Andrea Wolfer, 9 June 2025
In the suburbs of Bucharest, a pregnant mother holding her 3 year old daughter was gunned down in broad daylight by her former partner, after years of trying to get protection through legal means. Her abuse was ignored by the Romanian authorities until it led to her murder. This is the reality of contemporary Romania for women, but we shall no longer be silent in the face of violence and femicide. Timisoara spoke up in support of the victims.
A public protest against gender-based violence took place on Friday, June 6, at 7 PM in Victory Square în Timișoara, organized in the wake of a shocking recent murder in Romania. The protest was organized by SPICC, a feminist association, campaigning against gender discrimination through activism and advocacy. They support equal opportunities, women’s empowerment, gender-sensitive education and public policies and social inclusion.
The gathering followed the demonstration from June 3, organized in Bucharest, in response to an event that shook Romanian civil society. On May 31, 2025, a 23 year old pregnant woman was shot to death in the street of Cosmopolis, a private suburb located just outside of Bucharest, by the man who had abused her for years since she was a teenager. She was holding the hand of her three-year-old daughter. Despite numerous complaints, protection orders and calls for help, the system failed to help and protect her. She was murdered in cold blood in front of her daughter.
This is the 25th femicide in the last five months. For a larger context: it is a known fact that every year, dozens of women are killed in Romania simply because they are women. In a tacit approval, Romanian culture perpetuates an inherited misogynistic approach where women are inferior to men and put in a box about how to behave „well” and obey patriarchal rules not to get in trouble.
“Violence against women is not an exception. It is a rule that the authorities tolerate. We are gathering in the streets for those who are no more, for those who live in fear and for those who are ignored by the state,” says the SPICC Association, the organizer of the protest. What the protest points out for the public’s attention is the fact that violence against women is not an isolated phenomenon, but a structural and social problem of Romania`s institutions. „This is a call for accountability and change: For justice, the system must be held accountable; For women’s safety, men must be educated; For life, silence is no longer an option.”
I attended the protest holding tightly the flowers that I brought for a woman I never knew, but who gave a name to every horror of gender inequality in Romania. She will stay forever in my mind and heart for the suffering she’s been through: Teodora.
When I got in the square, there was a surprisingly large amount of people for a feminist protest in Timișoara: men and women, children, but most of them young women close to Teodora`s age, 23 – a reality that instantly moved me to tears and made me feel very infuriated – spoke up. Why does a woman have to die in such a brutal way and bring people in solidarity together for the authorities to even think about taking the complaints of violent acts against women seriously and to do their job? Why do women have to stay silent, accept the verbal and/or physical abuse and hope not the worst to happen to them? Women in Timișoara spoke. Supporting men as well. In trembling or confident voices. I heard stories about the abuse women they had experienced, about fear, about long silences and shame that did not belong to them. About how they survived. About being left alone. About how they stood up.
It was heartbreaking and empowering for me to be there. I soon realized how lucky I was not to have been traumatised by such violent events, but in my mind there were all kinds of moments swirling, where a comment, a passive aggressive act, a joke towards women was connected to almost all of the social groups that I was part of; from school, to university, to workplaces and the public space.
Now we are no longer alone. Now we are heard. The strong feeling about feminism being a community that I belong to in my hometown made me feel stronger, safer and more engaged in taking a stand to every single minor act of offense and violence against women.
This is just the beginning of the fight and now I know we will not be silent.
The title of the article is taken from the title of the Facebook event of the protest.
Photo: The protest against gender-based violence in Timișoara on 6 June 2025 (source: Association SPICC)
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