Director Braithwaite presents BiH femicide case-law to over 300 participants of the Fourth Regional Forum

The AIRE Centre Western Balkans takes proactive role in marking the sixteen days of activism against gender based violence by taking the ?part in the Fourth Regional Forum, event that welcomed around 300 state representatives, civil society and regional organizations, ombudsperson offices, and well-known figures from cinema, literature, and sports from across the Western Balkans and beyond. It?is organized by UN Women and co-convened by the Council of Europe, the European Union, the Ministry of Health and Social Protection of Albania, the Ministry of Justice of Kosovo, the Ministry for Human and Minority Rights of Montenegro, the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy of North Macedonia, and the Agency for Gender Equality of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The aim of the Forum is ?to set a strategy for establishing femicide watches - femicide monitoring mechanisms- in the region, strengthen alliances and networks among women’s rights organizations and state governments, and improve referral systems for survivors of violence. It will also build on the momentum created over the last five years and set the stage for advancing the gender equality agenda towards preventing and responding to violence against women in the region. AIRE Centre Western Balkans Programme Director Biljana Braithwaite presented the key findings from the analysis of case-law published in cooperation of the AIRE Centre and Femplatz, covering judicial practice of the highest courts in BIH. 2017 - 2021, total of 34 judgments, 19 femicides and 16 attempted femicides.

The analysis reveals some disturbing factors. In majority of cases the perpetrator is intimate partner or former intimate partner of the victim, or a relative - with only two out of 34 cases in which victim did not know the perpetrator. Place of crime is most often victim’s home or place of work and there is a very high incidence of use of firearms - 35 percent, which is consequence of illegal firearms possession in BIH being widespread. Information about victim of the crime scarce in judgments, in some victim almost completely invisible. Nevertheless, proceedings were efficient in most cases, while it is noticed there is a liberal use of alleviating circumstances, that often reveal gender stereotypes, leading to more lenient sentencing policy.

Award of damages most often claimed by children or alternatively parents of the victim is subject to civil proceedings, leading to delays in redress for victims, and additional distress as well as imposing general burden to the court systems.

Lack of consistent and uniformed data remains a major challenge - information was collated on court by court bases in ways that were not uniform. All superior courts participating in the project agreed that systematic data collection that would ensure there is official and publicly available data on annual basis is a priority.

Femicide watches aims to tackle most of the analysis findings and enable all of us working with judiciary to ensure decisions in cases of femicides are aligned with international standards. With the aim to enable greater access to justice and to secure fair and equal treatment, the AIRE Centre will continue to work on strengthening capacity of judiciary via Gender Champions in Judiciary Network, in close collaboration with judicial training centres across the WB region.