In October and November 2016, Praxis held three community meetings in Leskovac, Pozarevac and Novi Pazar, as a part of activities aimed at prevention and elimination of child, early and forced marriages, carried out within the project “Legal Assistance to Persons at Risk of Statelessness in Serbia”, funded by UNHCR.

Following the first round of workshops and community meetings held in the period from April to May 2016, the policies were proposed for further work on prevention and elimination of child, early and forced marriages. In accordance with the main idea of the project – prevention and elimination, Praxis formulated two sets of policies – preventive and corrective, and presented them in the second part of the meeting. The idea of the second round of meeting was to gather the representatives of all institutions which may have a key role in the prevention of child, early and forced marriages, and the institutions which are obliged to react in case of child, early and forced marriages, in order to review the defined policies and improve them additionally.

A total of 48 representatives of social welfare centres, police, prosecution, judiciary, educational and health institutions, NGO sector, as well as Roma health mediators, teaching assistants and activists, took part in the meetings. The expectations of the participants related mainly to how to react to child, early and forced marriage, and to acquiring of the basic knowledge about the problem by considering it from the aspects that are not just closely related to their respective professions. Also, the participants stated that though the problem of child, early and forced marriages has been present for long, it is not treated enough, and therefore almost no one knows how to solve it.

One of the conclusions of community meetings was the general impression of the participants that despite the mechanisms that can adequately resist the problem of child, early and forced marriages, the activities of the relevant institutions are not synchronized, but happens that the responsibilities are transferred from one institution to another.

In December 2016, Praxis will present the policies for prevention and elimination of child, early and forced marriages. 

See also the announcements: Praxis Held Community Meetings on Prevention and Elimination of Child, Early and Forced Marriages