Vanja Macanovic, head of the Autonomous Women’s Center, which launched the Femicide Memorial
“We’re not doing anyone a favor by not reporting violence,” Macanovic stresses. “Those who are aware of abuse should get informed about how to help and call the police when they hear violence occurring.”
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) warned in a landmark study in 2019 that “Killings carried out by intimate partners are rarely spontaneous or random, and should be examined as an extreme act on a continuum of gender-related violence that remains underreported and too often ignored.”
If anyone did try to help Desanka, her son says, it was mostly words of pity and comfort alongside advice that she should leave her husband. “But no one knew, not even my mother, how to do that when you can’t trust anyone — not even the police, who were often privately sitting with him and having coffee.”
‘Far From Resolved’
Serbia ratified the Council of Europe’s convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, known as the Istanbul Convention, in 2013 and introduced a Domestic Violence Prevention Law in 2017.
Serbia’s parliament-appointed commissioner for equality, Brankica Jankovic, says reports of violence have increased since the law’s implementation. “But the problem is far from resolved,” she adds. Jankovic emphasizes the need for specialized staff and dedicated departments to handle domestic violence cases effectively.
“It’s not the same if a victim is met by an investigator fresh from a case involving theft or terrorism versus someone specifically trained to work with victims of violence,” Jankovic says.
Some 28,413 cases of domestic violence were reported in Serbia in 2023, according to Interior Ministry data shared with the Autonomous Women’s Center, the highest number of recorded reports since 2018. The center says it received 4,095 calls to its SOS line for psychosocial support in the same period, representing a 4 percent year-on-year increase. Twenty-seven women were murdered in Serbia in 2023.
“They feel no one believes them,” says Macanovic, adding that the most dangerous moment for a woman is “when she leaves the abuser or informs him of her decision to leave.”
A court concluded in connection with Desanka’s murder — and Petar’s eventual sentencing to 30 years in prison for the crime — that her ex-husband killed her “when he realized his ex-wife would not return to him and there was no chance of continuing their family life together.”
A third of the victims chronicled by the Femicide Memorial had reported their abusers before they were murdered.
Dejan says he can’t fathom why people fail to realize that no form of violence should be tolerated. But for years, he says, as his father grew wealthier and gained allies within institutions, his mother was like “a helpless hamster running in a wheel.”
In his mother’s case, her unrealized goal was “a better and brighter tomorrow,” he says. “She hoped, but she was sinking deeper and deeper without realizing it.”
Two days after the authorities issued a restraining order against him, Petar Mosic appeared at the shelter where Desanka was staying, prompting the local social welfare center to report the offense to the police.
Dejan says his father had information that the shelter had reported him. Had he been arrested, Dejan maintains, his mother might be free and alive today.
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Publish date : 2024-12-23 00:06:00
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