Taken from the weekly Vreme

"The main impression about the residents of collective centres is that these people are completely forgotten: they do not receive any visits, they live in terrible conditions and they get one meal a day in some centres or three meals a day in other centres, and that's all.”

According to the Serbian Commissariat for Refugees and Migrations, there are 14 collective centres with 1169 people in Serbia today. All collective centres are located in the territory of Serbia, excluding Kosovo and Metohija, while in Vojvodina, all centres for emergency accommodation for refugees and displaced persons have already been closed. The Commissariat’s website also informs that their number has been rapidly decreasing as a result of the implementation of the plan on closing collective centres. In 1996, there were about 700 of these centres, while in January 2002 there were 388 centres that accommodated 26,863 people. In Serbia today, after nearly 20 years, there are still collective centres; over a thousand people have not yet received any decision on their future housing and continue living in emergency accommodation, in uncertainty.

We have discussed the situation in collective centres, the problems faced by their residents, the legal and administrative difficulties they encounter, and in particular the status of internally displaced Roma, with Danilo Curcic, Legal Analyst in the NGO Praxis, who has just returned from a field visit to these centres.

“When we compare the number of internally displaced Roma and non-Roma accommodated in collective centres, we clearly see that more non-Roma have been housed in these centres. If we take into account the fact that even before the war the Roma population was in a more disadvantaged position than the majority population in Kosovo, and that the number of Roma accommodated in collective centres does not reflect that situation, it becomes obvious that the system has failed. Furthermore, there are separate Roma and non-Roma collective centres, although such a division does not exist officially. However, Bujanovac is a specific case with its three collective centres. For example, in one kindergarten that was converted into a collective centre, there is only one Roma family while all others are non-Roma, but there is also the Collective Centre Salvatore that accommodates only Roma. In fact, the Roma and non-Roma communities do not mix to a greater extent in any place.”
About the situation in collective centres, the structure of their residents and their rights, Curcic says:

"The residents of these collective centres are both displaced persons from Kosovo and, still, refugees. We have recently been in Gadzin Han, where the collective centre is located in a school building. IDPs and refugees, about 19 elderly people, including seven or eight double refugees, meaning that they first fled from Croatia to Kosovo and then here from Kosovo, live on the ground floor. And they have been sitting and waiting for a solution for 20 years. There are few residents of working age who do some work from time to time, mainly fruit picking or similar jobs, and all of them have been waiting for something although they do not know what. I talked to a lady who had fled from Sinj to Djakovica, and then here – she has not acquired yet the Serbian citizenship, she is still a citizen of Croatia. I asked her if she knew what her solution would be once the collective centre was closed, and she said that there were plans for her to be housed in a home for the elderly. However, before that can happen she has to regulate the matter of citizenship at the social welfare centre as guardianship authority. In Bujanovac, for example, social welfare centres refuse to provide social assistance to people in collective centres because they consider that these people are provided with the required minimum - a roof over their heads and meals. The main impression about the people in collective centres is that they are completely forgotten: they do not receive any visits, they live in terrible conditions and they get one meal a day in some centres or three meals a day in other centres, and that's all.

The people who have stayed in the centres are usually those who are the least resourceful or who were unable to find any other solution because of some specific life circumstances. The unemployed who used to be employed in public administration receive an allowance in the amount of 8,500 dinars. Their life stories are very difficult and it is somehow strange that the state does not see them as priority, but considers their situation as a usual course of development and they have to wait for their turn. In Vranjska Banja, for example, women are mostly retired; they even worked in the same factory in Kosovo, and they mostly live in single households or they are household providers because they have ill family members. There are also many children, but mostly in the centres that accommodate Roma. The first impression of all these centres is that people are completely lethargic, that they are still awaiting a solution that has not appeared already for 20 years.”

Various administrative difficulties faced by the displaced are also the reason for the inability to integrate into the community and exercise the major human rights. This particularly refers to Roma:

“The big problem with Roma is the fact that even before the arrival from Kosovo, they were not registered in births registry books and are therefore legally invisible. Another problem is that some registry books remained in Kosovo; they were neither brought from Kosovo after the war nor were their microfilm copies made, which created the situation where a number of IDPs have a valid ID card, but do not possess birth certificates. They should undergo a procedure of re-registration, and a very large number of these procedures have been completed, but those that remain to be done are rather exhausting. People have to initiate a procedure by themselves, which costs them money, the more so because the relevant registry offices are located mainly in the south of Serbia. Hence, for example, if someone moved from Kosovo to Subotica, he or she should go to Nis to regulate his or her documentation status. This is a problem that no one has managed to resolve in 15 years.

There are also some illogical requirements that include field checks of permanent residence registration in cases where someone wants to de-register from Kosovo and register here. There is a rather specific regulation according to which police officers perform field checks of permanent residence registration. These checks are often unpleasant because someone comes and checks if you actually live there; enters the apartment, opens the closets, checks whether clothes are there, checks whether the person can speak Serbian. And there is a problem with Roma, since they often cannot speak Serbian well, but can speak only Romani and Albanian.”

As a separate legal issue, Curcic points out a legal provision envisaging additional taxation of displaced persons who are allocated social housing: "These are the Amendments to the Law on Property Tax that stipulate that taxes for renting social housing shall be paid separately. However, the Law on Social Housing protects certain categories of people, including internally displaced persons from Kosovo. How is it possible then to adopt the Amendments to the Law on Property Tax providing that people belonging to vulnerable groups are obliged to pay the social housing tax?”

The status and accommodation of Roma is one of the biggest issues when it comes to the integration of internally displaced persons from Kosovo. It can be viewed from different aspects: as accommodation of displaced persons from Kosovo, as the provision of living conditions for the Roma population in general, as the attitude of the state towards the most disadvantaged minority, etc.

“The problem is,” says Danilo Curcic, "that there should be special programmes, measures, affirmative actions for vulnerable people aimed at raising the level of their rights and dignity. However, we do not have any special programmes even for the Roma from informal settlements; there are no programmes for their housing and solving their problems. We had a case of internally displaced persons from Kosovo, who were issued ID cards with the address in Belgrade at Ivana Ribara bb, in Ledine, behind a residential area, and they were told they could live there. And then the Building Directorate came and demolished the settlement in order to construct buildings on that site. Eventually, all the Roma from Kosovo remained in the street and the settlement residents from Belgrade were given containers. A month later, the residents of Belvil, which is only three kilometres away, were evicted, and all the Roma from Kosovo who had lived in that settlement were given accommodation in a container settlement. This means that there are no criteria; there is absolutely no reason why some Roma got accommodation, while others did not. The explanation is that one policy was pursued by the city authorities and another by the state administration. On the other hand, there is an informal Roma settlement in Kraljevo, which has the status of a collective centre. How could it be a collective centre, and the one in Block 72 could not, why aren’t they all in the same position? In Belgrade, on the road to Obrenovac, in a forest, the Roma from Kosovo have built some structures in which they live. Various services visit them every year to ask them what housing solutions they would want to have, promise that they would be given rural households, or give them one or two cubic metres of firewood, and nothing more; they just collect the information and do not take any further action. Roma have lived completely marginalised in this forest since 1999, without any support, even without ID cards. I do not see any indication that this will be solved at some point.”

Download the entire article on internally displaced persons published in the weekly magazine Time: Integration or Return

The Regulations on the Amendments to the Regulations on Identity Card came into force on 20 August 2014. According to the previously applicable provision of the Regulations, when submitting the request for the issuance of ID card, the submitter had also to enclose the birth and citizenship certificates, among other documents (in case it is the first request for the issuance of ID card). However, the amendments to the Regulations provided that primary obligation of the Ministry of Interior is to establish the facts for the fulfillment of conditions for the issuance of ID cards ex officio. It means that MoI needs to have an insight into the birth, marriage, death and citizenship registries, and any other official registries, and only if it does not manage to establish necessary facts in this way, may it require from the submitter of request to deliver the birth and citizenship certificates, and any other documents proving the fulfillment of conditions for the issuance of ID card.

This amendment to the Regulations is undoubtedly a positive solution, which should facilitate the submission of requests for the issuance of ID card, exempting them also from the recent costs of obtaining birth and citizenship certificates. However, it remains to see whether or when police stations and police departments will start to act as prescribed, i.e. when the conditions, which will allow obtaining ex officio all necessary evidence and data, will be created. Moreover, almost the same provision has been contained in the Law on Identity Card since 2001, but its application has not been full and consistent.

In addition, by the latest amendments, the Regulations on Identity Card was complied with provisions of the Law on Permanent and Temporary Residence and the Law on Identity Card, and thus this bylaw contains the provision providing that ID card to citizens who have the right to an ID card and have no legal basis for the registration of permanent residence is issued on the basis of the determined temporary residence with two-year validity.

National Employment Service (NES) announced a Public Call for granting subsidies for self-employment of persons of Roma ethnicity in 2014. The subsidies are directed at unemployed persons of Roma ethnicity who are registered with the NES and have completed the training for starting their own business. The subsidy is granted to an unemployed person in the amount of 160.000,00 dinars, and the person who is granted the subsidy is obliged to run the registered business for at least 12 months. The right to subsidy may also be exercised by several unemployed persons entering into partnership, founding a business society for self-employment and, in that case, each person individually submits a request for self-employment and the exercise of the right to subsidy of 160.000,00 dinars. The request with the business plan is submitted at the form prescribed by the NES. Potential beneficiary of the subsidy is obliged to provide some form of debt security (mortgage, right of pledge, bond, bill of exchange) prior to concluding the contract. The deadline for submitting the request with the business plan is 29 August 2014.

For detailed information see: Public Call to the unemployed persons of Roma ethnicity for granting self-employment subsidies in 2014
The list of businesses that cannot be subsidized through the Public Call
Request with the business plan for self-employment subsidies

Download the report: Implementation and Monitoring of Quality Standards for the Health Protection of Roma in Serbia - Centre for Minority Rights

Praxis submitted the Initiative for assessment of constitutionality of the Article 85, Paragraph 2 of the Law on Civil Procedure for the denial of the right to a fair trial to some population groups by prescribing illegitimate and disproportionate limitations and for threatening the constitutional principle of equality of legal protection before the courts and other state bodies. On that occasion, Jasmina Mikovic, Praxis Deputy Director, gave an interview for ALO! Daily.

More about the Initiative.

The publication “Anti-Discrimination in Serbia and Vulnerable Social Groups” has been developed within the project “Support to the Implementation of Anti-Discrimination Legislation and Mediation in Serbia“, which is implemented with the financial support of the European Union, in cooperation with the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy and the United Nations Development Program.

Download the report: Anti-Discrimination in Serbia and Vulnerable Social Groups

Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation

Any views expressed in this article are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.

BELGRADE, Serbia, July 17 (UNHCR) - Raman* is not asking for much. "I just want to be a regular citizen," says the 27-year-old Roma, whose life has been in a legal limbo for years because he is not fully recognized as a citizen by any country.

The young man was born in Kosovo in 1987, when the Balkans territory was a part of Yugoslavia, but his birth was never registered. "At that time, we did not know anything about birth registration and documents, nor how they would influence my life," he told UNHCR.

The refugee agency has been supporting his legal bid, through the Serbian non-governmental organization Praxis, to get recognition and citizenship. He has had some success, but getting a nationality and associated rights still eludes him.

Raman was just 11-years-old during the Kosovo crisis of 1999, when his family fled from Kosovo. But without documentation or a nationality, he and his family had difficulty accessing basic services, including education and health care, and he also faced harassment and trouble travelling and finding work.

"It is not easy. I have been stopped by the police many times and threatened to be arrested and fined, because I did not have an identity card. I lived in fear," he revealed. These are problems shared by many of the world's estimated 10 million stateless people, including some Roma born in the former Yugoslavia who never acquired a nationality.

Growing up in Kosovo, Raman led a hard but happy life. His father died when Raman was a baby and his mother left him and his five siblings with their uncle, who was good to the children. But, Raman observed, "We did not go to school because we had to work with him in order to survive."

At the end of the Kosovo conflict in June 1999, Serbs and Roma started fleeing as the Serbian army withdrew. They faced new challenges in Belgrade. Raman stayed with his brothers in an abandoned mud house, but the boys were unable to get assistance because they did not have documents to show they were internally displaced from Kosovo.

Then he had some luck, being reunited with his long-lost mother, who lived as a displaced person in the town of Smederevo. Raman stayed for four years, then moved back to Belgrade in search of work. It was an eye-opener.

"As I was reaching adulthood, I began understanding how difficult it is to be without documents," said Raman, who helped his stepfather gather waste material for recycling. Without papers and an education, he could not get anything better.

He cited instances of police harassment and told of being threatened with arrest while on the way to buy medicine because he did not have ID documents. Once he got into trouble after an accident involving the vehicle he used to collect plastic, scrap metal and paper.

Raman said he was punished for not having a driving licence. "The police found me at my home even though I had no documents. I was sentenced to two years imprisonment suspended, even though I did not exist anywhere." He felt that when the state wanted him, they found him, but when he needed the state, he became invisible.

Many stateless Roma displaced from Kosovo simply cannot afford to go through the time-consuming, expensive process of applying for birth registration and citizenship documents. Some don't even know they can apply.

Raman was lucky. His case was taken up by Praxis, which provides legal aid to the most marginalized communities, including migrants and ethnic minorities such as the Roma. It receives funding from UNHCR.

"Praxis offered to help me free of charge," Raman said. The NGO and others worked with the government to adopt a new procedure for establishing the time and place of birth. This allowed for Raman's own birth to be registered in December 2013. But while Raman was delighted to have his existence finally recognized, it was not all good news. "I still do not have an identity card. In a way I still do not have rights. I have no citizenship."

The main problem is proving that his parents had citizenship and providing evidence of a formal residence, without which he cannot obtain an ID card and enjoy the full rights of citizenship. In a 2011 survey, UNHCR found about 4,500 Roma in Serbia did not have birth registration documents or personal documentation.

But the Serbian Ministry of Interior has committed itself to prioritize such cases and to be flexible. Serbia's National Assembly, moreover, has adopted legislation allowing those without a formal residence to register their local social welfare centre as their home.

However, due to a narrow interpretation of the new legislation by the authorities, this relates only to those that never had a registered residence, while most displaced Roma who live in informal settlements did have a registered residence in Kosovo and cannot register an address while in displacement. They thus have a limited access to basic rights. Despite this, with support from UNHCR and civil society, Serbia has taken important steps to resolve the problems faced by many Roma, including civil registration and documentation, by the end of 2015.

Raman remains optimistic about his dream of citizenship. "I will be able to move freely. I will be able to get a driving licence. Maybe, I can get a job with the municipal cleaning service. I will be recognized as the father of my three daughters," he said. "I won't have to worry about feeding my family and buying medicine for them. I dream of having at least one good room with water and electricity. I just want to be a regular citizen."

*Full name withheld for protection reasons

By Davor Rako, UNHCR Belgrade, Serbia

Public Enterprise Municipal Housing Agency in Kraljevo sued 33 families who live in social housing apartments in Kraljevo, requesting that they move out. The apartments were built through a donation of the organization HELP - Hilfe Zur Selbsthilfe e.V. – Mission in the Republic of Serbia, the beneficiary being Kraljevo City Administration, which transferred the right to manage these apartments to the Municipal Housing Agency in Kraljevo through a separate contract.

After the expiry of the three-year deadline during which internally displaced persons, former residents of collective centres, lived in social housing apartments in Kraljevo for free, the Municipal Housing Agency prescribed that the beneficiaries of these apartments must provide minimum 75 euros (in RSD equivalent) per household member. At the same time, the contracts offered to the beneficiaries by the Municipal Housing Agency envisage a monthly obligation of paying the rental in the amount of 1.20 euros per square meter. Having in mind that certain number of the beneficiaries do not generate any income or are retired, beneficiaries of social welfare or receive temporary compensation for unemployed persons from Kosovo, the fulfillment of contractual obligations is unattainable for many of them.

As a result of highly unfavourable conditions for extending the contracts which the residents of social housing apartments cannot fulfil, they are left without legal basis of housing and are facing a lawsuit before Basic Court in Kraljevo, being requested to move out.

Public Enterprise Municipal Housing Agency in Kraljevo sued 33 families who live in social housing apartments in Kraljevo, requesting that they move out. The apartments were built through a donation of the organization HELP - Hilfe Zur Selbsthilfe e.V. – Mission in the Republic of Serbia, the beneficiary being Kraljevo City Administration, which transferred the right to manage these apartments to the Municipal Housing Agency in Kraljevo through a separate contract.

After the expiry of the three-year deadline during which internally displaced persons, former residents of collective centres, lived in social housing apartments in Kraljevo for free, the Municipal Housing Agency prescribed that the beneficiaries of these apartments must provide minimum 75 euros (in RSD equivalent) per household member. At the same time, the contracts offered to the beneficiaries by the Municipal Housing Agency envisage a monthly obligation of paying the rental in the amount of 1.20 euros per square meter. Having in mind that certain number of the beneficiaries do not generate any income or are retired, beneficiaries of social welfare or receive temporary compensation for unemployed persons from Kosovo, the fulfillment of contractual obligations is unattainable for many of them.

As a result of highly unfavourable conditions for extending the contracts which the residents of social housing apartments cannot fulfil, they are left without legal basis of housing and are facing a lawsuit before Basic Court in Kraljevo, being requested to move out.

The Network of Organizations for Children of Serbia, with Praxis being the member, has launched the national campaign aimed at improving the parenting through the promotion of examples of raising children without corporal punishment.

More than 90 member organizations dealing with children’s rights in Serbia, together with a few thousand parents will jointly develop the resources for better, easier and more beautiful parenting through a series of activities and exchange and promotion of positive experience. The task of the campaign is direct inclusion of 3,000 parents who practice positive parenting and who can share their knowledge and experience. 

The parents who join the campaign will be invited to sign the “Declaration of the Parents in Serbia”, invite other parents to join the campaign by signing the Declaration, share their own experience in raising of children with other parents, like FB page of the campaign, invite other parents to like FB page, fill in the survey of parenting methods, and to post the good examples of non-violent upbringing.

On Facebook page RODITELJ PLUS = batine minus, you can find all information about the campaign, and also share parenting practice without corporal punishment, as well as educational materials.