Ten women's civil society organizations from Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Montenegro, which deal with providing support to women who have survived violence, sent a letter of support to Professor Robert Geffner - an American clinical psychologist with 40 years of experience in the field of domestic violence, trauma and psychological and sexual abuse of children.
The latest confirmation of the unacceptability of the usage of the "parental alienation" concept, and its harmful consequences comes from the GREVIO expert group (which monitors the implementation of the Council of Europe Convention on the Prevention of Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, ratified by the Republic of Serbia in 2013), in the assessment to the Republic of Croatia (September 6, 2023).
On August 8, 2023, the Autonomous Women's Center submitted comments on the Draft Law on Amendments to the Law on the Protection of Persons with Mental Disabilities, pointing out that it is disputable that it is unclear who were the members of the working group for drafting the amendments (first of all, whether it included representatives of other relevant ministries, experts and citizens' associations dealing with the protection of children's rights), as well as the fact that the changes violate children's rights.
The key data on the implementation of the Law on the Protection of Domestic Violence in 2022, was reviewed compared to 2018 and 2019 (before the pandemic), compared to 2020, the year marked by the state of emergency and the emergency situation due to COVID-19, as well as compared to 2021. It indicates the trends of discontinuing the increase in reporting domestic violence events, along with the increase in the number of risky events compared to the number of reported events of violence. The number of police orders also increased, for individual measures and for both measures imposed together, as well as the number of perpetrators of violence. Proposals for extension and decisions on extended emergency protection measures are in high percentage accordance with the number of police orders. The number of reviewed domestic violence cases at meetings of groups for coordination and cooperation approached that of 2019.
Women's organizations from Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and North Macedonia (55 organizations) sent a letter of support to the Report of the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences, which refers to the entrusting the children, violence against women and violence against children, and which will be presented at the 53rd session of the UN Human Rights Committee. The initiative for this action came from the Women's Network of Croatia, which also submitted a letter of support (signed by 41 organizations).
On June 2, 2023, the Republic of Serbia received Conclusions on the implementation of the recommendations sent by the Committee of Parties to the Council of Europe Convention on the Prevention of Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (IC—CP/Inf (2023)11).
Reem Alsalem, Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences, presented a report on guardianship in the context of violence against women and children. The Autonomous Women's Center submitted a report on the situation in Serbia. The Report highlights all the consequences of using the quasi-scientific concept of "parental alienation" and its iterations.
Tanja Ignjatović spoke about the unfavorable context for the exercise of basic human rights, the prevention of violence and the protection of vulnerable groups, especially women and children, topics that were not the focus of reforms within the framework of European integration (strengthening of the right, hate speech in public space, anti -gender narratives and attacks on dissidents), as well as about reforms "on paper" and a series of institutional failures, emphasizing the demand for the responsibility of the authorities, while the members of the AWC held a banner that read "We are looking for answers".
The Serbian authorities have submitted their reporting form on the implementation of recommendations issued by the Committee of the Parties. The completed reporting form has been published today, in accordance with the agreed procedure.
After the withdrawal of the Draft Law on Internal Affairs due to numerous objections from civil society organizations, and especially due to the short deadline for public discussion of a set of six police laws and also due to the introduction of non-selective biometric recording and processing of data from public places, the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MoI ) prepared a new draft and organized a second round of consultative meetings (four) with representatives of civil society (the articles related to biometric recording and data processing were not subject to consultation, as the MoI needs more time to consider their changes).
The Autonomous Women's Center submitted to the Constitutional Court an initiative for the assessment of constitutionality and compliance with confirmed international agreements, Art. 58 and Art. 77 of the Law on Gender Equality, adopted in 2021.