Starting Fieldwork

Starting the fieldwork involved not only Zoom-calls with relevant actors but the first trip to Bosnia and Herzegovina in March 2025. The goal was to meet and interview relevant individuals from academia, activism, and NGOs to gain an understanding of the most important developments in gender equality, LGBTIQ+ rights, and general human rights issues. Both has been extremely helpful in gaining an initial understanding of the policy landscape and current challenges.

The visit to BiH included trips to both Sarajevo and Banja Luka, with many hours of engaging interviews and conversations on how experts interpret the status quo of women's and LGBTIQ+ rights, policies in this area, and the quality of their implementation. A key insight was that, although there have been important legislative and institutional measures at the national level, such as the Law against Discrimination, implementation remains challenging according to most experts, due to both a lack of political will and insufficient resources. In particular, since the government of the RS has itself sided with anti-gender actors in this part of the country. The people I have spoken to were very concerned about the rising anti-gender mobilisations in Republika Srpska, as well as the targeting of both critical journalists and activists by the government. Meanwhile, in the Federation of BiH, as I learned, the government has made efforts since 2022 to incorporate into the criminal legislation of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, as well as the Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse. Bosnia and Herzegovina ratified these conventions in 2013. However, the government withdrew the changes to the Criminal Code from parliamentary procedure in February 2025, due to a large number of amendments. Nevertheless, everyone expects that the new draft will be discussed again soon. This would be a good step towards gender equality, at least in one part of the country.