In June, the number of refugees/migrants present in Belgrade every day decreased significantly compared to the period before the relocation of the persons sleeping rough to the reception and asylum centres.  Praxis’ mobile team every day met and talked to 50-300 refugees/migrants, including the newly arrived ones, the refugees/migrants accommodated in the Asylum Centre Krnjača and the Reception Centre Obrenovac and those who returned to Belgrade after an unsuccessful attempt to cross the Croatian, Hungarian or Romanian border. 

Praxis continued its field work and provided a total of 279 newly arrived refugees/migrants in Belgrade with relevant information, compared to the previous month when the total number was 269. Out of the total number of newly arrived refugees and migrants, 95 persons or 34.1% of them were from Afghanistan.  Thirteen (13) newly arrived refugees and migrants were from Syria, which accounts for 4.7% of the total number. 57 refugees/migrants came from Iraq (20.4%), mainly families, which is a significantly higher percentage than in the previous period. 45 refugees/migrants (16.1%) were from Pakistan, mainly single men and unaccompanied and separated children (UASC), like in the previous period. 49 refugees/migrants (17.6%) came from other countries - Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India, Vietnam, Somalia, Comoros, China, Mongolia, Palestine, Ghana, Turkey and Libya. 

Since June, only one of the non-governmental organisations working in Belgrade has been present during the night – Save the Children partner, Center for Youth Integration. Thanks to them, women and children who are waiting for registration and referral to reception and asylum centres have the opportunity to spend the night in Miksalište. The adult men who were waiting for registration stayed outdoors overnight. Every morning, Praxis’ mobile team noticed between 15 and 50 people in the parks near the Belgrade Bus Station. In this period, special concern is the lack of organised transport to the reception and asylum centres for newly arrived refugees/migrants. In addition, the organisations that provide medical assistance have reduced their operations in Belgrade, and consequently in the afternoons there are no medical staff present in the field in Belgrade.

Download the whole Protection Monitoring Report HERE.

18-19 May 2017

The Eurochild National Partners Networks (NPN) Group, which gathers 20 networks and represents in total 2.000 child rights organizations around Europe, met for two days in Brussels. The Network of Organisations for Children of Serbia (MODS) was represented by Jasmina Miković from Praxis, president of the MODS Management Board. On that occasion, she was elected a chairperson of NPN Group with a two-year mandate.

The first day of the meeting was focused on capacity building on advocating for the rights of refugee and migrant children by mainstreaming children’s rights in all EU and national policies and practices. Eurochild’s aim is to advocate for the EU to encourage Member States to strengthen their child protection systems to accommodate the specific needs of migrant and refugee children. To this end, Eurochild is currently collaborating with other European networks with a broader expertise on migration. Some of the Brussels-based networks, the Missing Children Europe, the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants, and the European Council on Refugee and Exiles shared their experience on advocating for the rights of migrants and refugees. They highlighted that action at national level is of key importance to improve the situation of migrant and refugee children. EU instruments, such as the Communication on the protection of children in migration, need to “leave Brussels” and become well-known at national and local level: there are tools to be used to encourage national authorities to implement policies. The EU Return Handbook is currently being revised and updated by the European Commission: there is a risk of stronger measures promoting returns so need to monitor how governments will be reacting to it.

Moreover, Eurochild, in partnership with SOS Children’s Villages International, is currently developing a Compendium of case studies on the integration of migrant and refugee children across Europe. Therefore, some of the contributors to the Compendium were invited to the meeting to present their project/practice, highlighting achievements as well as challenges and lessons learnt. Marion Macleod from the Children in Scotland, UK, presented two examples of different approaches: The Scottish Guardianship Service, a partnership between the Scottish Refugee Council and Aberlour, through which young people are allocated a guardian; and an initiative by local authorities to find families for young unaccompanied asylum seekers, relying on faith communities and cultural groups. Barbora Messova, Coalition for Children Slovakia, provided an overview of the main challenges and lessons learnt in relation to advocating for the rights of migrant and refugee children at national level, with a particular focus on UASC with families in detention. Barbora underlined the importance of adapting language and methods depending on the relevant stakeholder to be engaged, in order for advocacy to have a stronger impact. Daria Crimella, Fondazione Albero della Vita, Italy, presented the “Un Faro in Città” project, which involved the establishment of a reception centre in the city of Milan to foster families’ independence and integration. The project focuses on two areas of intervention: addressing the needs of the beneficiaries, such as accommodation, food, and health care; as well as empowering families by providing psychological and legal assistance. 

The second day of the meeting was focused on the Future of the EU, including the European Commission White paper on the future of Europe, the impact of Brexit, the European Pillar of Social Rights and the European Semester Process. Réka Tunyogi, Head of Advocacy at Eurochild, gave a presentation providing an overview of the latest updates at EU level, and their potential impact on children’s rights, particularly focusing on the White paper on the future of Europe; the European Pillar of Social Rights; and the Work-Life Balance package. Also, she gave a presentation on the European Semester, as a process through which Member States’ progress towards achieving the Europe 2020 targets is monitored, and it represents an important tool to advocate for children’s rights at EU and national level.  

The next Eurochild NPN Group meeting will take place on 11 October 2017 in Belgrade, followed by the International Conference Investing in Children on 12 October 2017.

Praxis, jointly with the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, the European Network on Statelessness and the European Roma Rights Centre, under the third cycle of the Universal Periodic Review, made a submission to the Human Rights Council about the outstanding issues related to the prevention of statelessness and protection of stateless persons in Serbia. The submission focuses on the obstacles concerning the timely registration of the fact of birth into civil registry books, problems in acquiring citizenship for the children born in Serbia who are not entitled to citizenship of another state, and the problem of persons who had been registered into civil registry books that were destroyed during the 1999 conflict in Kosovo or that are considered unavailable by the authorities of the Republic of Serbia.

Since Serbia could soon get a new Law on Foreigners, the submission also points to the current version of the Draft Law on Foreigners whose provisions on the determination and prolongation of immigration detention discriminate against stateless persons and make them subject to arbitrary detention. The submission also mentions the difficulties that may arise because of the lack of procedures for determining the status of a stateless person.

Finally, the submission contains clear recommendations suitable for ensuring timely registration of the birth of each child and more constant respect for the right to citizenship, and for facilitating access to guaranteed rights to the persons who have remained stateless and protecting them from prolonged or arbitrary deprivation of liberty.

Download the submission here.

In May and June 2017, Praxis held four workshops for the girls and boys aged 10 to 14 on the topic of prevention and elimination of child, early and forced marriages and early dropouts of Roma pupils from the education system, in the primary schools "Jovan Cvijić" in Kostolac, "Boško Palkovljevic Pinki" and "Sutjeska" in Belgrade, and "Aleksandar Stojanović - Leso" in Novi Pazar. The workshops were attended by more than 120 boys and girls.

These workshops are part of the activities aimed at preventing and eliminating child, early and forced marriages, which have been implemented for the third consecutive year within the framework of the project Legal Assistance to Persons at Risk of Statelessness, financed by UNHCR. In 2017, Praxis will hold a total of 12 workshops, with an idea to raise an issue of child, early and forced marriages through discussing with children the causes and consequences of early dropout and then to empower them to stand against these phenomena based on acquired knowledge about the causes and consequences of this harmful traditional practice.

During the first round of workshops, through the completion of a questionnaire about the expectations of girls and boys from parents and school, as well as through discussions about early dropout, once again it was concluded that child, early and forced marriages were one of the causes of early dropouts of children from the educational system. In addition, it was shown that most children were not informed about the role of pedagogical assistants and their presence in school. In the second part of the workshop, the boys and girls created drawings to show the reasons why someone did not come to school and the typical daily routine of someone who did not go to school anymore. Their illustrations lead to a conclusion that children mostly dropout of school because they have to help their parents in providing income, because of going abroad and due to early marriage. However, all three reasons are tightly coupled with poverty. Thus, they mention poverty of primary families as a reason for early marriages, or the pressure of parents, which also correlates with poverty. An interesting fact is that, according to the drawings, mainly girls leave school. The drawings also show that girls/boys who have dropped out of school suffer badly because of that, since they are presented as sad and crying, while a large number of them are shown in the activity of physical work after the abandonment of school.

These workshops are just an initial part of Praxis' work with children on the topic of child, early and forced marriages, but they have certainly set a good foundation for further work and clearly pointed out to the existence of this problem correlating with poverty and early dropout of school. The next workshops will focus mainly on the prevention of child, early and forced marriages through defining the causes and consequences.

Praxis, Sandžak Committee for Protection of Human Rights and Freedoms and the Equal Rights Trust (ERT) are looking for two consultants to research and report on the implementation of equality norms and policies in Serbia.

We need two consultants with excellent knowledge of Serbian and English, professional knowledge of anti-discrimination legislation in Serbia and experience in conducting field research. Priority will be given to joint applications of two candidates with the prior experience of joint work, but individual applications will also be considered.

Each consultant will be entitled to a fee of between EUR 3,000 and EUR 6,000, and the exact amount will be determined in accordance with the division of tasks between the consultants.

The deadline for applying is 31 July 2017 at 12:00 (noon). The selected candidates should commence their work on research at the beginning of August 2017. The first draft of report should be submitted by mid-November 2017 and the final draft of report by mid-February 2018.

Download the announcement for consulting services here. 

In May and June 2017, Praxis held three consultative meetings on the topic of prevention and elimination of child, early and forced marriages and early dropouts of Roma pupils from the education system, in the primary schools "Jovan Cvijić" in Kostolac, "Boško Palkovljevic Pinki" in Batajnica, and "Aleksandar Stojanović - Leso" in Novi Pazar. Over 60 school education staff members, including pedagogical assistants, pedagogues and psychologists, attended these meetings.

The meetings are part of activities aimed at preventing and eliminating child, early and forced marriages, which have been implemented for the third consecutive year within the framework of the project Legal Assistance to Persons at Risk of Statelessness, financed by UNHCR. In addition to considering the legal framework regulating the field of child, early and forced marriages, the meetings specifically addressed the competences of educational institutions and the obligation of schools to react immediately by filing a report to the competent authority upon becoming aware of any signs of violence, abuse or neglect of pupils. The cooperation of all relevant institutions, primarily social welfare centres, schools and police, was once again emphasised as crucial in the fight against child, early and forced marriages. Through the discussion we presented the examples of good practice in Serbia and in the world, and then we jointly defined the problems/causes leading to this harmful practice and the strategies/mechanisms that would lead to prevention and elimination.

The meeting participants showed an obvious interest in the topic, especially in concrete proposals. They presented the situations they were facing and asked for advice. They pointed out that one of the most important problems was the irregularity of attendance by children due to moving with their families to other places in Serbia or abroad to perform seasonal jobs. In addition, they stressed poor cooperation with Roma parents who were not interested in the achievement of their children. The education staff often felt a lot of pressure from the non-Roma parents who insisted that Roma children were moved to other classes or schools. The lack of efficient and timely response by the competent institutions to the cases of child, early and forced marriages, primarily by social welfare centres, was emphasised as a special problem. They stressed that the education system in Serbia was regulated in a way that every child was allowed to complete the first four grades of primary school, regardless of the regularity of attendance. Thus, it happened that some children almost never attended classes, but only appeared towards the end of the fourth grade, after which they passed to the fifth grade. However, they were unable to follow the classes and often abandoned further schooling. In such cases, the teachers knew that marriage was often the next step. In addition to the major deficiencies in the system, the school education staff members were insufficiently informed and interested, and they were prone to prejudice. Therefore, it was necessary, as confirmed by the participants, to hold as many such or similar meetings as possible with the representatives of competent institutions and with the Roma community, in order to prevent this harmful traditional practice in the future.

Praxis will continue to implement the activities that address the issue of child, early and forced marriages through further work with school education staff, and especially through workshops with children in primary schools.

“I've been traveling for two years now. I have crossed the borders of Iran, Turkey and Bulgaria with the smugglers. I stayed in Bulgaria for a year and a month. After being caught, I was in prison for four months. I was given food every second or third day and was beaten regularly. Once the guards took us to the field and shot at us with an air rifle. I was hit in the ankle. We were hosed with ice water. They would beat us so much that the whole cell was bloody: we, the beds and bedding, the walls and the floor. It was awful. After that we were in a closed-type centre and then we were transferred to an open-type centre”, says A.M. - an unaccompanied minor.

The World Refugee Day - A day when we must not forget the thousands of people who had to leave their homes and embark on a journey to the unknown. 

Today, on the World Refugee Day, fear and uncertainty are accompanying the thousands of children on their path to a brighter future. These children do not choose hunger, anxiety and insecurity. They, like all other children, dream of carefree childhood and children’s play. These children have not chosen to be refugees and hostages of the decisions made by others. These children want to be children. "I don’t know what it looks like to be in prison, but this looks very much like the prisons that can be seen in movies," says B.B. (16) about a refugee centre in Hungary.

Today, when there are more than 6,000 refugees in Serbia, including a large number of children, we recall that children refugees are at a greater risk of violence, physical and sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking in human beings. On the road of uncertainty, they often lose their closest people and become even more vulnerable. Therefore, we must take into account the best interest of the child and treat refugee children primarily as children.

Over the past few days, Praxis recorded two cases in which the notaries requested from citizens to pay drastically higher fees for the verification of signature than those prescribed by the notarial tariff. Thus, the Praxis beneficiaries were asked to pay about 4,000 dinars in Kragujevac and about 5,000 dinars in Belgrade, although according to the Public Notary Tariff, this service should be charged 360 dinars.

In both cases, the affected persons did not possess ID cards and were not registered in citizenship registry books. Therefore, in order to certify the power of attorney, their identity was determined on the basis of the statements of two witnesses, and for this reason the notaries wanted to charge a much higher fee for the verification of signature, although the Public Notary Tariff does not allow the increase of fee in such cases.

Due to the improper conduct of the notary, Praxis assisted the damaged party to lodge a complaint with the Chamber of Public Notaries. Praxis expects the Chamber to respond properly and thus prevent the occurrence of similar cases in the future. It is extremely important to ensure that the prescribed tariff is strictly applied, because the people who do not possess personal identification documents and whose identity must be established with the help of witnesses are almost exclusively legally invisible Roma. They are undoubtedly among the poorest citizens, and now they are required to pay more than a tenfold amount of the fee prescribed for verification. In addition, the powers of attorney are certified with the aim of initiating procedures for registration into civil registry books, which should enable them to finally become full and equal citizens. The described unlawful practice of certain notaries prevents the legally ignorant and poverty-stricken Roma in doing so.

It should be mentioned that as of 1 March 2017 the verification of signatures, transcripts and manuscripts can be performed only by notaries. At that time, the President of the Chamber of Public Notaries said that the notarial verification would be cheaper than it was in the municipalities. However, this does not apply to legally invisible Roma who previously were completely exempted from the payment of republic fees for the verification of documents used for registering into civil registry books. Now, however, not only are they not exempted from the payment of fees, but they are placed in a much more difficult position than other citizens with the unlawful conduct of certain notaries. In fact, the poorest citizens are required to pay the most. Therefore, the urgent response of the Chamber of Public Notaries is necessary in order to put an end to and prevent this unacceptable practice of certain notaries.