Victims must be encouraged to report violence because it is a way to help themselves, but also to force the authorities in government institutions to finally start acting in order to use repressive measures and other activities to prevent future potential perpetrators of violence from committing such crimes.
This is one of the messages sent by the participants of the Open Study, in which the topic is dedicated to the ubiquitous violence in our society, in which there are more and more murders of women and young people.
Nataša Mujkanović, Alma Kratina, Anamarija Divković and Ozrenka Fišić speak in the presentation.
Tuzla still hasn’t shed its tears for the murdered Amra Kahrimanović, half a year has passed since the horrific murder of Nizama Hećimović, the victims are continuing and there is already a new crime – in Lipnica, a woman was killed again. System solutions do not have a warning effect. On the contrary.
“I think we are witnessing a normalization of violence, because if it happens too often and we don’t have an adequate sanction, it becomes part of our everyday life. And if it becomes normal to us, then we have completely failed and can expect such things every day. The obstacles we identify are, for example, that the case is suspended the moment the victim stops testifying in court. Why are such acts not dealt with by official procedure? Why is the mode of work like that,”asks Anamarija Divković, a social worker in the Association of Citizens of Viva Žena Tuzla.
This problem can no longer be talked about superficially, it must be demystified and clearly stated what has not been done, because it is known what should be done – points out Alma Kratina, representative in the House of Representatives of the Parliament of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
We must not allow the fate of the victim to depend on the sensibility of the individual in that chain of protection. The victim’s fate cannot depend on whether the policeman she encountered when reporting the violence was sensitized. It must not be like that. We must have clear strategic steps in the fight against violence. Amendments to the Criminal Code or the passing of some other laws will not change the matter by themselves. But if the lower limit for murders and crimes like this is 10 years, it has to be raised a lot higher. Because we have court practice that allows long-term sentences to be imposed, but we see that 30 or 35 years are sporadically imposed, it’s usually up to ten or something more, and then some shortening happens due to good governance and that murderous thug gets out much earlier. These are the things we have… The least I expected was for the HJPCBiH, independently, to make known, so what are those practices. There are omissions. But after such a brutal, beastly murder seen on social networks in Gradačac, in Sarajevo, we as a public were not informed of where the failures were. We even have the fact that some professional external body did not analyze the entities that were in that chain to protect the victims, in these specific cases. Again, the question of responsibility arises, the question of the legal framework that will be a complete protection for the victims and its implementation arises, emphasizes federal representative Kratina.
No one deserves to be bullied. And the perpetrator of violence is always responsible. And everyone should have that in their heads because these are women who are long-term victims of violence who think they are the ones causing the problem. No, it is exclusively with the perpetrator. And I think that all of us as a society have a responsibility towards young people. We must never forget all those professionals who work. If a woman approaches you and reports violence, keep in mind that she also has children who need to be protected, who are indirectly sometimes present when violence is involved, said Nataša Mujkanović, coordinator at the Safe House of the Local Democracy Foundation in Sarajevo.
