First femicide interactive map for Albania, Montenegro and Serbia launched

An interactive map listing femicides committed since 2019 in Albania, Montenegro and Serbia was launched within the framework of the Fourth Regional Forum: Ending Violence against Women in the Western Balkans and Türkiye on 29-30 November 2022. Femicide is the killing of a woman because she is a woman, committed on the grounds of her sex or gender, and is rooted in unequal power relations between men and women.

Developed by the organization FemPlatz with the support of the UN Women Regional Programme on Ending Violence against Women “Implementing Norms, Changing Minds,” funded by the European Union (EU), the interactive map aims to track data on femicides in Albania, Montenegro and Serbia as well as to serve as a model for a tool that can be used by prospective femicide watches – mechanisms to monitor femicide – in the region.

“This interactive map of over 100 femicide cases in Albania, Montenegro, and Serbia serves as a visual reminder to all of us who work on understanding and combating femicide that there is still much work to be done. We need more and better evidence-based policies, practices, and awareness to prevent this extreme manifestation of violence against women. We need to purposefully collect data on femicide that is up to date, systematized, transparent, and accessible – and our map offers this type of user-friendly approach. This united approach to femicide should ultimately lead to creating systems that truly value women’s lives and guarantee them freedom from violence and human rights violations,” explained Biljana Janjić, Executive Director at FemPlatz from Serbia.

A 2022 study by UNODC and UN Women, Gender-related killings of women and girls: Improving data to improve responses to femicide/feminicide, shows that, on average, more than five women or girls were killed every hour by someone in their own family in 2021.

“Femicide is a problem that concerns every single country in the world. Gender-related killings, as well as other forms of violence against women and girls, are not inevitable. They can and must be prevented, and we can achieve this by identifying women affected by violence as early as possible, enabling access to survivor-centered support and protection, ensuring that the police and justice systems are more responsive to the needs of survivors, and addressing the root causes of violence against women and girls including through transforming harmful masculinities, social norms, structural gender inequalities and gender stereotypes. The UN Women Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia works to support countries to strengthen data collection on femicide as a critical step to inform policies and programmes aimed at preventing and eliminating violence against women and girls,” pointed out Yolanda Iriarte, programme specialist at UN Women.

The information included in the map is collected from media reports and does not represent an official source of information. It is addressed to state authorities and other actors as a model of public data presentation for future femicide watch initiatives.