Hundreds of citizens attended this year’s march, held traditionally on the occasion of March 8th. With dozens of banners reading ‘The cameras see, the institutions wink,’ ‘The abuser at home, and the victim has to seek shelter?,’ ‘Endure it, report it, die,’ ‘Verdict: You are guilty of complicity in the crime,’ and ‘Safe city, Unsafe Women,’ the women sent a message that in this society women are not safe, and that the fight for dignity, freedom, and security continues.

This year, the focus was on domestic violence, following the recent case of long-term domestic abuse in which the lives of mother Ivana and her daughter Katja were lost. Those present demanded justice for them, as well as for Rosica, Ramajana, and all victims of femicide.

The march began at ‘Woman Fighter’ Park and ended at the pedestal of the Macedonian partisan Vera Jocic, whose bust is missing after it was stolen last December and has not yet been replaced. Participants laid flowers at the pedestal to honor all fallen women fighters who dedicated their lives to women’s freedom.

In this society, women are most unsafe precisely where they should feel safest – at home. This society teaches men that they are superior, that women are their property, and that they have the right to possess, control, and even take our lives. For years, we have marched and fought for dignity, freedom, safety, prevention, protection, and a life without fear. This year, we will march again, and in defiance of the culture of violence, we will send the message: ‘We will not be erased. No excuses, no failures, no forgetting,’” the organizers of the march declared,