The Autonomous Women's Center is expressing concern about a number of louder and louder public commentaries that relativizes sexual violence, either in the form of not believing a woman who had survived it, or in terms of reducing her experience and justifying the perpetrators.
The Women Against Violence Network, Labris - Organization for Lesbian Human Rights, Reconstruction Women's Fund, ASTRA, Roma Women's Network, Woman in Black Serbia Network, Women's Network of Rasina District, Left Summit of Serbia, Lesbian Consultation and Women's Plenum for Strike call for a protest march on March 8th in Belgrade, at Republic square at 5pm.
Within the cycle of debates and workshops aimed at combating stereotypes and gender inequalities, the French Institute in Serbia and the University of Belgrade are organizing a half-day debate with participants from Serbia and France on the topic of violence against women to be held on International Women's Day on March 8th from 15h to 19h at the premises of the French Institute.
Geneva, january 2018 - The conclusions and recommendations of the working group of the Human Rights Council, based on the consideration of the Reports of the Republic of Serbia within the third cycle of the Universal Periodic Review, at the 29th session in Geneva (15-26 January 2018), contain 74 recommendations formulated during the interactive dialogue Serbia examined and accepted, and another 116 recommendations that should be explored and delivered to the Council (no later than the 38th session).
Students of the Music School "Stanković" joined the campaign I Can Say No in a unique and creative way - by writing and composing a song called I Can Say No, which describes everything they had learned during the workshops.
The campaign Are you allergic to injustice? launched by the Autonomous Women's Center in order to harmonize the definition of the criminal offense of rape with the Istanbul Convention was nominated for the best non-profit campaign in Serbia for 2017.
The Ministry of Labor, Employment, Veterans' and Social Affairs announced, during the 16 days of activism against violence against women, the founding of the National SOS helpline for women victims of violence - a telephone that the state of Serbia was obliged to establish in October 2013. when it ratified the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence. The Ministry has announced two vacancies for the National SOS helpline and both vacancies have been withdrawn.
The Advocates for Human Rights and Autonomous Women’s Center carried out fact-finding to monitor and document the Serbian government's implementation of laws that address domestic violence. The authors carried out two monitoring missions, during which they conducted more than 90 interviews with government officials, police, judges, prosecutors, health care workers, social workers, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and many others.
After the first three independent monthly reports, the fourth independent report of the Autonomous Women's Center on the implementation of the Law on the Prevention of Domestic Violence relates to the three-month period from September to November 2017.
Within the campaign "I Can Say No - Love Is Not Violence!" graffiti with the same message and blue and red hearts were painted by young people in 17 high schools and 2 primary schools across Serbia. The action of drawing the graffiti has proven to be a good example of working with young people during which they express their own creativity, and at the same time send a strong message to girls - I can choose not to tolerate violence, as well as to boys - I can choose not to be violent.
