Unsettled family relationships trigger for many family tragedies… Here, everybody still remembers the case of Bujanovac, in Vranje region, a town lost in the middle of the Serbian southern mountains. In Vranje, on March 16, 2008, Boban Mitic, 34, killed his wife, Suzanna, 24, their two children respectively aged of 2 and 3 and their grandmother. Only the third girl, severely injured in the eye and left almost blind, and the grandfather, last arrived on the scene and saved due to the lack of bullets left in Boban’s cartridge, survived this tragic event.

I had decided to tell you about this case: About the open death threats pronounced several times against Suzanna but also against the members of organizations who worked with her. About the inaction of the social services in charge of protecting this family. About the feeling of “SOS Vranje hotline” members who supported this family and met with her one day before the tragedy. Touching and touched staff I had the opportunity to meet with… I had decided to make a specific blog about it. But on second thoughts, why Boban Mitic from Vranje ? Why not Nikola Radosavljević from Jabukovca (www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabukovac_killings) or Dragan Cedic from Leskovac (www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragan_%C4%8Cedi%C4%87) ?

And at the end, what should be said about these stories, what matters and should be kept from them, more than their details are their conclusions. In Vranje, for example, the conclusion is painful since no lesson has been drawn from the disappearance of this whole family. Despite the loss of these lives, despite the unfairness of the situation, according to the words of an activist, today, « we still cannot help these women in needs ». And she started relating the cases of battered women she’s currently dealing with, threatened of death by their husbands, and unable to find any kind of help facing up this lethal danger. These cases make us run the risk of seeing history repeating itself … And because of this, they deserve to be told. Because at one point, it is necessary to get out the circle of impotence and impunity Vranje represents. The video realized with members of SOS Vranje, summarizing the current situation can be found on the French version of this post, below this one. It cannot leaves us remaining stony-faced and calls for immediate action.

If you are a regular and attentive reader, maybe you have noticed the wordplay which stands for the title of this blog…Remember, “out of circle” is also the name of the organization dealing with domestic violence against the disabled… I therefore take the opportunity to add the video I realized with them, specifically dealing with the use of firearms in this phenomenon of domestic violence. Once against, comments and thoughts are more than welcomed.

It’s a small, cozy room on the 6th floor of Belgrade Media center, and right in the center. The bright, white walls and newness of the building contrast with the dullness and age that characterize Belgrade walls. The clear and transparent setting  holds great promise for the sequence of the conference taking place on Thursday 18th June, 2009.

18th of June 2009 : Conference on guns and domestic violence as part of the IANSA international week of action

Gradually, journalists  begin to enter the notably relaxed atmosphere, discussing the latest reports they had covered or the latest conferences they had attended. This noisy crowd is made up of 25 to 30 people, from a broad span of the national media, either newspapers, radio, or TV channels as well as the foreign media  ( Radio free Europe, or a National TV channel from the republic Srpska entity, part of Bosnia and Herzegovina ). There are also NGOs representing women and children, a representative of the United Nations department and one from Belgrade municipal office of public prosecution. Silence eventually falls as attitudes steady, cameras get ready to film, and  atmosphere changes perceptibly due to the seriousness of the topic, about to be addressed by the three invited speakers.

VDS was proud to welcome Doctor Mirjana Dokmanovic, an international lawyer, journalist, researcher and lecturer on human rights and women’s rights, as well as the President of the Women’s Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Serbia & Montenegro. We were also happy to have Doctor Zeljko Nikac, both a Deputy Police chief and Professor because his presence added a field dimension, with the latest data available and a great deal of experience in the armed domestic violence field. From VDS, both Jasmina Nikolic, whom you should by-now be familiar with, and Vesna Nikolic Ristanovic, professor in criminology at Belgrade University and director of VDS, were present. 

Our three experts on armed domestic violence

Guns. Violence. Women… Pens scribble away, and many questions are raised to our interlocutors, journalists and activists showing a great interest for the subject. The conference officially ends amid stage whispers. Many TV and radio stations request more details, get closer to the podium to obtain personal interviews from our speakers, and pens go on scribbling away…. What a formative experience for the novice journalist I am, to see basic tips on how to compile various sequences to make reports as lively and appealing as can be

Of course, we’re not the only ones to be proud of the work accomplished during the global week of action… and you may be interested to go and see what others have done, in Argentina, Canada, Congo,  El Salvador, India, Liberia, Macedonia, Mexico, Namibia, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Paraguay, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sri Lanka, the US…. A various range of events, a wide variety of countries… because every action counts! For more details, please visit http://www.iansa-women.org/node/172

When first talking on the intertwining between domestic violence and guns, I must confess I was kind of surprised, not to say skeptic.  To me, GUNS were used by governments, the military forces, the police… They were responsible for mafia and other illegal networks crimes and murders, settings of scores, or high death toll in wars and they were mainly illegally owned… Above all, they were a men business.

But this is a platitude. This is why I m here. And this is the message I should be delivering to you on my ground level, in the name of IANSA and any other affected woman who doesn’t have the possibility to be heard.

Of the above assumptions, only the latest is half correct: The vast majority of those who use and are killed or injured by small arms and light weapons are men. This is because in many countries, there is a strong social and cultural association between masculinity and possessing a gun. Thus, researchers estimate that gender and age are more powerful predictions of gun violence than geographical location. (and let’s not forget that owning a gun must be understood as a choice as the majority of men do not own or use guns).

This report should not let us forget that women are proportionally a very important at risk population too if one considers that they barely own, manufacture, import, or trade any arm. It is therefore necessary to apply a gender perspective to the small arms issue, understanding the different ways men, women, and boys engage in, and above all, are affected by gun violence. As regard the other assumptions, we should all be aware that the vast majority of arms circulating are in civilian hands (an overwhelming 75 % of all guns, relegating the military and the police to a limited position). The private arsenal is three times as large as all the firepower of governments combined which make weapons regulation and control, extremely difficult. Most of them are legally possessed but it’s easy to divert their use from a legal to an illegal one, as you can guess.

Where women are concerned, violence in the home is as big problem as street crime because intimate partner violence is the most common form of violence in women’s lives worldwide. On average, it is estimate than 1/3 of women will be physically abused at least once in their lifetime by their partners but the numbers vary greatly from one country to another. Yet, what this woman-endured-violence has in common is the fact that it is more likely to take place at home, far from people’s look, and imposed by their male partner or relative.

Now lets try to link these two parameters : a widespread use of guns and a widespread practice of domestic violence. Guns have become a tool for wreaking domestic violence on women. The home is traditionally considered to be a safe heaven, and when men own gun, it’s assumed that its only to secure their family and protect it from a stranger invasion. One must confess that rather than providing protection to women, guns are used domestically to threaten and abuse women at home and this increases the risk of homicides for them. Thus, legally owned arms are the primary weapons used in domestic homicides in many countries but this is only the tree that hides the forest. Lets ask ourselves: before being actually killed, what did these women had to go through or could have been forced to do because of the presence of a gun at home? How many cases are left unreported because women usually seek assistance after several years of abuse? How many shadow numbers should we add, kept silent because women fear retaliation or think they cant get any support?

Dobar dan ! So it s been a week now that you haven’t heard from me and you may wonder if I landed safely considering the ongoing missing planes… I should first start by reassuring you, -I m safe, don’t worry-. I took a couple of days to settle down, find an accommodation, get used to Beograd, understand the tram lines and dare to use them… I almost feel at home now in the room that is mine, rent to a lovely Serbian girl who happens to be my roommate and luckily for me, a student in English. This secure feeling is in great part due to the warm and welcoming spirit Serbians have. From the man who crosses the road to make sure you went in the right direction to find the place you were looking for, to the people who offer you a ride when you were just asking directions, passing by all the persons you meet in coffees who approach you to teach you how to count in Serbian (something like yedan, dvi, tre, cetri, pet, chest, sedam, osam, devet, deset…to reach ten) or to tell you more about their lives and history throughout the Balkans wars. On this latter point, I have been really surprised to see how people talk freely about the past decade, and how there is something about them that seems to say ‘We’re sorry for what happened’, just as if they were all on the same boat in foreigners’ eyes and they had to justify and excuse every act their Serbian counterparts did. In another way, they find it hard to take distance from what they perceive as a badly connoted reputation that precedes them. But to be honest, this reputation doesn’t really reflect what it today means to be a Serb.

Here is how Beograd introduces himself to the tourist

IMGP0039

While discovering step by step all the secrets and traditions Belgrade has to offer, I, of course, had to do the job I was sent here for, that is to say helping with the launching on disarming domestic violence with the great support of the Victimology Society of Serbia (VDS). The first week was mainly devoted to the discovery of this Non Governmental Organization, founded to gather researchers, experts, practitioners, human rights activists, who are interested to work on the development of victimology and improvement of rights of victims of crime, war, and human rights’ violations. So the first dimension of VDS is very scholar and research related. But to adapt to an evolving environment, VDS not only is a research and education center, it also developed info and victim support services in 2003 that can be concrete help to the victims in need who can get information, emotional support, or can be wisely oriented to the existing services available for victims.

Founded in 1997, VDS hasn’t stopped growing since: It went from 37 members the very day of its creation, to 91 members today and is collaborating with many victim support services, NGOS, institutes and universities, both in Serbia and abroad. It gained recognition by integrating European and international organizations working on victims and crimes issues (since 2005, it is for example part of the advisory council of the United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice program) . But it also gained recognition because it was very often a pioneer organization to reveal and rise awareness on specific issues such as domestic violence, human trafficking or sexual violence and achieved concrete results in changing or creating comprehensive legislation: We’ll have the opportunity to come back on this in a future post.

One latter point on this institutional background to be complete and then I guarantee what is to come will be less conventional and technical … but in a NGO sector that is sometimes blurry, multifaceted, and defined by what it s not (as opposed to the governmental sector), I think it s useful to know precisely what we are talking about and set the stage correctly. So any time I mention the fact that I work for a NGO, the first question that pops up to people minds deals with its funding. From what I could understand, a lot of persons are cautious as regard the positive role played by the third sector here in Serbia because many of it is funded by external national powers, whose aims are not to seek direct benefits for Serbia itself but rather to achieve goals that correspond to their “own way of thinking the world”. Its not the case of VDS which is principally supported by international institutions, the European union and its European Agency for reconstruction, and by the government of Serbia itself, through the ministry of Science.

Now you’re in and equipped with all the preliminary information you need to effectuate that adventure with me… Be ready to start, we re heading right into the inner work of VDS and right into what should occupies us for the next couple of weeks, the focus on domestic violence and its link to the use of arms…