European Commission on Racism and Intolerance published a report on Serbia, within the sixth cycle of monitoring.
The sixth-round country reports focus on three topics common to all member States: (1) Effective equality and access to rights, (2) Hate speech and hate-motivated violence, and (3) Integration and inclusion, as well as a number of topics specific to each one of them.
The report states that, since the adoption of ECRI’s fifth-cycle report on Serbia on 22 March 2017, progress has been made and good practices have been developed in a number of fields.
As regards integration and inclusion of Roma, the 2021 amendments to the Law on Prohibition of Discrimination referred to segregation as a severe form of discrimination. Progress has overall been made in securing better preschool and school attendance of Roma pupils. Additionally, significant progress has been achieved towards resolving the problem of lack of personal identity documents for Roma.
However, the report states that some issues give rise to concern.
There is no comprehensive data on hate speech and the actual number of hate speech cases is considered to be much higher than what is reflected in existing statistics. Hate speech is persisting in political and other public discourse, in particular online, and targets various groups, such as Roma and other ethnic minorities, LGBTI communities and refugees/migrants.
ECRI recommends that the authorities step up their efforts in encouraging public figures, in particular high-level officials, politicians and religious leaders, to refrain from using racist and other forms of hate speech themselves, to firmly and promptly condemn the use of such speech by others, to use counter-speech and alternative speech, and to promote intergroup understanding, including by expressing solidarity with those targeted by hate speech.
With respect to Roma population, de facto segregation in education is relatively increasing and the school attendance and completion rates remain far lower for Roma children than for the general pupil population. Moreover, the housing situation of Roma remains very tense due to serious gaps in the implementation of an otherwise robust legal and policy framework.
In Findings and Recommendations, ECRI recommends that the authorities give the Commissioner for the Protection of Equality the prerogative to conduct inquiries into cases of discrimination ex officio and, upon request, to obtain evidence and other material.
ECRI recommends that the authorities take determined action to end all forms of de facto segregation of Roma children in schools, in line with the anti-discrimination legislation as amended in 2021.
In addition, taking into consideration connections between higher drop-out rates among Roma girls and the persisting phenomenon of early marriages, ECRI notes with interest the action taken by the authorities to end child marriage, including the creation, in 2019, of a National Coalition to End Child Marriage in Serbia.
In relation to employment, ECRI recommends that the authorities pursue their action aimed at targeting a greater number of highly-skilled Roma persons and strengthen their efforts to offer low-threshold vocational trainings and skills-building activities to enhance the employability of low-skilled Roma. Such activities should place particular emphasis on the specific needs of Roma women.
Regarding access to documentation, ECRI learned that, in cases where parents do not possess an ID card or a birth certificate, it was not possible to register new-born children upon birth, which rendered them legally invisible and at risk of statelessness. ECRI invites the authorities to ensure that parents of all children born in Serbia have access to timely birth registration.
Irregularities in the procedure for registration of permanent residence nevertheless persist, despite the legal solution enabling registration at the address of social welfare centre. In addition, persons who already have a registered permanent residence are denied such a possibility, even in cases where they have not been living in that place of permanent residence for years or even decades. ECRI invites the authorities to ensure that the regulations governing the procedures for registering a permanent residence are consistently applied.
The Report may be found HERE.
