At the regular session of the House of Representatives of the Parliament of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, held on Tuesday, February 4, the Law on Amendments to the Criminal Code of the Federation of BiH was supposed to be discussed. However, just before the session began, due to a large number of amendments, this proposed law was withdrawn from the agenda.

One of the key amendments concerns the introduction of femicide – gender-based murder – as a separate criminal offense. This initiative was launched by the organizations Glas žene Bihać, Ženska vizija Tuzla, Tim volim život Cazin, Izvor Sanski Most, and Inicijativa građanki/na Mostar as part of the campaign "We Will Not Die in Silence" and the project "For Better Protection of Women from Violence in the Federation of BiH."

The amendment proposing the inclusion of femicide under a new article titled Aggravated Murder of a Woman was signed and supported by the Caucus of Representatives of the Party of Democratic Action (SDA), the Democratic Front (DF), the Trust Caucus (Narod i Pravda and SPU BiH), Our Party (Naša stranka), the People's European Alliance (NES), the Party for BiH (SBiH), the Social Democratic Party (SDP), and independent representative Kenan Uzunović.

Although the House of Representatives did not discuss this issue, significant progress was made at the session of the Committee for Gender Equality of the House of Representatives of the Federation of BiH, where a decision was made to accept the amendment. Representatives of the Glas žene organization and its partner organizations attended the session and were informed by the Federal Ministry of Justice that the Ministry had accepted the amendments proposed by Glas žene and that they would be incorporated into the draft Law on Amendments to the Criminal Code of the Federation of BiH after the Ministry finalizes the legal text.

"We welcome the decision of the Ministry of Justice of the Federation of BiH, which aligns with the goal of better protecting women from violence through legal frameworks and reflects the will of the citizens of the Federation. We will continue to monitor the process of amending the Criminal Code of the Federation of BiH in the context of femicide and believe that the Government of the Federation will soon submit a revised draft of the Law on Amendments to the Criminal Code of the Federation of BiH, which will include femicide as a distinct criminal offense," stated representatives of the Glas žene organization.