On 25 November 2016 in Vienna, Austria, experts from around the world gathered for an ACUNS/OSCE UNODC symposium entitled “Combating Femicide”; Dr. Šimonović reiterated the importance of establishing a Femicide Watch in each country. Excerpts from this conference are featured in this publication; they include UNODC Deputy Executive Director Aldo Lale-Demoz, the Austrian Ambassador Clemens Koja. and Biljana Branković, member of the Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence.

Unless there is accurate and comparable data collection on a given crime, there will be no proper understanding of it and no effective strategy with which to combat it. Having clear data helps law makers and government officials win the public’s support for tackling it through targeted prevention and investigation resources. Femicide has been defined as murder of a woman by an intimate partner or family members and the targeting of women by criminal gangs or as a weapon of war. It has been universally recognised as a crime. But how do horrific crimes of this type so often slip under the radar? Why is it so difficult to collect data on such an abhorrent criminal activity and, subsequently, to arrest the perpetrators?

In 2015 Dr. Dubravka Šimonović, UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women called for “the establishment of femicide watches or observatories on violence against women which should collect data on gender related killing of women and femicide and analyse, with the assistance of interdisciplinary review panels, all femicide cases including court decisions in order to identify gaps in the intervention system, criminal justice and criminal procedures system, as well as risk factors to prevent and protect women and girls from those killings.”