Activists from the Women's Network of Croatia rallied in St Mark's Square, the seat of the Government and Parliament, in Zagreb on Tuesday to urge the government to design a national strategy for femicide prevention, saying that Croatia has the third largest number of women's murders in the European Union.

The NGO staged rallies in 11 cities and towns across the country demanding a national strategy for all forms of violence and consistent implementation of the Istanbul Convention. They also want violence against women to be treated as a criminal offence, and not as a minor offence “like a free ride on the tram”, and femicide to be treated as a separate crime in legislation and court practice.

“Research by the European Institute for Gender Equality shows a significant correlation between the lack of national strategies for femicide prevention and the incidence of femicide,” the NGO’s Dorotea Susak said.

As part of the campaign, activists observed 13 minutes’ silence for the 13 women killed in Croatia this year and carried 13 death notices indicating where and how they were killed and who killed them.

“Violence is escalating because this government doesn’t care. This government doesn’t care about women. It doesn’t care that we are among the worst in the EU in terms of the number of femicides committed,” Sanja Juras said.

The campaign was held in memory of 14 female students killed by an armed man at the University of Montreal in 1989.