Donor: Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Serbia
Duration: November 2018 – November 2021
The activities of the Balkan Refugee and Migration Council are aimed at creating a common Western Balkan migration policy, with the goal of providing a coordinated response to common challenges, in line with EU law and international human rights standards. (more…)
Yesterday we presented our two annual reports: “Human Rights in Serbia 2018” and “The Right to Asylum in the Republic of Serbia 2018”. (more…)
Donor: USAID
Duration: January 7th, 2019 – January 6th, 2022
Project Leader: Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights – YUCOM
About the project
The overall objective of the USAID supported „Constituencies for Judicial Reform in Serbia“ project, is to strengthen citizens’ confidence in the work of judicial institutions in the Republic of Serbia by improving communication between the citizens and the judiciary.
The Project is implemented by a coalition of 12 organizations engaged in human rights and the development of democracy, as well as professional judicial associations:
One of the three main goals that the project aims to achieve is to establish proactive relationship between the representatives of the judiciary and the citizens and their better acquaintance with the system itself, which would help citizens to better meet and understand their rights, as well as how to reach them. The project aims to establish this type of relationship through several channels of communication with citizens, which have been adapted to the different social structure of the population, age and education level. This includes communication through a digital platform, digital media and blog posts, as well as through local councils in 15 cities and municipalities in Serbia. Led by the spirit of developed democracies, the project wants to adopt the principle of open dialogue between citizens and the judiciary, and to encourage their greater engagement in local communities. The task of the project is to help citizens to understand their rights, guaranteed by the Constitution, and also to inform citizens how the judicial system works and how judges and prosecutors make fair and rational decisions.
The second goal of the project involves organizations to work on researching and detecting the primary needs of citizens in their everyday practice with the judiciary in Serbia. This activity will try to understand and investigate citizens’ reasons for low level of trust in the judicial system, widely monitoring citizens’ experiences in meeting with the judiciary. As a result of this activity, the coalition on the project will create three comprehensive reports that would serve as a mean of further public policies formulation that support citizens’ needs.
The last goal of the project is to raise the accountability and integrity of judicial institutions. The project aims to work with judicial and civil society stakeholders to enhance the integrity and accountability of judicial institutions through an improved methodology of integrity plans and an open procedure for appeals and free citizens’ complaints, making them more transparent, more accessible and engaging citizens themselves.
Platform of Organizations for Cooperation with UN Human Rights Mechanisms has submitted an alternative report to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.
Platform hopes that the CEDAW Committee in its examination of the Republic of Serbia will give recommendations while raising the issues of:
• Conducting gender impact assessment of austerity measures on women’s human rights.
• Defining criminal act of Sexual intercourse with a helpless person as a qualified act of Rape in the Criminal Code of Serbia.
• Working continually and systematically on stopping gender-stereotyping and patriarchal labeling of women/girls by the governmental officials.
• Separating women’s status of legal capacity (women put under guardianship) from informed consent about sexual and reproductive rights, and prohibit forced abortions, administration of contraceptives without informed consent, forced sterilization and other forced treatments that constitute inhuman and degrading treatment.
• Ensuring adequate, accessible, and functioning services for women with disabilities survivors of violence.
• Providing organizational change and capacity building to remedy difficulties in ensuring adequate police intervention in domestic violence cases.
• Providing functional mechanisms for participation of women from vulnerable groups in creation, implementation, and assessment of public policies, and participation in public and political life on an equal basis with others.
• Ensuring protection of women’s right to health and access to free prenatal and maternal care for Roma women without documents.
• Improving position of refugee women, including protection from violence, respect to the principle of granting special measures for protection of women in the asylum procedure, ensure integration in the society’s economic, social, and cultural life.
• Combating invisibility and stigmatization of intersex persons, ensuring adequate medical, psychological, and social support to intersex persons and their families, adopting adequate protocols and annual data gathering, amending legislation on personal documents and introduce ‘other’ as option when registering the sex of the child in registry books.
Report can be downloaded HERE.
Together with the Committee of Lawyers for Human Rights – YUCOM , we approached Minister of Justice Nela Kuburovic regarding the formation of a Working Group for amending the Criminal Code, which considers an initiative to introduce life imprisonment and tighten prescribed sentences for certain offenses.
While welcoming the intention of the Ministry of Justice to involve civil society organizations in the drafting process of the draft Law on Amendments to the Criminal Code, the Belgrade Center for Human Rights and the Committee of Lawyers for Human Rights, YUCOM, invite the Minister of Justice to enable representatives of our associations to participate in the work of the said working group.
The number of allegations on collective expulsions from Hungary and Croatia, often including abuse of refugees and migrants began to rise gradually since the closure of the Western Balkans Route (WBR)1, аnd in particular since summer 2016. Abuse included beatings with rubber batons and fists, slapping, kicking, dog bites, use of tear gas, use of rubber bullets, insults, humiliation and intimidation. According to the data of NGO Humanitarian Centre for Integration and Tolerance (HCIT), 212 cases of collective expulsions from Hungary and Croatia involving more than 4,000 foreigners were registered in the period 1 May 2016 – 31 March 2017.2 The international organization Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) continuously published information related to abuse preceding collective expulsions from Hungary. You can download the report here..
