Feminist Law

Digital safety needs to be rethought in terms of relationships through restructuring cyber-law legislation, broadening definitions of domestic violence to include digital coercive control and demanding context-sensitive platform design. Otherwise, digital safety cannot be transformed from a tool of domestic violence into an avenue for empowerment.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’s General Comment No. 25, the European Union’s Artificial Intelligence Act, and New Zealand’s new Online Safety (Minimum Age and Child Safety Risk Assessment) Bill each address how best to protect "children" from algorithmic and AI-related harm. However, the category performing much of this legal work, "the child", is rarely interrogated in its own right.

The introduction of the criminal offence of the aggravated murder of a female person into the Croatian Criminal Code represents an important normative step in recognising gender-based violence. Femicide is neither a crime of passion nor an isolated act of violence. Rather, it most often represents the final stage of a prolonged pattern of gender-based violence, preceded by humiliation, isolation, coercive control, and the gradual escalation of abusive behaviour.

The initiative against FGM is rooted in the reclamation of freedom and individual autonomy. It becomes imperative for the highest court of India to ban this practice which cannot be justified by stating the Essential Religious Practice test, and opposing the interference with a community’s culture and traditions. It is an inherently violent and discriminatory practice against women.

Despite the ratification of the Convention and amendments to the legislative framework, violence against women in Croatia continues to represent a serious social problem.