This week, for the first time after four years, a ten-year girl with severe sight impairment goes to school by a vehicle provided by the Municipality of Smederevska Palanka. Head of the Municipal Administration promised that the Municipality will provide a driver and a vehicle that would take the girl to school and back every day throughout the school year.

We remind that the girl was born with severe sight impairment and that over the past four years, ever since she started the primary school, her parents have been trying to persuade the Municipality of Smederevska Palanka to provide her the transportation to and from school, which is the obligation of each municipality according to the Law on the Fundamentals of the Education System. The Municipality of Smederevska Palanka has been unsuccessfully reminded of this legal obligation over the past years by the School Inspection, the Ombudsman and the Commissioner for Protection of Equality, which in 2015 found that the Municipality shall take all necessary measures to ensure the transportation to the girl. 

As the Municipality failed to act upon the Commissioner’s recommendation, in November 2015 Praxis filed a lawsuit for establishing of discrimination against the Municipality of Smederevska Palanka which by denying the right to transportation to and from school to the girl also denies her the right to education. On the basis of the above-stated lawsuit, the Supreme Court in Belgrade issued a judgment in April 2016 and established that the Municipality acted discriminatory towards the girl as it rejected to provide the transport to school, violating thus the principle of equality prescribed by the Law on Prohibition of Discrimination, and provisions of the Law on Prohibition of the Discrimination in Education.    

With the provided transportation, the continuation of education would be significantly facilitated to the girl. However, the access to school is just one of the steps towards the exercise of the right to education. Quality education and respect for the principle of equality means much more – along with the transportation, the textbooks in Braille alphabet, as well as a qualified personal assistant, should be also available to the girl.

Today, we are celebrating 17 May, the International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, the annual holiday which was established to coordinate international events that remind of LGBTI rights violations and the importance to respect them worldwide. The date of the International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia was chosen to commemorate the decision of the World Health Organization (WHO) to remove homosexuality from the International Classification of Diseases in 1990.

One of the main goals of 17 May is creation of a globally visible event without a need to adapt to a specific type of action. Though united in their messages, due to the variety of social, religious, cultural and political contexts in which LGBTI rights violations take place, the present action around the world include various activities - large street marches, parades and festivals, dance flash mobs, musical events, street art, etc.

The main purpose of each action is to raise awareness about violence, discrimination and repression against the LGBTI communities around the world, which in turn provides an opportunity for action and engagement in dialogue with media, decision makers, the public and the wider civil society.

LGBTI persons are day-to-day exposed to discrimination and violence, including physical violence and abuse. Therefore, it is necessary that the government and society in general pay more attention to measures to protect the physical and psychological integrity of LGBTI people as well as to the prevention of discrimination and hate speech.

Thus, on the occasion of the International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, we remind you of the Analysis of print and online media reporting about trans people in Serbia and Recommendations for media reporting on trans people which we developed in cooperation with Gayten-LGBT and media archive EBART, to encourage ethical and professional reporting which recognizes and respects the personal integrity and dignity of trans people.

In the period from 19-21 April 2016, the 8th Children Rights Coalitions Forum in Europe 2016 took place in Tallinn, Estonia. The Network of Organizations for the Children of Serbia - MODS was represented by Jasmina Mikovic from Praxis, member of the MODS Steering Committee, and Sasa Stefanovic, MODS Director. The Forum brought together 75 representatives of national, regional and European coalitions and networks working towards the implementation of children’s rights and the well-being of children.  

The European coalitions working for children’s rights and well-being have recognized that there are numerous factors which influence children’s well-being over the world, perceiving the policy making, which sets children’s rights in the center of the attention, as a centralized issue that can be greatly empowered from a coordinated cross-national effort.

The Forum provided a unified voice and coordinated focus in addressing issues on child rights advocacy, monitoring and networking. In addition, an accompanying one-day training provided participants with practical skills in children’s rights advocacy, and with advice on how to work effectively with internal and external stakeholders and generate additional resources that can be of benefit to both national and EU policy-making process.

The Children Rights Coalitions Forum is seen as an important step in the development of strong child rights coalitions’ platform. With its primary objective to establish continuity in the development of a pan-European platform, where national coalitions can strengthen advocacy efforts, it contributes towards influencing governments’ policies to focus on a better wellbeing for all children across EU and wider Europe.

In order to increase public awareness on children’s rights issues, the event particularly encouraged engagement with country specific stakeholders in children’s rights coalitions, as well as external stakeholders from the private sector, civil society, academia and media. 

The outcomes of the Forum will promote further understanding of the UNCRC principles and will advocate for sustained implementation of children’s rights in the current socio-economic climate, having in mind that there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach and taking into account the changing environments and situations and specific needs that attendees came with. 

In April 2016, Praxis held two two-day workshops for Roma women and men in Leskovac and Kostolac, aimed at prevention and elimination of child, early and forced marriages. The workshops were organized as part of the activities on the project “Legal Assistance to Persons at Risk of Statelessness in Serbia”, funded by UNHCR.

A total of 52 women and girls and 40 men and boys took part in the workshops. The goal of the workshops to open a discussion and jointly name the causes and consequences of this harmful traditional practice through a discussion, and to come up with proposal of mechanisms that would lead to prevention and elimination of child, early and forced marriages. We discussed about the importance of the healthy early child development, respect for children’s needs and wishes, necessity of regular health protection, with special reference to sexual and reproductive health, but also about the key importance of timely education. In this way, we incited the participants to further discuss about the role of a woman and a man in the Roma community, causes and consequences of child, early and forced marriages and how to prevent them. 

The participants identified poverty, low risk of education of families living in informal settlements, high unemployment rate among the Roma and patriarchal cultural tradition, as the main causes of child, early and forced marriages in the Roma community.

“It means a lot when a Roma girl preserves her virginity; when you preserve your virginity, you save your face, honour and respect for your family. It means a lot to us.”

"Life expectancy for Roma is 50 to 55 years. Short life expectancy is often just the result of early marriages, both for women and men. Roma women and men get married early, they early give birth to children, they become parents early. They do not know how to nurture their children. The parents take care about children the least, grandparents decide on everything."

“ I do not support that children get married at 13 or 14. It doesn’t befit a girl to get married so young. It is important how parents bring her up, and the composition of a settlement where a family lives is also important. In mixed settlements, young Roma usually go to school and learn, and in the Roma settlements parents are usually illiterate, so kids are mostly illiterate. "

"A lot of us are a traditional, patriarchal; parents accompany girls to school so that they would not lose their virginity before marriage. "

"Why do parents sell their daughters? When I go to the Social Welfare Centre to ask for cash social welfare, they say - you're healthy and fit, go to work! And where can I get a job - nowhere! And the situation is getting worse. Why would I send a child to school when there's nowhere to get a job." 

In the second part of the workshop, the video clips Avoid My Destiny and I’m a Roma Woman were played. The former is about testimonies of Roma women who are victims of forced marriages and domestic violence, and it left no one indifferent. The impressions varied from “this is sad and scary, but it is not happening here”, through "all this is true”, to the fact that some participants recognized themselves "This is my story when I was 17, that’s it, what can I do, my father sold me”, and some felt ashamed “Never in my life have I felt ashamed, but today I felt ashamed because I am a member of Roma community”. The latter, with its affirmative concept, inspired the participants and directed them once again to perceive education as a path to better future for all girls and boys.

In the following period, we will conduct community meetings in Leskovac and Kostolac which will gather the representatives of all relevant institutions at the local level.