Around 80 human rights activists, mainly women, gathered yesterday in front of the Serbian Ministry of Labour in central Belgrade to protest the escalating violence against women and domestic violence in Serbia.

The protest was organised after a woman and her child were killed last week in front of the Centre for social work Rakovica and only a week before that, in front of the Centre for social work in Novi Belgrade, another woman was killed by her ex-husband.

The protesters, visibly angered, held transparents against femicide and male-based violence against women and children, calling for the proper punishments for the institutions and those responsible for the failure of the Centres’ work. The protesters also demanded justice before the crime is committed, not in its aftermath, and yelled slogans and the demands. No one addressed them from the Ministry.

The highlight of the protest was when a feminist and lesbian activist Zoe Gudović of Reconstruction women’s fund, addressed the policemen guarding the entrance to the ministry due to the fact that some of them were laughing at the activists reading out the demands. She angrily asked them what was funny, if we paid them to laugh in our faces, if they had mothers, women, daughters at home, and that they should be ashamed. After that, smiles disappeared from their faces.

The protest was organised by Women against violence network and Women in black. Gayten-LGBT took part in the protest collectively. Similar protests were also held in other Serbian towns, Kraljevo and Niš yesterday.

Photographs from yesterday’s protest are available on our FB page, here and here.

Milica Jeremić, editor in chief at transserbia.org on behalf of Gayten-LGBT team