The Autonomous Women's Center is expressing concern about the statement from last week of the Minister of Education, Science and Technological Development, Mladen Šarčević, for the Politika newspaper, regarding the accredited seminars provided by non-governmental organizations to employees in educational institutions. His statement that schools are "stuffed with everything and anything" is unacceptable, and the announcement that there will "be changes in this area".
On May 18th, activists of the Women Against Violence Network, coordinated by the Autonomous Women's Center, handed over 8,000 signatures to support the Deputy Prime Minister and the President of the Coordinating Body for Gender Equality, Zorana Mihajlović, for proclaiming this day a Day of Remembrance for murdered women who were victims of violence.
Representative of Autonomous Women's Center, Tanja Ignjatovic, spoke at the event "Europe Calling" organized by the Women's Platform for Development of Serbia on May 9th at the Crown Plaza Hotel. "We are deeply concerned about the conservative and extreme right politics in the European Union because here we know what the consequences of such a policy. Even more we are concerned that the EU does not have mechanisms to prevent the collapse of European values by its members", said Ignjatovic.
Incest Trauma Center - Belgrade, Autonomous Women's Center, Labris, Center for Women's Studies and Reconstruction Women's Fund demand that the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia consistently implement the original content of the Educational Learning Package on the topic of sexual violence published by the Incest Trauma Center - Belgrade in November 2016, made in 2016, in partnership with the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia and jointly promoted in public.
Commenting on the case of Marija and Siniša Mali, directly taking the side of the mayor of Belgrade, and accusing his ex-wife in advance - the director of the Office for Human and Minority Rights, Suzana Paunović, showed that she doesn’t take into account that the one who has political power is ready to abuse it. We remind her that the imbalance of power is the basis of any discrimination and human rights violation, and we warn that, due to the lack of knowledge on this topic, she should maybe find some other business to deal with.
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:
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).
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.
Representative of Autonomous Women’s CenterTanja Ignjatović participated in the Fourth National Conference of the Women’s Parliamentary Network (WPN), which was held on 4th of November 2016 in the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia. Participating in the working group “Women’s alliances in the fight for a better position of women in society”, she invited WPN to support amendments to the Draft Law on Prevention of Domestic Violence in order to get the best possible version of this law. She also invited the representatives of the WPN to jointly stop that the Criminal Code enter the parliamentary procedure, because there was no a public debate on 14 articles relating to compliance with the Council of Europe on Violence against Women and Domestic Violence.
