On 28 February 2014, a press conference was held on the occasion of the completion of the project “Equal Chances for Better Prospects – Strengthening Roma in Combating Discrimination” implemented by the Commissioner for Protection of Equality in cooperation with non-governmental organizations Praxis and Regional Centre for Minorities and financed by the Embassy of the Netherlands in Serbia.

The results of the project, which was implemented in the period from May 2012 to February 2014, were presented by the Commissioner for Protection of Equality Nevena Petrusic, Praxis’ Deputy Executive Director Jasmina Mikovic and Programme Associate in Regional Centre for Minorities Marko Vasiljevic.

The Commissioner pointed out that the goal of this project was to enhance the visibility of the institution of the Commissioner for Protection of Equality and teach the citizens how to recognize discrimination. In addition, she once again emphasized the importance of reporting discrimination.

Jasmina Mikovic presented the report “Equal Chances for Better Prospects – Strengthening Roma in Combating Discrimination”, which was prepared by Praxis as a result of the need to summarize the experience gained during the implementation of the educational and information campaign on anti-discrimination mechanisms targeting the members of Roma community. On that occasion, she pointed at some of the reasons why many cases of discrimination went unreported by the members of Roma community, such as the lack of understanding of the term discrimination and role of institution of the Commissioner in combating discrimination, fear of victimization and lack of confidence in representatives of public authorities. In addition, she emphasized particularly alarming data of recently published research on the attitude of representatives of public authorities towards discrimination in Serbia, which indicate that a fifth of the representatives of legislative and executive authorities does not know that discrimination is prohibited by the law, and more than a half of the representatives of the public authorities consider that their colleagues expressed discriminatory attitudes or enforced discriminatory behaviour.

Marko Vasiljevic, as one of the participants of panel discussions, transmitted experience gained during the implementation of the campaign with the reference to the methodology and plan of realization of panel discussions.

Finally, it was concluded that project results showed that it was necessary to work of breaking down prejudices of majority population, empowering of the members of Roma community to use anti-discrimination mechanisms, but also that the important role of the representatives of public authorities is in combating discrimination and more responsible media reporting.

Download:
Report “Equal Chances for Better Prospects – Strengthening Roma in Combating Discrimination”
News at Media Centre
News at the website of the Commissioner for Protection of Equality
Video on presenting the report

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Milijana Trifkovic, Praxis legal analyst, said for Danas Daily that a great progress has been made in solving the problem of unregistered persons with the adoption of the Law on Amendments to the Law on Non-Contentious Procedure. She also said that practice has shown that often the procedure for determining the date and place of birth is important not only for the registration in birth registries but also for access to the right to citizenship. However, this refers only to persons who possess evidence of their origin and citizenship of their parents, while persons who do not possess such evidence are still in uncertain position and at risk of statelessness.

Read the news in Danas Daily.

In order to provide assistance to the vulnerable in the territory of the City of Vranje in exercising the right to cash social assistance, Praxis were sending via mail the requests on behalf of some citizens to Social Welfare Centre Vranje. Such assistance was the response to obstacles faced by citizens when submitting requests for exercising the right to social welfare, as the employees in SWC Vranje verbally rejected their requests or postponed receiving them.

At the beginning of February 2014, SWC Vranje informed Praxis by the notice “not to submit the requests on behalf of future beneficiaries of the Social Welfare Centre as it is necessary that a submitter of request is present as well as filling in prescribed forms and making statements for the records by future beneficiaries …”. In order to eliminate doubts related to Praxis’ activities, on 13 February 2014 a meeting was held with representatives of SWC Vranje. It was stressed that Praxis shall not submit requests for exercising the right to social welfare on behalf of clients but that the clients themselves shall submit the requests in writing in a form prescribed by the minister responsible for social protection, and that all necessary statements of clients may be required in the course of the procedure, in accordance with regulations regulating that procedure. SWC Vranje kept the same viewpoint that submitting requests requires presence of clients, contrary to the relevant normative framework.

Praxis will continue sending the written requests for exercising the right to cash social assistance of citizens to SWC Vranje and keep monitoring the further acting of the Centre.

The decision of the Basic Court in Novi Sad as of December 2013 determined the date and place of birth for three legally invisible Roma, two brothers and a sister. At the end of January 2014, the competent registrar registered the fact of birth for two of them. At the same time, the fact of the Serbian citizenship, which they acquired as persons born in Serbia whose one parent was the citizen of Serbia at the moment of their birth, was also registered to them. The procedure of determination of the date and place of their birth lasted for four months, and one month after the adoption of decision of non-contentious procedure they obtained birth and citizenship certificates. The third brother has not been registered in birth registry book because the competent registrar has not yet received the court decision.

Prior to initiation of the procedure of determining the date and place of birth, these persons were trying for more than five years to get registered in the birth registry book according to the rules of an administrative procedure. In subsequent birth registration procedure, the first-instance and second-instance administration bodies reached seven negative decisions for each submitter of request. Due to biased acting of the first-instance body, the court procedure for protection against discrimination was conducted and final judgment was passed, and it was determined that those persons were discriminated against in the procedures of subsequent birth registration for belonging to Roma national minority. Two administrative disputes were initiated in each procedure, and complaints were filed twice with the Ombudsperson. Besides conducting all stated procedures, two persons managed to exercise the right to birth and citizenship registration only after a non-contentious procedure of determining the date and place of birth was prescribed.

Upon the successful completion of the procedure of determination of date and place of birth, the persons who were legally invisible were forced to initiate the procedure for acquisition of citizenship, since competent registry offices most often register only the fact of birth. The fact of citizenship is not registered even in indisputable cases of children born in Serbia to parents who are the citizens of Serbia. Therefore, the acting of the competent registrars was also utterly positive as he registered the fact of citizenship together with the fact of birth.

Statement by the Network of Organisations for the Children of Serbia

The Network of Organisations for the Children of Serbia (MODS) calls on political parties to inform the public about their plans for children in Serbia.

Although it is said that the future belongs to children, children live in the present. How children will be formed as persons and how successful they will be depends on how they live today in Serbia, in what kind of environment they grow up and in what conditions they develop. Child care today has far-reaching and long-term consequences for society. By investing in children, we create the future of our society and what we fail to do today will be increasingly difficult to correct tomorrow.

We, therefore, ask the political parties this question:

What will you do after elections to ensure that parents receive appropriate support to allow all children to live in the family, to be included in education and to grow up in a safe environment in the 21st century?

Poor and single-parent families in Serbia are exposed to everyday stress in the struggle for existence, torn between the need to devote themselves to the child and to earn a living. In Serbia, children continue to be placed in institutions, separated from their families. In nearly 70% of cases, the main reason for separation of children from the family is the inability of parents to meet the needs of the child. Parents do not have adequate support and available services allowing their children to grow up in decent living conditions, safe environment, included in education.

A large burden is placed on local self-governments, which are closest to children and families, but unable to cope with many challenges – lacking sufficient budget funds and capacity for planning and providing appropriate support. Financial support provided by the state is insufficient. It is repeatedly stressed that there are not enough funds. On the other hand, there are funds from the budget of the Republic of Serbia, which are used to provide support to the most vulnerable population groups. It amounts to about 2.68 billion dinars (2013 budget) or about 24.4 million euros.

Do you have a plan how to use these resources better to provide families with children in Serbia with adequate support?

In addition, the system lacks sufficient capacity for spending EU funds according to "complicated" EU procedures (comparing ourselves with the systems of some EU member states, there is a concern that we may find ourselves unprepared in the Romanian scenario: for example, since 2007 Romania has used only 7% of the funds from the European Social Fund).

So the question is: Do you have a plan to do more and make better use of EU funds that will become available?

31 October 2013, National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia ratified the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention).

According to the Istanbul Convention, a state is bound to take necessary measures to promote changes in social and cultural patterns of behaviour of women and men in order to eradicate prejudices, customs, traditions and other practices, which are based on inferiority of women and stereotypical roles of women and men.

The Republic of Serbia has made a reservation against two articles of the Istanbul Convention – Article 3 of the Law authorizing the ratification of the Istanbul Convention states: “The Republic of Serbia retains the right not to apply the provisions of the Article 30, Paragraph 2 and Article 44, Paragraph 1, Item e, Paragraph 3 and Paragraph 4 of the Convention before the harmonization of the internal criminal legislation with the stated provisions of the Convention.”

For the Istanbul Convention to come into force, ten states need to deposit the ratification instruments for accepting the Convention, out of which at least eight of ten initial states need to be members of the Council of Europe. The Istanbul Convention comes into force on the first day in a month after the expiry of three months after depositing ratification instruments by ten states signatories, by which the Convention is ratified, accepted or approved.

For more information, see the announcement: Ratification of the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence

The National Assembly of Serbia ratified the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, on 31 October 2013.

The Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention) is the most comprehensive international agreement in this area.

The Istanbul Convention recognises violence against women as one of the most serious forms of human rights violation. It is a form of discrimination against women, which is a manifestation of historically unequal power relations between men and women, which have led to domination of men over women.

Because of this, the Istanbul Convention directly addresses the need of removing harmful gender stereotypes and prejudices, customs and traditions, which are based on the idea of the inferiority of women or the application of stereotypical gender roles.

According to the Istanbul Convention, the State shall take the necessary measures to promote changes in the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women in order to eradicate prejudices, customs, traditions and other practices which are based on the inferiority of women and stereotyped gender roles.

The obligation of the state is to provide training of experts that provide services to victims of gender-based violence and domestic violence. Raising public awareness about the various forms of violence against women and its consequences is also the obligation of the state.

The Istanbul Convention envisages cooperation between the state and NGOs, the media and the private sector to ensure that the problem of violence against women is presented to the public.

In the area of the protection of victims of violence, the state should ensure that the needs and safety of victims are of primary concern and that perpetrators of violence against women are criminally prosecuted and adequately punished. This means that states are obliged to take the necessary legislative or other measures to provide victims with adequate civil remedies against the perpetrator, but also against the state authorities that have failed in their duty to respond to violence within the scope of their powers.

In a nutshell, the Istanbul Convention requires the signatory states to exercise due diligence in the prevention, protection, prosecution and punishment for acts of violence.  

Unfortunately, the Republic of Serbia has reserved on two articles of the Istanbul Convention - Article 3 of the Law on Ratification of the Convention states: "The Republic of Serbia shall have the right not to apply the provisions of Article 30 paragraph 2 and Article 44 paragraph 1 point e), paragraph 3 and paragraph 4 of the Convention until it has harmonised its criminal legislation with the aforementioned provisions of the Convention.”

Article 30 paragraph 2 of the Convention is related to the appropriate state compensation for persons who have suffered serious bodily injury or serious health damage caused by suffered violence.

Article 44 has the same content as Article 25 of the Convention for the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse, which was adopted in 2010, and refers to jurisdiction. Neither then nor now criminal legislation was in compliance with the provisions of that Convention, but the state has not made any reservation.

For the Istanbul Convention to come into force, ten states need to deposit the ratification instruments for accepting the Convention, and at least eight of ten initial states need to be members of the Council of Europe. The Istanbul Convention comes into force on the first day in a month upon the expiry of three months after depositing ratification instruments by ten signatory states, by which the Convention is ratified, accepted or approved.

Download the report: Triple A for Citizens: Access to Information, Advice and Active Help

Download the report: Citizens' Attitudes on Discrimination in Serbia - The Commissioner for Protection of Equality