AWC activists hardly expect to get a medal for this accomplishment, but it’s unquestionable that they’ve deserved it. There isn’t a judge, prosecutor, lawyer or social policy center employee with whom “Vreme” talked to as part of this project who didn’t tell us: everything we know, we learned from AWC. It may be that such praise in an article that aims to be objective seems over the top. In that case, here’s a challenge for you: find one case, one victim who turned to them for help, or one institution, with whom AWC declined to work with. If you find it – we’ll publish it.
A two day expert meeting was organized in Florence by Due Diligence, with the support of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Rights and Justice. The focus of the meeting was on the principal of due diligence and effective inclusion of community leaders in preventing violence and discrimination of women. Tanja Ignjatovic from the Autonomous Women’s Center, and Aleksandra Nestorov, coordinator of the Women against Violence Network participated in this meeting.
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.
As the oldest organization for protection of women victims of violence in Serbia, the Autonomous Women’s Center considers the new Law of Domestic Violence Prevention represents the biggest step forward so far in relation to emergency protection of victims from violence. Introduction of the provision of temporarily removing the perpetrator from the home, which the AWC has been lobbying for 10 years, as well as the measure of a temporary ban on any contact and approaching the victim, are a good foundation for building an efficient protection system.
Vanja Macanovic from the Autonomous Women’s Center spoke today at the “Turn Off the Violence” conference organized by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Labor, Employment, Veteran and Social Policy. Her complete speech is below:
Shortly before the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, on November 23rd 2016, a panel was organized at the EU Info Center, titled “How Should We Respond to Violence”.
Speaking ahead of the International Day on the Elimination of Violence against Women (VAW), UN Rapporteur on VAW, with key global and regional women's rights expert mechanisms, made a jointly call for intensification of international, regional and national efforts for prevention of femicides and gender based violence (GBV).
At the “Surviving Violence – Consequences to Psychological and Physical Health of Domestic Violence and Trafficking Victims” panel, that was organized by ASTRA – Action against Trafficking, on November 15th 2016, at Dom Omladine, it was concluded that women are most frequent victims of trafficking and domestic violence, and also that prejudices associated with these two social phenomena are very similar and that it’s essential to talk about them and find adequate means to support and protect victims.
Slavica Djukic Dejanovic, Minister without portfolio who is in charge of demographics and population policy, and member of the Coordinating Body for Gender Equality, supported and signed the petition calling for the proclamation of May 18th as the Day of Remembrance of Murdered Women Victims of Violence. She signed the petition on the Republic Square in Belgrade, on November 9th. Following the signing, the Minister met with Tanja Ignjatovic, from the Autonomous Women’s Center, and Aleksandra Nestorov, from the Women against Violence Network.
With the appeal issuded to the MPs, Autonomous Women's Center has expressed concerns about the proposed Law on the Prevention of Domestic Violence and Amendments to the Criminal Code because of provisions that could lead to a reduction in the achieved rights to the protection of victims of domestic violence.
