The Autonomous Women's Center and Women in Black from Belgrade, with the support of the Anima Women's Association from Đulići (BH), are organizing a street action, a vigil in mourning and in silence, on December 6, 2020 from 1 pm to 2 pm, in Republic Square, under the name "Stop Killing Women". As part of this protest, a stage action "Women's lives matter" will be performed.

By marking December 6th, we symbolically remember the victims of the Montreal Massacre,^[1] but also all the women who were killed by men just because they were women. We ask for the establishment of publicly available state statistics on the number of murders of women (femicide) and the establishment of a Supervisory Body for its monitoring^[2] . We demand that state institutions act with due care at all times (especially during emergencies and pandemics), consider all potential risks of a possible increase in domestic violence and its death toll, and do their utmost to support and support women survivors of violence and protect them, which is the first step in the prevention of femicide.

In 2020, at least 22 women were killed by a partner or other family member in Serbia, and in 5 more cases there is a suspicion of femicide. According to the media, in four cases, violence was reported to the competent institutions. Seven women were killed with a knife, five with an ax, three with a gun, three were beaten to death, one was killed with an automatic rifle, one by a bomb, while two women were killed in other ways (by pouring gasoline and burning, and a blunt object). At least 30 persons lost their mothers, of which 11 were minor children.

Over the past decade, partners and other male family members have killed at least 330 women in Serbia. We emphasize "at least" because these statistics were recorded on the basis of media reports, and we do not know how many cases did not reach the media. There is also no information on how many women have died as a result of many years of enduring violence. Even after a decade of work in this field, it is not possible to determine the prevalence of the problem we are facing. Of particular concern are cases in which it is not possible to determine the exact cause of death, where investigations have been going on for months (which is most obvious in the example of the murdered Jelena Marjanović), and sometimes they never end. We must not allow perpetrators to walk free and crimes against women to go unpunished. React before it's too late! Stop to the killing of women!

^[1] On December 6th 1989, an armed assailant killed 14 female students on the premises of the Polytechnic College in Montreal, Canada, shouting "You are all one bunch of feminists, and I hate feminists."

^[2] The women's group sent this request to the state three years ago, and the UN Special Rapporteur for the Monitoring of Violence against Women, Dubravka Šimonović, called on the member states to form this body in 2015.