This year’s World Day against the Death Penalty on 10 October is dedicated to the women who were sentenced to death or executed and those whose death penalty was overturned or were pardoned. In some countries, women are subject to gender discrimination and find themselves in more vulnerable situations compared to men. Women are often abused based on gender or face prejudice, which is reflected in the criminalisation of offences such as adultery. It is significant that the death penalty is often inflicted on individuals in vulnerable situations, who have no access to effective legal protection in judicial proceedings.

Slovenia is a steadfast advocate of the global abolition of the death penalty as this form of punishment has no proven positive effects on crime prevention and brings no satisfaction to the victims or their families, applauding the enhanced efforts to abolish it and calling on Belarus as the only European country that continues to administer the death penalty to introduce an official moratorium on executions as a first step in this direction.

Slovenia supports all past resolutions adopted by the United Nations General Assembly and the Human Rights Council striving to establish a moratorium on the death penalty or to abolish it. Slovenia urges all countries that have not yet ratified the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights aimed at abolishing the death penalty to do so as soon as possible.