3 March

To European Leaders:

As national and international organizations working along the Western Balkan migration route in Greece, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Serbia, and Croatia, we strongly condemn the latest discriminatory and dangerous measures adopted by European countries as part of a broader package of deterrence policies intended to stem the flow of vulnerable people seeking safety.

Download: Joint Statement

Signatories: ActionAid, Albanian Helsinki Committee, Atina Serbia, Belgrade Center for Human Rights, Center for Youth Integration Serbia,
Civic Initiatives Belgrade, Civil Rights Program Kosovo, Doctors of the World Greece, European Council on Refugees and Exiles, Građanske inicijative – Civic Initiative, Greek Council of Refugees, Greek Forum of Refugees, Grupa 484, Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia, Humanitarni centar za integraciju i toleranciju (HCIT), Hrvatski pravni centar, International Rescue Committee, Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, Macedonian Young Lawyers Association, Norwegian Refugee Council, Open Gate - La Strada, Oxfam, Practical Policy Centre Serbia, Praksis, Praxis Serbia, Save the Children, Solidarity Now, VluchtelingenWerk Nederland

These men from Afghanistan arrived to Belgrade on January 30th, at 1:40 am. Our team met them in the close surroundings of the central bus station. One of the members of the group is a 16-year-old boy, six of them are deaf. Only one person in the group could communicate in English.

Their journey hasn’t been easy at all. They arrived hungry and frozen, after the days of walk. They were beaten and robbed along the way. In other words, they were broke and broken. We immediately provided them with the blankets and meals, but what they needed the most at the moment of our encounter was a warm shelter, a place to sleep over and recover - a safety place, at least for a couple of days.

At almost 2 am, one of the few places that could have offered them such help, free of charge, was Asylum Centre in Krnjaca. However, there’s a catch. In order to get accommodated in Krnjaca, one first needs to be registered and given a certificate stating that he/she is transiting to another country, or in which he/she is expressing an interest in seeking asylum in the Republic of Serbia. Our team immediately took the group to get registered, but earlier that evening the registration system had crashed and no person could be registered throughout the night. In other words, our Afghan friends were told to come back early in the morning. What happens in such cases? If you need a registration certificate to  enter the asylum centre and you cannot obtain it due to the system failure, what is to be done?

Well, what should have been done is that the group should l have been received in the asylum centre, as the centre also provides emergent shelter for those who for some reason cannot immediately register, as in the case of our Afghan group. In such situations, people who have been offered emergent shelter would have to go and register the following day.

But which cases are considered  as really urgent? Is being beaten, frozen and exhausted a good enough case?

In the early morning hours of January 31st, these criteria were not good enough. Ten men were not allowed to enter the asylum centre. It was around 3 am and -4 C. The day to come was still several freezing hours away. We placed the group in a waiting room of the bus station, which became their shelter for the following night.

The morning of January 31st arrived. Sometime before 7 am, our team picked the group up and escorted them to the police station. By the early afternoon, most of the members were successfully registered, and finally got eligible to ask for the assistance of the asylum centre and/or for the continuation of their journey.

We wished them good luck and flawless bureaucratic systems on the way to their final destinations. And in case the system they are about to face fails again, we truly hope that the fellow human beings on their way won’t.

In the meantime, we will continue to advocate and draw attention of the competent institutions to the bad practice in the field and hope that our efforts pay off so that another such group of people actually get the needed and guaranteed assistance.

At the session held on 2 February 2016, the Government of the Republic of Serbia adopted the Proposal of the Law on Equality of Women and Men (hereinafter: Proposal). Praxis supports the adoption of the Law that establishes systemic assumptions of the achievement of constitutional principle of equality of women and men and policy of equal opportunities in social and private life more comprehensively and consistently than the Law on Gender Equality.

However, we suggest the legislator should consider the solution proposed by the Article 13, Paragraph 1, Item 2, which establishes the obligation of the public authorities performing the works in the area of health and social protection to “organize and implement programmes for overcoming the problems of early pregnancies and intimate cohabitation where at least one person is younger than 16 years of age”.

Specifically, the proposed solution is disputable both in terms of terminology and concept. By opting for the terms “early pregnancy” and “intimate cohabitation” and by setting the age limit below 16 years of age, the Republic of Serbia, deviates, to some extent, from the ratified international standards and undermines the internal consistency of the legal and political framework of the regulation of all specific life situations. The Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, as well as by the UN expert bodies, as well as the Human Rights Council, as a special intergovernmental body of the United Nations, in its regular annual reports and general recommendations for the interpretation of the most important international treaties, formal or informal relationship of two persons of whom at least one is still a child, and is younger than 18 years of age, define as early (child) marriage. On the other hand, the National Strategy for Gender Equality for the period from 2016-2020 with the Action Plan for the period from 2016-2018 (“The Official Gazette of RS", No. 4/16) draws special attention to the problems of early marriages and adolescent pregnancies and childbirths.  The National Strategy for Gender Equality points out that in the general population there is 1.4% of women who have given birth before the age of 18, while as many as 38.8% of women from Roma settlements first had a child before the legal limit of the age of majority. Therefore, in order to comply with the defined international standards and ensuring of uniformity and consistency in the internal legal order, it would be advisable to replace the proposed terms "early pregnancy" and "intimate cohabitation" by the terms "teen pregnancy" and "early and child marriages" and set the age of their defining at 18 years, due to the fact that this is also the age of majority in our legal system.

In addition, having in mind early and child marriages, and consequently teen pregnancy as a frequent accompanying phenomenon, are dominantly perceived as a mark of tradition and culture of certain national minorities, primarily Roma national minority, it would be advisable within the considered Article 13 to add a new paragraph  that would explicitly indicate that culture, customs, religion, tradition or so-called “honour” could not be considered as  justification of these practices, as it is envisaged by the Article 5, Paragraph 12 of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (The Law on the ratification of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, „The Official Gazette of RS“, number 12/13), which came into force on 1 August 2014.

Also, we express concern over the failure of the submitter of the motion in the Article 26, Item 2, to recognize women and men of different sexual orientation and gender identity as especially vulnerable categories of survivors of domestic violence. Specifically, the above-stated article standardized the services of support and assistance to survivors of domestic violence (SOS phones, shelters for survivors of domestic violence, specialized psychological counselling, and support for persons who suffered sexual violence, programs for perpetrators of violence). The failure of the submitter to recognize women and men of different sexual orientation and gender identity as especially vulnerable categories of survivors of violence undermines the availability and effectiveness of protection against violence of the members of these marginalized social groups, especially given that the Strategy for Prevention and Protection against Discrimination (“The Official Gazette of RS”, number 60/13), and the National Strategy for Gender Equality for the period from 2016 to 2020 recognize men and women of different sexual orientation and gender identity as multiply discriminated categories of the population towards whom there is the greatest degree of social distance and who are facing an increased risk of violence.

Praxis has conducted the analysis of the situation of gender equality in Smederevo within the project “Sexual and Gender Based Violence – Activities in Serbia”, which aimed to prevent and combat gender based violence in the territory of the Republic of Serbia, and was funded by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
 
The goals of the analysis were presenting gender specific positions and roles the citizens of Smederevo play in the area of public and private life, determining the attitudes of male and female citizens of Smederevo towards gender roles, and the level of general knowledge they have about gender equality policies, both at the national and the local level; conducting a gender analysis of local policies in the City of Smederevo in the area of improvement of the position of refugees and internally displaced persons, Roma, youth, social protection, employment and improvement of the position of persons with disabilities; defining the recommendations for development of the active policy of equal opportunities for men and women in all areas of social life and achievement of gender equality in all areas of public and private life at the level of the City of Smederevo.

The analysis was preceded by the research on the attitudes the citizens of Smederevo have towards gender equality, which was conducted by “SeCons” in the period from 1 March – 15 April 2015. The research included 381 persons - 248 members of domicile population and 133 IDPs. A total of 188 women and 193 men participated in the research.

The results of the research conducted indicate significant gender inequalities manifested in a range of aspects, especially in terms of social position and roles played by male and female citizens in everyday life, both in the public (in the area of education, labour market, political participation, access to institutions and social media) and private life (partner and family relationship). The research also indicated that participation in different areas of social life is often determined by selection and participation mechanisms which are grounded on different forms of discrimination based on gender and IDP status. Only 6% of domicile male and female respondents were exposed to some form of discrimination. On the other hand, 22% IDP male and female respondents faced some form of discrimination in the area of public life. Discrimination most often occurs in an access to institutions, education system and in the workplace. Most of the male and female respondents from the subsample of IDPs (62%) believe that women are victims of discrimination more often than men in the area of work and employment. Also, 61% of male and female respondents of this subsample believe that women’s job is threatened because of family duties, more often than in case of men. Particularly worrying is the fact that male and female respondents most often decide not to report the cases of discrimination or to address persons of trust for assistance who are usually members of family and friends. Only a few did decide to report discrimination to the competent state authority, while a small number of male and female respondents decided to report discrimination in the workplace to the representative union.

The analysis also provides the recommendations which, in addition to the monitoring of the current legal regulations in the area of gender equality, refer also to promotion of positive and non-stereotypical image of women and men in the media, development of programs of support to self-employment of women and educational programmes on the protection of general health of women, with an emphasis of the reproductive health, improvement of the protection of women survivors of domestic violence, promotion of the role of men and boys in achieving gender equality, as well as the affirmation of the use of gender sensitive language in legal and political act of competent institutions.    

Download: Analysis of the Situation of Gender Equality in Smederevo

In January 2016, the provisions of the Rules on amendments to the Rules for procedure of registration and de-registration of permanent and temporary residence, registration of temporary stay abroad and return from abroad, passivization of permanent and temporary residence, forms and manner of keeping records (Rules) came into force, as well as the provisions of the Law on Amendments to the Law on Republic Administrative Fees, which simplified the procedure for registration of permanent residence for newborns.

According to the adopted amendments to the Rules, determination of the personal identification number for a newborn, whose both parents are the citizens of the Republic of Serbia and have their permanent residence registered at the same address, is considered to be the registration of the permanent residence for a newborn at the address of his/her parents. The registration of permanent residence for a newborn, whose parents have different addresses of permanent residence, may be performed by parents in the health institution by filling in the form for registration of permanent residence. Once a newborn is registered in the birth registry book, the filled form is electronically sent to the organizational unit of the Ministry of Interior competent in the place of registration, which, if the conditions prescribed by the law are fulfilled, performs the registration of the permanent residence for a newborn, while the filled form is sent to that organizational part for the input and keeping in e-records. At the same time, the amendments to the Law on Republic Administrative Fees envisage the exemption from payment of fees for the registration of a newborn and for certificate on registration of permanent residence for a newborn.

The envisaged amendments simplify and shorten the procedure for registration of permanent residence for newborns, facilitate the procedure to parents and most importantly they ensure that a larger number of children in the short term have the permanent residence registered, which is a prerequisite for the exercise of other guaranteed rights.

In January 2016, the provisions of the Rules on amendments to the Rules for procedure of registration and de-registration of permanent and temporary residence, registration of temporary stay abroad and return from abroad, passivization of permanent and temporary residence, forms and manner of keeping records (Rules) came into force, as well as the provisions of the Law on Amendments to the Law on Republic Administrative Fees, which simplified the procedure for registration of permanent residence for newborns.

According to the adopted amendments to the Rules, determination of the personal identification number for a newborn, whose both parents are the citizens of the Republic of Serbia and have their permanent residence registered at the same address, is considered to be the registration of the permanent residence for a newborn at the address of his/her parents. The registration of permanent residence for a newborn, whose parents have different addresses of permanent residence, may be performed by parents in the health institution by filling in the form for registration of permanent residence. Once a newborn is registered in the birth registry book, the filled form is electronically sent to the organizational unit of the Ministry of Interior competent in the place of registration, which, if the conditions prescribed by the law are fulfilled, performs the registration of the permanent residence for a newborn, while the filled form is sent to that organizational part for the input and keeping in e-records. At the same time, the amendments to the Law on Republic Administrative Fees envisage the exemption from payment of fees for the registration of a newborn and for certificate on registration of permanent residence for a newborn.

The envisaged amendments simplify and shorten the procedure for registration of permanent residence for newborns, facilitate the procedure to parents and most importantly they ensure that a larger number of children in the short term have the permanent residence registered, which is a prerequisite for the exercise of other guaranteed rights.

Statement published in the following media: Dijalog.net

Within the project “Legal Assistance to Persons at Risk of Statelessness in Serbia”, funded by UNHCR, throughout 2016 Praxis will, among others, conduct activities directed at prevention and elimination of child, early and forced marriages (CEFM). The main activities will focus on raising awareness of Roma children and parents of potential risks and consequences of CEFM, as well as on advocacy aimed at prevention and elimination of CEFM at the local and national level.

The CEFM in Serbia represent a problem that almost exclusively affects Roma communities, and so far it has been insufficiently and inadequately addressed by competent institutions, often under the pretext that CEFM are part of Roma tradition. In addition to being one of the causes leading to statelessness, the CEFM are also a reflection of patriarchal values and traditional attitudes towards a woman’s role in society and the family, which endanger the mental and physical health of girls, expose them to a greater risk of domestic violence, lead to increased rates of drop-out of school, and later to poverty and their economic dependence on the community. As such, the CEFM represent severe violations of human rights, contrary to the Convention of the Rights of the Child and the Convention of the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. According to UNICEF’s 2014 MICS, the percentage of girls who entered into marriage before their 15th birthday is 16.9% compared to 0.8% of non-Roma girls, or 57% of Roma girls compared to 6.8% non-Roma girls who entered into marriage before their 18th birthday. However, since the CEFM within the Roma community are predominantly common-law marriages, the real percentage is much higher. In addition, the statistics show that 4% of women have given birth before the age of 15, and even 38% of women aged 20-24 have given birth before the age of 18.

Within this project, which is the continuation of the joint activities of Praxis and UNHCR on CEFM dating back to 2015, four two-day workshops will be held with Roma children and parents in Leskovac and Kostolac, aimed at raising awareness of harmful effects of the CEFM with special attention on sexual and reproductive health, gender perspective, the importance of timely education, and the right to free choice of a spouse. The workshops will be followed by community meetings which will gather all relevant stakeholders at the local level. Along with raising awareness of the local communities about the importance of solving the CEFM issue, a working group will be established and will gather the representatives of Roma community along with experts on child rights and gender equality. Relying on knowledge and information gained at workshops and conclusions of the community meetings, and with analysis of regulations and cases from practice, the working group will prepare a policy brief which will provide recommendations for solving the CEFM issue.

In order to achieve greater visibility of the CEFM issue, the professional and wider public will be regularly informed about Praxis activities aimed at prevention and elimination of the CEFM.

Within the project “Legal Assistance to Persons at Risk of Statelessness in Serbia”, funded by UNHCR, throughout 2016 Praxis will, among others, conduct activities directed at prevention and elimination of child, early and forced marriages (CEFM). The main activities will focus on raising awareness of Roma children and parents of potential risks and consequences of CEFM, as well as on advocacy aimed at prevention and elimination of CEFM at the local and national level.

The CEFM in Serbia represent a problem that almost exclusively affects Roma communities, and so far it has been insufficiently and inadequately addressed by competent institutions, often under the pretext that CEFM are part of Roma tradition. In addition to being one of the causes leading to statelessness, the CEFM are also a reflection of patriarchal values and traditional attitudes towards a woman’s role in society and the family, which endanger the mental and physical health of girls, expose them to a greater risk of domestic violence, lead to increased rates of drop-out of school, and later to poverty and their economic dependence on the community. As such, the CEFM represent severe violations of human rights, contrary to the Convention of the Rights of the Child and the Convention of the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. According to UNICEF’s 2014 MICS, the percentage of girls who entered into marriage before their 15th birthday is 16.9% compared to 0.8% of non-Roma girls, or 57% of Roma girls compared to 6.8% non-Roma girls who entered into marriage before their 18th birthday. However, since the CEFM within the Roma community are predominantly common-law marriages, the real percentage is much higher. In addition, the statistics show that 4% of women have given birth before the age of 15, and even 38% of women aged 20-24 have given birth before the age of 18.

Within this project, which is the continuation of the joint activities of Praxis and UNHCR on CEFM dating back to 2015, four two-day workshops will be held with Roma children and parents in Leskovac and Kostolac, aimed at raising awareness of harmful effects of the CEFM with special attention on sexual and reproductive health, gender perspective, the importance of timely education, and the right to free choice of a spouse. The workshops will be followed by community meetings which will gather all relevant stakeholders at the local level. Along with raising awareness of the local communities about the importance of solving the CEFM issue, a working group will be established and will gather the representatives of Roma community along with experts on child rights and gender equality. Relying on knowledge and information gained at workshops and conclusions of the community meetings, and with analysis of regulations and cases from practice, the working group will prepare a policy brief which will provide recommendations for solving the CEFM issue.

In order to achieve greater visibility of the CEFM issue, the professional and wider public will be regularly informed about Praxis activities aimed at prevention and elimination of the CEFM.

On 5 January 2016, Praxis was visited by 33 students of the University of Hong Kong, members of the World University Service, The University of Hong Kong Branch - WUSHKUB. WUSHKUB scope of activity is focused on promotion of cultural exchange, human rights, current political issues and equal opportunities for all.

The representatives of Praxis presented the situation of human rights in Serbia and problems faced by the most vulnerable groups. The students were especially interested in international relations, gender equality, the situation of Roma and relations between Serbia and Kosovo.

The students presented us the situation of human rights of ethnic minorities and the situation in regard to gender equality in Hong Kong. Specifically, 95% of the population of Hong Kong is Chinese, and 5% ethnic minorities (Indians, Pakistanis, Indonesians, Japanese and Thais). The largest social distance is towards the Indians and Indonesians because of the color of their skin. Also, there are approximately 10,000 refugees from Syria and other Middle Eastern countries whose main problems are inadequate living conditions, lack of food, denial of rights to social protection and employment.

There has been a significant change in the perception of the position of a woman in society in Hong Kong – whereas previously women were generally identified as mothers and carriers of a child, husband and household care role (largely contributed to by the Confucian philosophical tradition in which it is the duty of a woman to be inferior to a man), today the image of an emancipated woman - independent, educated and employed, is prevailing. However, women in Hong Kong are still under-represented in managerial and official's positions, as well as in the bodies of executive power, which is why women are excluded from decision-making processes.

Even though these two countries are on two different continents and at different level of economic development and have different cultural and historical heritage, in an interview with students we came to the conclusion that the problems we face are similar and that it is necessary to further improve the position of women, national minorities, refugees and other marginalized groups, in order to build an equal and tolerant society.