Women's organizations from Serbia expressed their expectation that the Government of the Republic of Serbia, as well as the Coordinating Body for Gender Equality, the Ministry of Justice, Family Care, Social Protection and Foreign Affairs, will carefully consider the report of the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls. , its causes and consequences, Reem Alsalem - Custody, violence against women and violence against children (A/HRC/53/36), which presents a detailed analysis of decisions related to custody of minor children in the context of domestic violence, which will be discussed at the 53rd session of the UN Human Rights Committee.
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.
As part of the public debate on draft judicial laws AWC submitted comments and proposals for amendments to the draft Law on the Organization of Courts, the Law on Judges and the Law on Public Prosecution to the Ministry of Justice.
At the beginning of the year, the prEUgovor traditionally reviews the situation in the areas of Cluster 1, which it regularly monitors and offers recommendations on what needs to be done during 2023 in order to solve the key noted problems. The year that passed was marked by the gloomy picture of Serbia’s European integration and, the prEUgovor collation made suggestions for improvement.
The proposals of the Autonomous Women's Center were given primarily from the aspect of improving the position of women, minors and unaccompanied minors who are in the asylum system, with the aim of their more complete protection and the establishment of a more efficient asylum system in the Republic of Serbia. The comments particularly refer to persons who were exposed to acts of gender-based violence, which are recognized as acts of persecution by Article 28 of the Law on Asylum and Temporary Protection.
