Tens of women in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) are killed every year just because they are women, and the killer’s motive is hatred of women or the need for a man to be the owner of a woman’s body, actions, and decisions. There is no official data, and there is no legal categorization of femicide as a serious crime, which could help prevent femicide, and also send a message to abusers that they will not go unpunished or with inadequate punishment.
Jovana Kisin Zagajac, a lawyer from Banja Luka, in practice,encounters cases of femicide and violence against women that are often not adequately treated. She explained the very concept of femicide. She says it’s a hate crime with a specific motive – ie. the motive of hatred towards a woman because she is a woman, which is related to the position of woman in society, the unequal distribution of social power between men and women, certain stereotypes, gender-based discrimination and violence against women.
“Most European governments consider that femicide is incorporated into the criminal offense of murder itself, i.e. serious murder and that there is no need to separately regulate and distinguish it as a separate criminal offense. The countries that are leading the way in legal regulation of femicide and approaching the social problem of misogyny in a wider context are the countries of South America,” noted Kisin Zagajac.
Director of the CURE Foundation, Jadranka Milicevic, explained that unlike other types of murder, in the case of femicide, the killer is often a husband, ex-partner, young man, and the person who was or is still a person with whom the killed woman was living with.
Authorities are not doing enough to prevent femicide
In addition to the fact that there is not enough talk about femicide, it is often not treated in the right way, and competent authorities often miss a series of actions after the occurrence of violence against women, which consequently increases the chances of committing femicide. Lawyer Kisin Zagajac has repeatedly witnessed such scenarios.
The logic behind femicide in BiH is the belief that women are not human like men
“The environment of our society has not abandoned patriarchal/tribal stereotypes and will not be able to do so for a long time. In BiH, femicide, in a stylized sense (against women, for example, in politics) is almost an everyday occurrence. An interesting comparison would be with that of the Greek pharmakos, essentially slaves and prisoners of war, whom all members of society were allowed to treat however they wanted, and even kill them, because, apparently, they do not belong to the “human” order. The bizarre logic behind femicide in BiH is based on that principle – a deeply perverse belief that women are not human like men are,” pointed out professor Tomislav Tadic, sociologist and professor at the Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo, Buka reports.
E.Dz.
