Femicide will not be included in the Criminal Code of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH), even after the latest murder of a woman in Sarajevo. Murders of women are becoming increasingly brutal, and the authorities in BiH, although promising support for victims of violence, refuse to include femicide as a special criminal offense in the laws.
Although there is no official data on the total number of women killed in BiH, it is known that there were at least five last year, while there have been six victims in the first half of this year alone.
Femicide cannot be included in the laws
Some countries in the region, such as Croatia and North Macedonia, have included the term femicide in their criminal codes as a special criminal offense, defined as the murder of women out of hatred, contempt, and a desire for domination.
BiH has not followed this example, as its state laws, as well as the criminal codes of the two entities, do not treat femicide as a separate criminal offense.
After Nizama Hecimovic was killed in Gradacac, northeastern BiH, by her former partner in August last year, the authorities announced that they would change the regulations to protect victims of domestic violence and tighten sanctions for femicide.
The authorities in the BiH entity of the FBiH then formed a working group tasked with drafting amendments to the Criminal Code of the FBiH, which have not yet been officially adopted.
However, the entity’s Minister of Justice, Vedran Skobic, has confirmed that femicide will not be included in the Criminal Code of the FBiH, arguing that the act “will not be possible to prove.”
“Femicide is by definition the murder of a woman out of hatred because she is a woman. The question is how to prove it, or that she was killed because she is a woman. How will the prosecutor prove intent, because the perpetrator will say that it was not femicide and that it was, say, because of cheating, because she made him angry, or for some other reason,” he said.
What are the sentences?
Laws on violence provide for penalties ranging from one year to long-term imprisonment, or 45 years if the crime is murder.
Jadranka Milicevic from the “Cure” Foundation believes that it is not necessary to wait for a new Criminal Code, as the existing one already offers the possibility of a 40-year prison sentence for murder.
“The real question is whether we will wait two years for a verdict. Will we get the maximum prison sentence of 40 years and sanctions that will be a deterrent to everyone who plans to do something like this,” says Milicevic.
The “Cure” Foundation, according to her, has knowledge of cases of murders of women that occurred two years ago and have not yet been processed to this day.
“We went out into the streets, but it is obvious that the citizens also see that nothing is happening, that there are no verdicts. It’s hot, people are wondering why they should go out into the streets, it’s not their problem at stake. That hurts me because you never know if you might be the victim tomorrow,” says Milicevic, RSE writes.
E.Dz.
