In Serbia, there are no official statistics of femicide despite the numerous efforts and initiatives of women's non-governmental organizations, and data on the number of women killed is still collected from the media. Available research shows that in Serbia, on average, every two weeks, a woman is killed by an intimate partner or a family member, most often in her home.
...Kosana Becker
The right to life is a basic human right that is guaranteed by many international documents at the universal, regional and national levels, but despite this, every year in the world many people are deprived of their lives. As statistics show at the global level, the majority of people deprived of their lives are men, but in recent years more and more attention has been paid to the increase in the number of women killed (femicide), as a reflection of the growing understanding of the extent of the problem of violence against women
Femicide is the gender-based killing of a woman and represents the most extreme manifestation of male violence against women. Although more men are killed globally, murders of women (femicides) are specific in that the killers are most often current or former spouses and partners or male family members of the murdered woman. It is very often heard in the public that it is the killing of a woman because she is a woman, which to some extent can cause confusion in the understanding of this very harmful and widespread social phenomenon. These are specific murders, which are significantly different from other murders, due to their gender-based nature, that is, due to the historically unequal positions of power between women and men, as well as due to the patriarchal gender stereotypes that are present in society. This means that women and girls are killed every day in the world because their killers think they have "rights to it", because they did not behave and/or dress as expected, because they wanted to leave them, because they did not want to to be under someone's control, because the killer was jealous, because he couldn't accept parting, and so on. Killers are often motivated by the feeling that a woman is "their property", by a sense of superiority, by the need to control a woman, and sometimes by hatred towards women.
Femicide is the most serious consequence of male violence against women (domestic violence, intimate partner violence, other forms of gender-based violence) and is the leading cause of premature death of women on a global level. In 2021, 56 percent of all murders of women were committed by intimate partners or other family members, making it clear that women are disproportionately affected by violence in the private sphere. Data for 2022 shows similar results, 89.000 women and girls were killed, and of that number, 48.800 were killed by their intimate partners or other family members. From the data collected at the global level, the gender dimension of these murders is evident, as among all murder victims there are 80 percent men and 20 percent women, but women are victims of intimate partners in 66 percent of cases, and in 53 percent of cases they are killed in their own homes. The number of gender-based murders of women may be higher, considering that in 40 percent of reported cases of murder of women there is no data on the basis of which it could be concluded whether they are gender-based murders.[7] One of the reasons is that in most legal systems there is no specific criminalization of femicide.
PRACTICE ABROAD AND IN SERBIA
Femicide is prescribed as a special crime in the criminal justice systems of many Latin American countries (eg Guatemala, Costa Rica, Mexico, Colombia), while in Europe this is the case with a smaller number of countries (eg Cyprus, Malta, Belgium, Croatia). In the countries of the Western Balkans, femicide is only criminalized in North Macedonia.
Bearing in mind the similarity of the legal systems, in Serbia this criminal offense could be criminalized in a similar way as it was done in Croatia. During 2024, the Penal Code was amended and a special crime of gender-based murder of a woman was introduced under the name of aggravated murder of a female person (Art. 111a). Two mandatory characteristics of this criminal offense are that it was committed against a woman and that it is gender-based, whereby gender-basedness is assessed based on the circumstances concerning the relationship between the victim and the perpetrator, as well as the circumstances concerning the context of the crime. The penalties for this crime are the same as those for other serious murders.
In Serbia, femicide is not criminalized as a separate crime, so gender-based murders of women are unequally qualified. According to the provisions of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Serbia, the unlawful taking of another person's life (Art. 113 of the CC), several types of aggravated murder (Art. 114 of the CC) and murders with a lower degree of social danger (Art. 115-118 of the CC) are criminalized. Accordingly, the punishments are different, so the so-called ordinary murder is prescribed a prison sentence of five to 15 years, for qualified (serious) murders, a prison sentence of at least 10 years or a life sentence is prescribed, while for the so-called privileged murders prescribed a sentence of one to eight years (e.g. murder on the spot).
In addition, the qualified form of the criminal offense of domestic violence, which resulted in the death of a family member (Art. 194, paragraph 4), as well as serious bodily injury qualified as the death of the injured person (Art. 121, paragraph 3), is also criminalized. It should also be pointed out that the provisions of Article 54a of the Criminal Code, as a special aggravating circumstance when determining the punishment for hate crimes, include, among other things, gender. It can be stated that by applying the mentioned provisions in the current conditions it is possible to prosecute femicides, but this specific form of crime cannot be accurately monitored and suppressed, nor is it possible to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of the state's reaction taking into account the current legal regulations. Research of judicial practice in cases of femicide has confirmed this.[12] Research data show that in the period 2015-2019. in Serbia, 99 court proceedings conducted in connection with the unlawful deprivation of life of women and criminal acts resulting in the death of a woman were legally concluded. These crimes are qualified as follows: ordinary murder (45); aggravated murder (47); murder on the spot (2); domestic violence resulting in death (2) and grievous bodily harm qualifying for death (3). As a result, prison sentences were imposed for different lengths of time, depending on the type of crime committed, as well as mitigating and aggravating circumstances. These studies have shown that the lenient sentences for the murders of women are most often a consequence of the qualification of these murders as ordinary murders, even though there were all the features of some forms of serious murders. The unevenness in the qualification of the offense and consequently in the punishments undermines legal certainty and strengthens citizens' mistrust of the judiciary.
It should be pointed out that there are no official statistics of femicide in Serbia, despite the numerous efforts and initiatives of women's non-governmental organizations, and the data on the number of women killed is still collected from the media. Available research shows that in Serbia, on average, every two weeks, a woman is killed by an intimate partner or a family member, most often in her home. In 2023, 29 femicides were recorded, while this year (until November 19) there were 17.
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
If femicide were to be criminalized as a separate criminal offense in the Republic of Serbia, in addition to comparative legal solutions that already exist in certain countries, guidelines developed under the auspices of the United Nations should also be used. Namely, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the UN Agency for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) created a statistical framework for collecting data on gender-based murders of women. In this document, it is defined that gender-based murder refers to the basic causes that characterize the specific context in which the murder occurs, such as stereotypical gender roles, discrimination against women and girls, inequality and power relations between women and men in society, as well as that gender motivation does not refer to the subjective intention (motive) of the perpetrator, but to the basic causes of such behavior. The perpetrator's subjective motive to commit the crime may be present (eg hatred of women), but it is not a necessary condition. Due to the need to collect data on gender-based murders of women, regardless of the (non)existence of femicide as a separate crime, femicides are defined as intentional murders of women committed by: intimate partners, family members and other perpetrators, known or unknown, in a certain way or in a specific context that indicates a gender-motivated murder.
Bearing in mind the gradual criminalization of femicide in the criminal legislation of many countries, the prevalence of violence against women and femicide in Serbia, as well as the fact that the Strategy for the prevention and fight against gender-based violence against women and domestic violence for the period 2021-2025. planned criminalization of all forms of violence against women and domestic violence in accordance with international standards, it seems that it is a good time to open a broad public discussion on this issue in Serbia, and to find solutions for the special criminalization of femicide, which are in the spirit of our criminal justice system. In this sense, two solutions are possible. Femicide can be criminalized as a special crime against the life and body of a woman so that it includes any gender-based deprivation of a woman's life, and it can be criminalized as a special form of aggravated murder of women committed by men in the context of gender-based violence against women.
In any case, the special criminalization of femicide would confirm that the specific nature of murders of women is recognized and respected, as well as that systemic discrimination against women is recognized, which is necessary for the promotion of gender equality, as well as for ensuring justice for victims and their families. In the end, the special criminalization of femicide would make it possible to prescribe adequate punishments for this crime, commensurate with its severity and the degree of social danger, which would better fulfill the function of special and general prevention and contribute to the suppression of gender-based violence against women, while the penal policy would be uniform courts against perpetrators of gender-based murders of women, which contributes to legal certainty and strengthens citizens' confidence in the judiciary.
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