Feminicide across Europe: Croatia

Croatia

The notion of femicide has been in circulation in Croatia since the late 1990s (Kovčo 1996), but mainly among the research community who nevertheless prefer to talk about killing women, rather than using the term femicide. Although there are several studies of domestic violence in Croatia, the first paper to use the concept of femicide was published in 2014 (Asančaić, 2014). 

1 Definition 

The term femicide is not widely used in Croatia. All reliable sources use expressions like “killing of women”. The expression “intimate homicide” is also in use to indicate the killing of a woman by an intimate partner as a specific form of homicide. 

The term femicide is most commonly used by feminist web portals, where articles about the problem of intimate partner violence in Croatia are occasionally published, and where the developments with respect to femicide within the UN or in other countries are reported. Government bodies do not employ the term. 

2 Sources 

There are no comprehensive resources on femicide in Croatia. The Ministry of Interior is the body that officially collects the data on reported murders of women, which include information about the relationship with the perpetrator, but not necessarily the motivation or the context in which the murder occurred. However, publicly available data reported in the Statistical Overview of the Basic Security Indicators and Police Work Results, published annually on the web of the Ministry, contain 

only information about the sex of the perpetrators and the victims of homicide. The annual publication, Men and Women in Croatia, published by the State Institute for Statistics does not contain any data on femicide. 

(by Ivana Radacic and Irena Cajner Mraovic) 

In order to fight feminicide/femicide, various Latin American and European countries have adopted increasingly specific laws and legal instruments that penalize feminicide. The ratification of the Belém do Pará Convention1 in Latin America and the entry into force of the Istanbul Convention2  in Europe, demonstrate an increasingly stronger international commitment against this kind of violence. The establishment of the Bi-regional Dialogue on Gender by the European Union (EU) and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), as well as the adoption of the Urgent Resolution on Feminicide in the European Union and Latin America3 by the Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly (EuroLat) also express this commitment.    

However, legal norms, agreements, and international dialogues alone are not sufficient for the eradication of violence against women, nor its most extreme manifestation, feminicide.

Traditionally, States were only responsible for their own actions or those of their agents, but international public law has evolved and currently, the principle of due diligence makes the State responsible for the prevention, investigation, and prosecution of violence, regardless of who commits the crime. The duty of due diligence obliges States to enter the private sphere, where historically, they have not intervened, but where the majority of cases of violence against women occur. 

Therefore, it is the duty of the State to take all necessary measures to prevent human rights violations, such as feminicide, before they occur. This means, on the one hand, adopting pertinent laws and policies to prevent, investigate, prosecute, and punish those guilty of abuse, and on the other hand, successfully implement them. 

Patricia Jiménez, Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung – European Union, Brussels


https://eu.boell.org/sites/default/files/feminicide_eng.pdf

https://www.um.edu.mt/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/308017/March_9_Country_resources.pdf