On 14 May 2024 in Mostar the Council of Europe event "Harmonizing legal responses: Gap analysis on digital and sexual violence against women in Bosnia and Herzegovina“ convened executive policy-makers, representatives of executive and legislative bodies, judicial and law enforcement representatives to discuss the legislative, policy and institutional gaps to combat digital and sexual violence against women in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Council of Europe experts, Susana Pavlou and Dzenana Radoncic, presented the findings and recommendations of the gap analysis prepared in the framework of the project "Combating digital and sexual violence against women in Bosnia and Herzegovina".

The experts highlighted the areas where further harmonisation with the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence is needed such as amending criminal laws to include a legal definition of sexual violence and rape that explicitly includes the absence of freely given consent as a basis for such crimes, and fully implementing the GREVIO General Recommendation no. 1 on the digital dimension of violence against women.

Representatives from Brcko District, including representatives of the court and prosecutor’s office attended the event to share their experience in amending their Criminal Code in relation to sexual violence, as well as some forms of digital violence such as the non-consensually sharing of intimate images. “Hoping to set a standard for other legislative levels in Bosnia and Hercegovina to advance women’s rights, we made a step forward in complete harmonisation of the Criminal Code with the Istanbul Convention,” said Gordana Radovanović, prosecutor from Brčko District. She underlined though, that “[…] although individual legal solutions have been brought to a certain standard, they are yet to be applied in practice”.