Proceedings Gender and Peace in the Balkans: Sites of Challenges and Hopes is a collection of papers, peace testimonies and conversations that took place at the international conference on gender and peace held in Sarajevo in 2025. The Conference was part of the UNIGEM (Universities and Gender Mainstreaming) project implemented with 19 universities in the Balkans region. By exploring these feminist efforts for peace, the book raises important questions about feminist history, mem-ory, peacebuilding, and how these movements have dealt with nationalism, new state policies, and the rise of populism.

At the University of Sarajevo, a conference was held on March 9, 2026, marking International Women’s Day. Representatives of the academic community, judicial institutions, international organizations, and civil society warned that Bosnia and Herzegovina has a developed legal framework for the protection of women, but that the key problem remains its consistent implementation and the social tolerance toward various forms of violence.

On the occasion of March 8, International Women’s Day, an online panel was held on Friday, March 6, 2026, presenting key misconceptions about the legal and economic aspects of marriage. The panelists Ivana Radić, Amila Mujčinović, and Gorjana Mirčić Čaluković identified the problems but also offered recommendations for improving legal and economic literacy. The panel was moderated by Nikola Vučić.

Every human being is worthy of respect, violence against the innocent is a sin, and peace is a shared responsibility, these are the words with which the Interreligious Program held at IMIC Zajedno on February 27, 2026, began. The program and iftar were jointly organized by IMIC and the TPO Foundation, bringing together representatives of various religious and non-religious worldviews with the aim of promoting goodness, togetherness, love, solidarity, and justice.

Another semester of the School of Feminism and Religion (FER School) has been successfully completed in December 2025. Since 2024, the FER School’s academic program has been implemented within the University of Sarajevo. During this semester, three courses were delivered in English (Gender, Religion and Peacebuilding; Feminist Theology; Gender, Religion and GBV) and two courses in BHS languages (History of Feminism in the East and the West; Gender, Religion and Media). With lecturers from the United States, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Australia, and the Balkan region, the program brought together over 50 participants from four continents.

With the support of the TPO Foundation, on February 11, 2026, a book promotion for Who’s Afraid of Gender? by Judith Butler was held in Novi Sad at Bulevar Books bookstore, located at Bulevar Mihajla Pupina 6. The speakers at the event were Dr Adriana Zaharijević and Katarina Grković, MA, and the discussion was moderated by Assistant Professor Dr Tanja Todorović.

With the support of the TPO Foundation and UNIGEM, on December 3, 2025, Dr Slađana Stamenković delivered a lecture titled Women Who Wander: Flâneuse in Anglophone Literature at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Novi Sad. The concept of the urban walker, stroller, or wanderer – known as the flâneur – became established in literary history as early as the nineteenth century (when it was first popularized in France and subsequently across Europe and Western civilization).