On 3 October 2013, Praxis participated in the roundtable organized in Nis within the campaign News in the Field of Birth of Registration and Obtaining of Personal Documents. The roundtable was organized as a part of activities carried out on the basis of the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Ombudsman of the Republic of Serbia and the Ministry of Human and Minority Rights, Public Administration and Local Self-Government of the Republic of Serbia. On that occasion, the news in the field of birth registration, registration of residence at the address of social welfare centre and obtaining of personal documents were presented to the representatives of Roma associations and civil society organizations, Roma activists, health mediators, pedagogical assistants and Roma coordinators from Nis, Prokuplje, Bujanovac, Vranje, Zajecar and other cities of Serbia.

In addition to Praxis’ representatives, the keynote speakers were also UNHCR representatives, Office of the Ombudsman of Serbia and Department for Administrative Affairs of the Ministry of Interior. The inspector working of the issues of ID cards and residence also participated in the discussion.

During the discussion, the participants of the roundtable presented the information they had about the problems faced by the members of Roma population in accessing personal documents and social welfare benefits. Specifically, a number of participants pointed to the problem of socially vulnerable citizens who need to file lawsuits for support against their relatives in order to exercise the right to cash social assistance. In addition, it was explained that citizens from cities or municipalities which do not have free legal aid services are particularly vulnerable as they have no one to provide them assistance in the court procedure.

Some participants emphasised that Roma from their local communities are facing the problem of payment of administrative fees for obtaining ID cards, which is the reason why they do not have valid ID cards.

Some participants presented individual problems and cases from the field in which the citizens of Roma nationality needed Praxis’ legal assistance, specifically in procedures of acquiring of citizenship, obtaining of birth certificates from abroad in the international form, determination of personal name of children whose personal name has not been determined even though they have been attending the primary school for five years already and obtaining the court judgment on dissolution of marriage from Croatia.

Seevideo clip.
See: Closing the Cycle of Legal Invisibility.