On 24 December, 2018, Praxis held a conference in the Media Centre in Belgrade to present the achieved results and remaining challenges in the fields of prevention and elimination of statelessness and child marriages in Serbia.

The conference was opened by Ivanka Kostić, Praxis Executive Director, who welcomed the attendees and gave a brief overview of the multi-year activities implemented by Praxis in the field of preventing statelessness and child marriages with the financial support of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). On that occasion, Ivanka pointed out that thanks to free legal assistance provided by Praxis, in the period of 14 years over 90,000 people had been able to access their basic status rights. She also expressed hope that in the course of 2019, a systemic solution to the problem of stateless persons and legally invisible children would finally be found. Referring to the problem of child marriages in Serbia, Ivanka pointed out that the legal provision allowing early marriages after reaching the age of 16 in exceptional cases had been deleted from the current Draft Law on Family, which indicated the state’s willingness to eradicate child marriages.

Participants were then addressed by Hans Friedrich Schoder, UNHCR Representative in Serbia, who pointed out that in the same period the number of persons at risk of statelessness decreased from 30,000 to 2,100. He highlighted that child marriages represented a disregard for international conventions, in particular the Convention on the Rights of the Child, endangered the girls’ health and had an additional impact on the emergence of statelessness. He also expressed his satisfaction for continuing the cooperation with Praxis and his expectation that a common goal would be achieved and that a systemic solution to the problem of statelessness would be found.

Milan Radojev, Praxis Status and Socioeconomic Rights Programme Coordinator, presented all the remaining problems faced by people at risk of statelessness. He pointed out that there were still newborns in Serbia who could not be registered immediately after birth due to the two by-laws that did not allow their registration if their parents did not possess personal documents, and added that Praxis had submitted an initiative to the Constitutional Court for examining the constitutionality and legality of these regulations, and sent an appeal to the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-government regarding their amendments.

Nataša Živković, Head of Sector for Personal Status of Citizens, Keeping Registers and Electoral Rights of the Secretariat for Administration in the Belgrade City Administration also addressed the attendees. Nataša spoke about the background of the problem of illegally invisible persons in Belgrade, as well as the beginning of successful cooperation with Praxis, dating back to 2012. She pointed out that there were currently no active cases in Belgrade relating to the registration of legally invisible persons in the civil registry books, which proved the progress made in reducing the number of legally invisible persons in Serbia.

Jelena Petrović, Praxis Child Rights Programme Coordinator, presented the activities implemented by Praxis for the fourth consecutive year in the field of prevention and elimination of child marriages with the aim of raising awareness about the harmfulness of this phenomenon. On that occasion, she also highlighted the observations gained by Praxis through educational and counselling work with Roma parents, children and representatives of relevant institutions. Jelena explained that a major obstacle to fighting against child marriages was the perceiving of the phenomenon of child marriages out of the context of Roma tradition and culture, in particular by the competent authorities, and the lack of records on child marriage cases kept by relevant institutions.

Sadija Gicić, a social worker and women’s rights activist, spoke about the responsibilities of institutions in cases of child marriage. She stressed the importance of timely response of institutions and pointed to their duty to act in accordance with binding protocols.

Finally, it was concluded that, regardless of the achievements in the field of prevention and elimination of the emergence of legally invisible persons, it was necessary to continue the intensive work on eliminating the remaining challenges in order to prevent the emergence of new cases of legally invisible and stateless persons. In the field of prevention and elimination of child marriages, in addition to the civil sector that was making the biggest contribution in combating this extremely harmful traditional practice, decision makers, social welfare centres, the police, prosecution, schools, health care institutions and the media should be involved more actively and in a coordinated manner, because without efforts of all relevant actors, it was not possible to ensure a solution to this problem.

Listen to the recording of Radio Beograd 1 about conference here.
See the article of Danas daily here.
See the article of Beta news agency here.

Throughout October and November 2018, Praxis continued providing assistance to refugees/migrants, through information, psychosocial support, referrals to the targeted assistance provided by various organisations/institutions or covering the costs of transport to the asylum and reception centres.

A total of 2678 newly arrived refugees/migrants were informed about current situation in Serbia and the region, legal status and available legal options (seeking asylum in Serbia, assisted voluntary return to the country of origin, possibilities of family reunification abroad or resettlement to a third country when possible), accommodation in asylum centres (AC) or transit-reception centres in Serbia, means of transportation to the assigned centres, other rights and available services (medical care, psychosocial support, food, NFIs, various workshops for refugees/ migrants etc).

Download the whole Protection Monitoring Report for October here.

Download the whole Protection Monitoring Report for November here.

Legal obstacles that prevent registration of all children into birth registry books immediately after birth have not been eliminated in 2018.  This means that due to inappropriate provisions of by-laws regulating registration into birth registry books, children whose mothers do not possess personal documents will continue to remain unregistered at birth. Consequently, in the most vulnerable period of their lives, these children will be deprived of or will encounter significant obstacles to accessing a large number of rights, including health care and social protection.

Such situation is contrary to both national legislation and ratified international conventions. More specifically, the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia, the Law on Family, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights guarantee every child the right to personal name and entry in the registry of births immediately after birth. Therefore, setting conditions for registration into birth registry books that cannot be met by all citizens, such as providing that undocumented mothers cannot register their children, constitutes a gross violation of the rights of the child. Unfortunately, there is still a significant number of people in Serbia, mainly Roma, who do not possess ID cards and other documents.

A series of recommendations issued to Serbia by international organisations and treaty bodies indicate that the situation in Serbia related to timely birth registration is not satisfactory. Thus, the UN Human Rights Committee recommended to Serbia to enhance its efforts to enable registration of children born to parents without identification documents. Similar recommendations were given by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The European Parliament called for full implementation of the right to timely birth registration, while the the UN Human Rights Council, in the Universal Periodic Review for Serbia, recommended to Serbia to provide the registration into birth registry books immediately after birth, without discrimination and regardless of whether parents had personal documents. Serbia accepted this recommendation of the UN Human Rights Council and committed to fulfil the UN Sustainable Development Goals, including to provide universal registration into birth registry books.

However, despite the accepted obligations and proclaimed commitment to allowing every child to register in birth registry books immediately after birth, Serbia has not yet removed legal obstacles that impede registration of a significant number of children. Moreover, in 2018, the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-government refused Praxis’ suggestions to amend legislation to allow all children to be timely registered in birth registry books. 

Given the fact that this situation is unsustainable both in terms of respecting human rights and in terms of compliance of secondary legislation with primary legislation, with Serbia being in the position of a state that does not fulfil its international obligations, Praxis once again stresses that it is necessary that the competent institutions take immediate action to allow every child to be registered in birth registry books immediately after birth.

The Committee on the Rights of the Child adopted Concluding observations on the Second and third periodic report on the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in the Republic of Serbia and made recommendations for further improvement of the situation of children and the fulfillment of obligations undertaken by ratifying the Convention and the Optional Protocols.

The Committee considered the Second and third periodic report on the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in the Republic of Serbia at its sessions held on 24 January 2017 and adopted Concluding observations on 3 February 2017. The Committee’s Concluding observations welcomed the progress of Serbia in various areas relevant to the realisation of the rights of the child and instructed the state to continue work on the implementation of recommendations delivered to Serbia in 2008.

Concluding observations covered issues accented in Alternative periodic report prepared by the Coalition for monitoring child rights in Serbia, as well as those to which the representatives of the Coalition pointed at the preparatory meeting of the Committee on the Rights of the Child. Some of the recommendations related to the necessity of adopting the state policy towards children as the National Action Plan ceased to apply in 2015, are:

• strengthening the role of the Council for Child Rights of the Government of the Republic of Serbia in coordinating cross-sectoral cooperation;
• establishment of the budget with a clearly visible allocations intended for children;
• adoption of the Law on the Protector of the Rights of the Child;
• the prohibition of corporal punishment in all settings including the family.

The Committee urged Serbia to submit its Fourth and fifth periodic report by 24 May 2022.

The Girl Who Lost Her Country is a children’s book which features 12-year-old Neha from Nepal who discovers there is a problem with her nationality and travels the world, meeting children and adults alike, learning about statelessness and what can be done to address it.

This book has been produced by the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, an independent organisation committed to realising the right to a nationality for all. One of their main focuses has been the issue of childhood statelessness, which impacts millions of children around the world. This book, and its sister website www.kids.worldsstateless.org, aim to contribute to raising the awareness of children and adults alike, on this phenomenon that places so much unnecessary strain on so many young shoulders. 

Download the book here. 

On 29 October 2018, Praxis held a consultative meeting with representatives of institutions in Zemun to discuss the prevention and elimination of child, early and forced marriages, as part of the project "Legal Assistance to Persons at Risk of Statelessness in Serbia", financed by UNHCR. 

The goal of the meeting was to bring together local stakeholders to try to jointly identify possible solutions for the prevention and elimination of child, early and forced marriages. A total of 13 representatives of social welfare centres, schools, prosecutors' offices, health care institutions, as well as Roma activists, participated in the meeting. After the introductory presentation, the attendees were informed about the activities conducted by Praxis in the field of elimination and prevention of child marriages, with particular focus on the conclusions reached. Praxis provided an overview of the problems of child, early and forced marriages in Serbia, the region and the world, with special emphasis on national and international regulations governing the rights of the child, marriage and family relations, as well as the role and responsibility of competent authorities to prevent the neglect of children and violence against children. Through an interactive approach to the topic and examples of good practice, the participants discussed possible solutions and the eradication of child marriages, which, among other things, is closely related to the problem of statelessness in Serbia. Accordingly, the Statelessness Index, which assesses how countries in Europe protect stateless people and what they are doing to prevent and reduce statelessness, was presented.

The participants demonstrated a high level of interest in the topic, regardless of whether they had encountered cases of child marriage or not. The presence of representatives of almost all relevant institutions at the level of local self-government, as well as representatives of the Roma community, initiated a quality interactive discussion, which showed the necessity of cross-sectoral cooperation and preventive work with parents in the form of educational and advisory sessions. However, although the participants were fairly aware of the seriousness of the problem of child marriages, they still perceived it primarily as part of the Roma culture and tradition, and expressed concern that imposing the culture and tradition of the majority would compromise cooperation with the Roma community. Despite being obliged to act in accordance with national and international regulations, representatives of institutions expressed their dilemma of whether dealing with this issue inevitably meant interfering with the tradition of the Roma community, while ignoring the fact that child marriages were primarily a serious violation of the rights of girls. Health sector representatives denied that the body of a 15-year old female was unprepared for reproduction and stated that the girls of that age were considered women, and not girls, which substantially differed from the views of national and international experts. This meeting demonstrated that it was necessary to continue with such or similar meetings aimed at raising awareness about the harmfulness of child marriages and stressing that child marriages should be seen as harmful traditional practices, endangering primarily the psychophysical health of girls and their overall development. 

In November 2018, Praxis will hold another consultative meeting in Zemun.

On 26 October 2018, Praxis held a consultative meeting with representatives of institutions in Požarevac to discuss the prevention and elimination of child, early and forced marriages, as part of the project "Legal Assistance to Persons at Risk of Statelessness in Serbia", financed by UNHCR. 

The aim of the meeting was to gather representatives of all relevant institutions in Požarevac to discuss this issue and give proposals of the policies for eradicating child, early and forced marriages. The meeting was attended by representatives of social welfare centres and schools, while representatives of the police, health sector and prosecutors did not respond to the invitation. After the introductory presentation of the speakers, the meeting participants were informed about the activities conducted by Praxis in the field of prevention and elimination of child, early and forced marriages, thus getting a better insight into the problem and Praxis’ suggestions for its solution. After a brief overview of the state’s responsibility in the prevention and elimination of child marriages, the meeting participants were also informed about national and international legislation in this area. It was followed by a discussion about what each of us could and must do, and what we expected from other links in the chain of cooperation. Real-life case studies were also discussed in order to prevent the problem of child, early and forced marriages, which are closely related to the problem of statelessness in Serbia. Accordingly, the Statelessness Index, which assesses how countries in Europe protect stateless people and what they are doing to prevent and reduce statelessness, was presented.

One of the conclusions of the discussion was insufficient and uncoordinated cooperation of competent institutions, i.e. transfer of responsibility from one institution to another. Representatives of social welfare centres pointed out that it was necessary to establish agreements on cross-sectoral cooperation as well as to consistently apply the existing protocols on action in case of child abuse and/or neglect. They considered that one of the main obstacles was the lack of support from the relevant Ministry and disregard by the court and prosecutor’s offices. School representatives reported poor cooperation with parents as the main obstacle in solving the problem of child marriages. Despite being rather aware of the seriousness of this problem, professionals are still insufficiently sensitive to the problems of the Roma population; their actions continue to be guided by prejudice and they continue to perceive this problem through the lens of cultural tradition. Consequently, it is necessary to continue with this or similar education with constant awareness raising about the fact that the problem of child marriages must not be ignored and that traditional practice should not be an excuse for violating the rights of the child. 

By the end of 2018, Praxis will hold two more consultative meetings in Belgrade.