in the position that remembering women who were not among us anymore was also a warning that it is women who paid with their lives for inadequate or non-reaction of relevant institutions in cases of gender-based violence.
No Woman Less – An overview of reports from the Rise Up for Women Whose Voices Cannot Be Heard Anymore – Towards a More Efficient Risk Assessment Aimed at Femicide Prevention Project (in Serbian)
Photo: Csilla Dávid
