Martina Kaller of the University of Vienna officially welcomed all participants, seconded by Henrike Landré (UNSA Global Network, FWP) and Fatma Uysal (UNSA Vienna). All three emphasized the relevance of this unique gathering of senior and international experts on femicide. Looking back at over a decade of activism by the UNSA Vienna's Femicide Team, Fatma explained why the location Vienna matters that much when it comes to jointly fighting femicide.

Our first distinguished speaker, H.E. the Ambassador of Mexico to Austria and PM of Mexico to the International Organisations in Vienna, Mr. Luis Javier Campuzano Piña, provided the audience with a summary of the most recent actions to combat femicide in Mexico. 

His colleague, H.E. the Ambassador of Canada to Austria and PM of Canada to the UN in Vienna, Mr. Troy Lulashnyk, highlighted the necessity to take action with regard to the situation in Canada. 

Next, our long-time partner of the UNODC's Criminal Justice and Crime Prevention Section, Mr. Sven Pfeiffer, talked about the upcoming latest UNODC report on femicide data while providing some key statistics. He also reported about the ongoing UNODC meeting on Femicide Review Committees.

The two co-editors, Myrna Dawson (University of Guelph, Canada). and Saide Mobayed (University of Cambridge, UK) then explained the background of the handbook and gave an overview of all the different book sections with its over 50 (!) chapters.

In the following introduction to individual chapters and sub-topics, they first gave the floor to Patsilí Toledo Vásquez (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona) who spoke about recent developments on legal responses to femicide in Latin America and Europe.

The next speaker was Vathsala Illesinghe (Toronto Metropolitan University & Canadian Femicide Observatory) with a in-depth review of the work of various Femicide Observatories and watches, followed by Silvia Ivette Juárez Barrios (Feminist lawyer & Human Rights Defender) and Erika J. Rojas Ospina (Independent Gender Researcher & Consultant) who covered femicide in relation to gang-related violence in El Salvador. 

Anna Alvazzi del Frate (Kennis: Knowledge for Safety and Good Governance & Alliance of NGOs on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice) closed the panel with a outlook on armed conflict femicide, also mentioning the current situation in Israel.