Connecting
and Empowerging Women CSOs in the Western Balkans Working on Women's
Rights and Gender Equality
Workshop for women activists from Novi Pazar and
Bujanovac
April 28-29, 2012
The two-day capacity-building workshop organized in
Belgrade by the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, assembled 20 women
representatives of the civil sector in the municipalities of Bujanovac
and Novi Pazar.
The workshop was an integral part of the project
realized by the Brussels-seated Partners for Democratic Change
International /PDCI/ with the assistance of the European Commission in
Brussels and in partnership with the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights
/Serbia/, Partners Kosova - Center for Conflict Management and ANTICO -
Women Civic Initiative /Macedonia/.
The overall objective of the project is to
increase awareness among municipal authorities and marginalized women
leaders of gender equality and women's rights and build women leaders'
capacity to develop initiatives and engage in transnational partnerships
with other women's CSOs. Within the scope of Specific Objective 1, which
is to "enhance municipal, CSO and public awareness of gender equality,
anti-discrimination and equal opportunity policies and legislation, with
particular emphasis on women's civic and human rights, through targeted
training", Partners Kosova (Kosovo), Helsinki Committee (Serbia) and
ANTICO (Macedonia), each host a 2-day capacity-building workshop in each
of the 2 target municipalities in their country with the aim of building
the skills of local CSOs concerned with women's rights.
Copies of the manual developed by PDCI, the leading
organization, were distributed to participants well in advance to be
used as referential literature.
Women participating in the workshop were activists of
the following organizations: Women Forum - Bujanovac, NGO Prosperity,
Committee for Human Rights - Bujanovac, and Association of Single
Mothers and Horizon from Novi Pazar. The workshop helped them to upgrade
their skills in planning and writing the projects focused on gender
equality and women's rights. Experienced trainers Jarmila
Bujak-Stanko and Slavoljupka Pavlovic were in charge of daily
trainings. Among other things, they elaborated domestic and
international legislation dealing with gender equality and answered
questioned from the participants. Further, they provided more
information about the institutions civil sector women activists can turn
to for assistance and cooperation.
The data collected by the Helsinki Committee indicate
that women's rights in South Serbia and Sandzak were seriously
endangered. Earlier meetings with women activists and relevant municipal
authorities in the two regions pointed to the following problems:
- Lack of support to SOS services for women victims of
violence (for instance, NGO Cultural Center Damad has been providing SOS
phone services for years on volunteer basis);
- The government does not subsidize these services;
- Judiciary - inefficient, corrupted and obstructed by
local "big wigs:"
- Inadequate attitude of police officers (insensitive
to victims of domestic violence they further discriminate them);
- The article of the Family Law providing restraint
order against abusers is not implemented;
- Victims of domestic violence have to pay from their
own pockets for medical certificates testifying of their physical
injuries;
- Extremely traditional communities - women victims of
domestic violence are often allowed in their primary families on
condition to bring not their children (therefore, women have to choose
between saving their own lives and motherhood);
- Communities are more often than not indulgent to
abusers (male relatives of abusers also threaten and ill-treat women
victims);
- Women are generally uninformed about their rights or
legal remedies are not available to them;
- Lack of free legal aid (establishment of a team of
women lawyers to assist victims of domestic violence was recommended);
- Non-existent safe houses; social workers and police
officers, therefore, often resort to "mediation" - they try to
"convince" abusers to stop abusing his victim;
- Not even basic mechanisms against domestic violence
are in place in the municipality of Bujanovac (the police and relevant
authorities do not respond at frequent incidents in which women are
beaten up). ***
The participants in the workshop testified of these
problems, saying, among other things, "Turning to the police for help is
a taboo;" "Prejudice against women is the core problem we have to cope
with;" "Neither municipal authorities nor social care centers would
support us;" "Whenever we turned to local social care center it turned
us down." "Women's extreme financial dependence /on their partners/
discriminates them additionally."
The following statements by the participants may
illustrate the problems of organizational capacities or activists'
abilities: "Women do not collect all the necessary information;" Women
activists are sufficiently capacitated but lack mechanisms for
realization of their ideas;" "The police either ignore the cases of
domestic violence or show up two hours after being called in;" "We have
to wait for five months sometimes for institutions to respond to our
requests (for instance, the Ministry of Labor and Social Issues)."
Conclusions deriving from the workshop:
- Networking of women organizations dealing with
women's rights is of major importance for the two regions (but also for
the entire Serbia);
- Capacity-building of women organizations is among
crucial steps towards improvement of their position and exercise of
rights;
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