Imela Selimović and her minor son were killed by the hands of her husband and father in Kalesija. The lifeless bodies were found on February 12 in a locked apartment. The killer was arrested in the vicinity of Prnjavor after a five-day chase. Probably considering his freedom more valuable than the life he took of his wife and child, he avoided police pursuit for days.
Written by: Miljan Kovač
News about the murder of a woman, a child, domestic or peer violence is read almost on a daily basis. Last year alone, 14 women were murdered in this country, and according to statistics from civil society organizations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, on average, 10 women die in the crime of femicide per year.
In this country, according to data from the Foundation United Women, seven or eight cases of domestic violence are recorded every day. In 2023 alone, 2,672 such cases were recorded.
All of this is happening in a country where religious communities and various associations, openly right-wing and religious worldviews, continuously call for the preservation of “traditional values” and the “traditional family”. From these circles, all those who advocate for respect for the rights of others and those who are different, that is, civil society activists, are negatively labeled, and the values they advocate for are viewed as “sacrilege”.
The government, it seems, better hears and respects the voice of “traditionalists”.
Last year, the Government of the Republic of Srpska, at the request of several associations that advocate for “traditional values”, abandoned the new Law on the Prevention of Domestic Violence. “Traditionalists” did not like, among other things, the use of the term “femicide” in the law.
When the advocacy of the values of the “traditional family” is linked to the parallel growth in the number of victims of domestic violence, the question arises: what types of values are they talking about?
The tradition of violence
In searching for an answer to the question of what values are nurtured in a traditional family, as journalist and activist Milkica Milojević says, one does not have to go far into the past.
Photo: Ringier
In that “tradition”, she says, until just a few decades ago, girls were forbidden to go to school, after the “fourth grade”, even though primary education was compulsory in SFRY. It was believed that if a girl goes to eighth grade, or God forbid, to high school, she will lose control and “become whore”.
“Certainly, such a legacy has given rise to the ingrained understanding that a woman is the property of the father, and then the husband, who, accordingly, has the right to dispose of her life, even to kill her, if she ‘gets out of control’, for example, reports violence, or decides to leave the abuser”, she warns.
Fighters for human rights and gender equality and other “traitors”, as “traditionalists” label them, are aware that only free, complete and independent individuals can build a healthy family and that the family, through social changes, also changes.
“The basis of every fight for true well-being, including the well-being of the family, must be equality. And the traditional family does not recognize equality: it is well-known who is the head of the house, and who must listen, suffer and be silent. Advocates of “traditional family values” are opponents not only of gender equality, but also of children’s rights. To them, even UNICEF is a product of the rotten and diabolical West”, emphasizes Milkica Milojević
Misunderstanding kills
The problem is that advocates of “traditional values” often do not even understand what they are advocating and what they are actually opposing.
This, our interviewee believes, creates fertile ground for the use of tradition and family values as weapons against advocacy for equality.
According to Rubina Čengić, a journalist and activist, this is primarily an opposition to granting broader rights to members of the LGBTIQ+ community, and especially to transgender people.
Photo: prometej.ba
“I think this is happening because people who oppose giving these people rights, first of all, do not understand what these people need, what are their rights. On the one hand, they do not understand, and on the other hand, they abuse the family and family values, and, God forbid, religion”, Rubina points out.
One does not get the impression, as she says, that the organizations we call anti-gender are not exactly opposed to violence against women, but they oppose the terminology, because they do not understand what it is about. They oppose when it is said “gender-based violence”. When talking about the rights of “women”, traditionalists understand that these rights are also given to people who may have been born men, but feel like women, which is unacceptable to them.
It is unacceptable to them, Rubina believes, because they do not understand what it is about. There is a tendency here to look for an enemy in everything that is not understood.
Therefore, traditional values can also be good but the problem is in the abuse and misinterpretation.
“The difference between us who fight against gender-based violence and those who advocate traditional values is that we do not consider women to be someone’s property just because they are women, instead we say that women are full-fledged living beings just like men. When you enter into a dialogue with them, they say: What do you want now that families are broken up because of a slap in the face? Yes, we are going to do something, if necessary, because ultimately in all religious books it is written: Do not kill! It does not say do not kill a woman or do not kill a man, it says do not kill! However, we see that all religions oppose this, because religions are simply based on inequality. They are based on the existence of some supreme being who interprets who is more important and who is less important”, says Rubina.
On the other hand, she warns, in families where this idea of traditional values is nurtured, a person probably feels to have the right to beat someone and hit someone, to abuse someone, and they have exactly the same attitude towards women and children.
Where there is no law there is “tradition”
In 2023, 1,374 cases of domestic violence were recorded in the Federation of BiH, 1,239 in the Republic of Srpska, and 24 in the Brčko District. According to data from the competent prosecutor’s offices, in the first half of last year, 636 victims were exposed to violence in the RS alone. Of these, 470 were women. Analyses have shown that in 90% of cases, the perpetrators of violence are men.
The House of Representatives of the Parliament of the Federation of BiH adopted the Draft Law on Protection against Domestic Violence and Violence against Women in early February.
In order for it to enter into force, it must also be adopted by the House of Peoples of the Parliament of the FBiH.
However, the proposed amendments to the Criminal Code of the FBiH were removed from the agenda. Allegedly due to the large number of amendments. In order to ensure adequate protection of victims and stricter punishment of perpetrators, these two laws should have been adopted in a package.
When this will happen, judging by the experiences to date, activists claim, is completely uncertain.
In the Republic of Srpska at the beginning of last year, it seemed that the new Law on Protection against Domestic Violence would be adopted. After all, the Government of RS sent it to the parliamentary procedure. However, at that time, as many as twenty associations of the so-called “guardians of traditional values” spoke out. They were bothered, among other things, by the provisions of the law that use the terms “femicide” and “gender discrimination”. They claimed that this was destroying the values of the “traditional family”. Immediately afterwards, Milorad Dodik also spoke out on the “X” platform. The President of the RS supported the position of the “right-wing” organizations. This was enough for the Ministry of Family, Youth and Sports, without any explanation, to abandon the new law. Just a few days later, the terms “gender” and “gender-based discrimination” were removed from the Criminal Code of RS by the will of the delegates.
Unlike the voices of obscure organizations, many of which have extreme right-wing views, the voice of civil society representatives has not been heard by the authorities.
Blood Populism
Lawyer Dejan Lučka from the Banja Luka Centre for Human Rights does not dispute the right of these organizations to advocate for changes towards achieving their goals, which, he says, should be a feature of a democratic society.
Photo: slobodno.org
“However, when the legislative process is adapted to groups that minimize violence and advocate the return of patriarchal models in which women are subordinate, this directly threatens the lives of victims of violence. Laws in this field must be based on facts, research and best practices, and not on ideological or religious beliefs”, says Lučka.
Lawmakers and legislators, as he points out, should take into account all proposals for changes in laws, but they must also rely on expert analysis and international human rights standards in the analysis of these proposals and not allow the negation or relativization of the seriousness of the problem of domestic violence.
“Unfortunately, this does not happen often in our country, and that is why we have this case where populism and ideological beliefs led to the failure of a completely decent law proposal to be adopted”, Lučka believes.
By failing to adopt adequate legal solutions, but also by failing to implement existing ones, the government bears the burden of the responsibility for unprotected victims of domestic violence. The failure to understand and seek adequate solutions is the responsibility of the entire system. Our interviewees believe that responsibility starts from education, where adequate attention is not paid to this issue, all the way to religious communities that allow or themselves participate in the abuse of traditional values. The consequences are bloody, which we hear about every now and then. The inadequate reaction of the system is evidenced not only by crimes, but also by the stigmatization of both victims and all those who fight for their rights.
This is also evidenced by comments on social networks in which activists are insulted, and the victims themselves, women, are not spared, while attempts are made to find justification for the murderers, men. Activist Hasmira Malić, president of the Association Snaga nezavisne žene, has also been exposed to online violence after the protest in Sarajevo held due to the crime in Kalesija.
Online bullies are bothered by the appearance or way a woman dresses. They are not bothered by the bloody hands of the murderer, the blood of innocent women and children.
No wonder in a society where the voice of those who call for traditional exclusivity and openly oppose any progress is not only heard loudly, but also respected by those who should protect the unprotected.
(The text was written in cooperation with the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly within the project “Our Resistance”, supported by the Swedish foundation Kvinna till Kvinna and UK International Development.)
Text and photo: www. impulsportal.net
