Praxis and its partner organization Equal Rights Trust (ERT) from London, with the support of the Commissioner for Protection of Equality, held a roundtable Antidiscrimination Legal and Strategic Framework – Defining Priorities and Challenges of the civil Society in Belgrade on 27 April 2015.
The goal of the roundtable was to define join priorities and key challenges of civil society organizations related to the implementation of antidiscrimination legal and strategic framework. The roundtable was organized within the project Empowering Civil Society to Improve the Implementation of Anti-discrimination Laws in Serbia, supported by the European Union.
The roundtable was opened by Ivanka Kostic from Praxis and Ana Milenic from EU Delegation in the Republic of Serbia. Afterwards, Dimitrina Petrova from ERT spoke about the current international trends and the right to equality with reference to theory and practice. She pointed out that important steps were shifting the focus from an individual to the collective, and extension of personal characteristics that are the basis of discrimination. Afterwards, the members of the working group, formed within the stated project, presented the priorities and the main challenges in their areas of competence. The working group consists of: Tamara Lukšić-Orlandić, child rights; Jovanka Todorović Savović, Labris, LGBT rights; Vanja Macanović, Autonomous Women’s Centre, gender equality; Osman Balić, SKRUG – The League of Roma, Roma rights; Dragana Ćirić Milovanović, MDRI, righst of persons with disabilities, and Vladimir Petronijević, Group 484, rights of migrants.
The roundtable was attended by more than 50 representatives of civil society organizations and media from whole Serbia, international organizations, local self-governments and independent institutions. Following the above stated presentations, the participants divided in small groups defined priorities and key challenges for the improvement of the implementation of antidiscrimination legal and strategic framework. Then they discussed about the results of the work with other participants gathered in small groups.
The roundtable showed that cooperation of actors dealing with the rights of vulnerable groups is of great importance for the improvement of antidiscrimination legal and strategic framework. Such gathering enabled a better insight into the challenges we are facing and opened new opportunities for cooperation. Often, overlapping of different areas and identical challenges faced by different vulnerable groups is a good basis for future cooperation. The extension of such cooperation and stronger connection is of extreme importance in regard to the phenomenon of multiple discrimination, which is present on a daily basis. The participants of the roundtable said that multiple discrimination is very dangerous and has serious consequences for the vulnerable groups, and therefore more attention should be paid to the problem of multiple discrimination in the future.
