On the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, November 25th, the Office of the Ombudsman for Human and Minority Rights and Gender Equality, organized a conference in the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, titled “ A Comprehensive Approach to Combating Violence against Women”. The conference consisted of three sessions, during which discussions were held on the current state of affairs, accomplishments and challenges in three fields: monitoring and reporting on violence against women, data gathering and record keeping, cooperation and coordination in combating violence against women.
The third session focused on issues of cooperation and coordination, and was moderated by Tanja Ignjatovic from the AWC. Session participants were experts on this issue: Snezana Jakovljevic, coordinator of of the “Pescanik” NGO from Krusevac, Dzeneta Agovic, coordinator of “Impuls” NGO from Tutin, and Velibor Pantovic, a police inspector from the Tutin Police Station, and Slobodan Josimovic, deputy public prosecutor at the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Novi Sad. Participants discussed measurable cooperation results, what has been achieved from the perspective of victims of violence, as well as challenges faced in cooperation.
The third session was followed by a discussion where audience members joined in. The following conclusions were reached: the next necessary step in implementing protection measures is to focus on measurable effects of the institutional reactions to cases of violence, and to focus on measurable effects of cooperation and coordination; monitoring the implementation of the new Law on Domestic Violence Prevention to see if it indeed establishes a systematic approach to cooperation in coordination of all key institutions (which would be contrary to current practice – where we find rare exceptions to this rule); the implementation of the new Law will be very challenging in small towns where traditional culture is still highly regarded, but dedicated implementation of the Law is the only viable alternative to this state of affairs; it’s necessary to secure continuity of cooperation and services, contrary to the now already existing tradition of discontinuity which manifests whenever there is a change of government; it’s important to pay attention to preventing violence, which entails dedicated implementation of the Law and applicable criminal codes, and primary prevention that should start with education at the earliest possible age.
A video of the conference is available at: http://www.parlament.gov.rs/prenosi/arhiva.2090.html (in Serbian)
