At the round table entitled "What kind of law on free legal aid we need", organized by the Autonomous Women's Center, in cooperation with Praxis and a coalition of civil society organizations which believe that the current draft Law is not good, there was a discussion of the key shortcomings of the draft.
Conclusions from the round table are available in Serbian language here.
On January 16, 2014, Autonomous Women's Center renewed the initiative from November 2011 submitted to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Serbia for the introduction of specific line of work in the field of domestic violence.
Autonomous Women's Center, as an organization with consultative status with the UN ECOSOC, provided comments on this report. Universal periodically report (UPR) is a unique new mechanism of the Human Rights Council in order to improve the human rights situation in each Member State of the UN.
Recommendations in English can be found here.
During the project "Dignity, integrity and security for women - a joint action of women's organizations," women's organizations questioned the existing draft of Regulations on minimum standards for the provision of advisory-therapeutic and socio-educational services in social protection. They decided to jointly respond and contribute to the draft of Regulations, which will take into account the knowledge, long expertise and specificity of existing service providers to women who have experienced violence, and especially women from marginalized groups.
The whole document available in Serbian language here.
The first annual report of the Observatory for monitoring violence against women, an independent expert, a monitoring and analytical body, which was formed in late 2011 with the aim to monitor, analyze and report on the situation in the area of violence against women in Serbia, was written by the members of the Observatory: Biljana Branković, Tanja Ignjatović, Slađana Jovanović, Marija Lukić, Vanja Macanović and Zorica Mršević.
Document by Tanja Ignjatovic "Analysis of data and protocols on procedures of police and social welfare center in cases of domestic violence," written for the annual report of the Independent Observatory for monitoring violence against women.
The whole document available in Serbian language here.
Autonomous Women's Center has sent a letter to Secretary of State, Brankica Jankovic, with comments on the inconsistency in the use of gender-sensitive terms, that is in the naming of women as subject of protection from domestic violence (which makes this special protocol conflicting with the General Protocol on procedures and cooperation of institutions, bodies and organizations in situations of violence against women in the family and partner relationships).
Autonomous Women's Center has sent a letter to the Minister of Internal Affairs on the occasion of adoption of the Special protocol for treatment of police officers in cases of violence against women and violence in intimate relationship with the request to delete section 3.7. False Report from the Protocol.
Since 2008, Autonomous Women's Center regularly monitors the execution of the budget of the Gender Equality Directorate at the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, as the competent body in the Republic of Serbia to improve the status of women and promote gender equality. Consumption of budget funds of the Directorate is still below 50%.
At the round table organized by the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy, the Autonomous Women's Center presented the comments on the second draft of the Regulations on minimum standards for the provision of advisory-therapeutic and socio-educational services in social protection. With these comments we wanted to draw the attention of the Working Group on two basic lack, in whole and in parts, for which the document was unacceptable to AWC and other women's organizations that provide services to women with experience of violence.
Autonomous Women's Center has prepared amendments for the changes and additions to the Criminal Code of the Republic of Serbia, and submitted them to the authorized nominator, the Ombudsperson. The amendment proposal was accepted by the Ombudsperson, and this initiative was delivered to the Working Group on Amendments to the Criminal Code, the Ministry of Justice.