The coor­di­na­tor of the SOS ser­vice of the Orga­ni­za­tion …IZ KRUGA — VOJVODINA, Ivana Zel­ic, par­tic­i­pat­ed in the first mul­ti­sec­toral social dia­logue, orga­nized on the occa­sion of the con­di­tion analy­sis of gen­der equal­i­ty in the Repub­lic of Ser­bia. The dia­logue was orga­nized by the Min­istry of Human and Minor­i­ty Rights and Social Dia­logue, togeth­er with the Coor­di­na­tion Body for Gen­der Equal­i­ty, on Jan­u­ary 18, 2021, start­ing at 10 am in the Palace of Ser­bia in Bel­grade.

The Min­istry of Human and Minor­i­ty Rights and Social Dia­logue has launched an ini­tia­tive to form a work­ing group to pass a new draft Law on gen­der equal­i­ty, which would start the reg­u­lar pro­ce­dure for pass­ing a new law. Social dia­logue is a way of get­ting to doc­u­ments, laws and strate­gies, because they are the key to achiev­ing the vision, and it’s a soci­ety of equal oppor­tu­ni­ties for women and men.

- Women with dis­abil­i­ties are dou­bly dis­crim­i­nat­ed, as women and as per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties. They still face many dif­fi­cul­ties in edu­ca­tion, the labor mar­ket, in exer­cis­ing their right to health care. The biggest prob­lem is that they are still ‘invis­i­ble vic­tims of vio­lence’, although the data show that women with dis­abil­i­ties are 2 to 5 times more at risk of domes­tic vio­lence. It is very impor­tant to con­sis­tent­ly and in accor­dance with the law con­tin­ue the fight against vio­lence against women, pro­vide them with appro­pri­ate pro­tec­tion and sup­port and work on improv­ing the posi­tion of women with dis­abil­i­ties — says Ivana Zel­ic.

From the non-gov­ern­men­tal sec­tor, in addi­tion to Ivana Zel­ic, Tan­ja Ign­ja­tovic from the Autonomous Women’s Cen­ter and Masa Pavlovic from the Ini­tia­tive for the Rights of Per­sons with Men­tal Dis­abil­i­ties MDRI-S spoke at the meet­ing.

Tan­ja Ign­ja­tovic empha­sized the neces­si­ty of reor­ga­niz­ing pub­lic debates on the occa­sion of draft­ing changes and addi­tions draft laws and strate­gies, includ­ing action plans that were not com­plet­ed in the peri­od from 2017 to 2020. She espe­cial­ly point­ed out that domes­tic vio­lence is defined in all domes­tic and inter­na­tion­al doc­u­ments as a social prob­lem, and not as the respon­si­bil­i­ty of an indi­vid­ual for which an appro­pri­ate penal­ty is pro­vid­ed.

Masa Pavlovic pre­sent­ed the prob­lems faced by women with men­tal dis­abil­i­ties who live in social pro­tec­tion insti­tu­tions.

- The socio — polit­i­cal cri­sis caused by the coro­na virus pan­dem­ic has left great con­se­quences on the posi­tion of per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties, espe­cial­ly those who are accom­mo­dat­ed in social pro­tec­tion insti­tu­tions. In addi­tion to the risk of infec­tion, the prob­lem of ban­ning vis­its is evi­dent. Vis­its are the only way for users of res­i­den­tial insti­tu­tions to com­mu­ni­cate with their rel­a­tives, so a ban on vis­it­ing for them means a ban on com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the out­side world - says Masa Pavlovic.

Social dia­logue con­tributes to achiev­ing the goals of sus­tain­able devel­op­ment and the 2030 Agen­da. This type of forum is a pre­con­di­tion for progress in the field of social jus­tice, eco­nom­ic and polit­i­cal equal­i­ty, as well as a safe and pros­per­ous lifestyle that should be acces­si­ble to all women.

- In the pre­vi­ous peri­od, Ser­bia has done a lot in the field of gen­der equal­i­ty. We have intro­duced cer­tain insti­tutes and devel­oped coop­er­a­tion of line insti­tu­tions with inter­na­tion­al part­ners and the civ­il sec­tor, which has giv­en results in improv­ing the posi­tion of women. Today, no one can turn their head in front of dis­crim­i­na­tion against women, but we still have work to do, first of all the adop­tion of the Law on Gen­der Equal­i­ty, which we pre­pared in 2016, but unfor­tu­nate­ly we still don’t have it due to the dis­agree­ment of one min­istry — said Pres­i­dent of the Coor­di­na­tion Body for Gen­der Equal­i­ty, prof. Dr. Zorana Miha­jlovic.

Ser­bia, in coop­er­a­tion with the Min­istry of Euro­pean Inte­gra­tion, UN WOMEN and the EU Del­e­ga­tion, is intro­duc­ing gen­der main­stream­ing, as an impor­tant tool for intro­duc­ing gen­der equal­i­ty in all pub­lic poli­cies.

In addi­tion to the Deputy Prime Min­is­ter of the Gov­ern­ment of Ser­bia and the Pres­i­dent of the Coor­di­na­tion Body for Gen­der Equal­i­ty, Prof. Dr. Zorana Miha­jlovic, Min­is­ters of the Gov­ern­ment of Ser­bia par­tic­i­pat­ed in the social dia­logue: Maja Gojkovic, Jad­ran­ka Jok­si­movic, Tat­jana Mat­ic, Ire­na Vujovic, Mar­i­ja Obradovic and Maja Popovic, as well as the Rec­tor of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bel­grade Ivan­ka Popovic, Pres­i­dent of UN Agen­cies, Coun­cil of Europe, Pro­tec­tor of Cit­i­zens , Com­mis­sion­er for Gen­der Equal­i­ty, Acad­e­my and Civ­il Soci­ety.

The Min­istry will con­tin­ue to work on the edu­ca­tion of judi­cial office hold­ers and encour­age inter-min­is­te­r­i­al coop­er­a­tion, under­take a series of activ­i­ties aimed at uni­form treat­ment in order to pro­vide ade­quate pro­tec­tion and sup­port to women as the dom­i­nant vic­tims of vio­lence.