Article 16 Freedom from Exploitation, Violence and Abuse

Family and legal protection from violence

201. The Family Law in a separate section for the first time introduces provisions on domestic violence and family and legal protection of victims of violence. Domestic violence is a new term in the positive law in the Republic of Serbia, and its special civil and legal sanctioning has achieved significant progress in protecting victims of domestic violence (who are, most often, women, children, persons with disabilities, elderly persons).

202. Part of the Criminal Code (CC) (Article 194) determines a separate criminal act of domestic violence. This Article sanctions any behaviour of family members that in a criminal and legal sense may be qualified as a criminal offense, particularly paragraph 5 of the Article, which sanctions behaviour that violates civil measures of protection against domestic violence determined by the Family Law.

203. Additionally, this Law ensures criminal and legal protection from neglect and abuse of a minor.

204. CC determines a criminal offense of rape of a helpless person, and after ratification of the Convention, imprisonment sentences for offenders of this crime became more strict.

Policy documents

205. SIPPD includes measures relevant for the protection of persons, in particular women and children with disabilities, against violence, abuse and exploitation.

206. In the institutional system of family protection, on the basis of the law, centers for social work, established within every local self-government, provide aid and support to families

207. Violence most often affects the most vulnerable groups: children, women, elderly persons, including persons with disabilities. In recent years, considerable progress has been achieved in the Republic of Serbia in curbing violence. Legal regulations were adopted which regulate the status of victims, measures for offenders and define competencies of specific bodies, as well as moral obligation of every citizen to report violence.

208. In order to create a uniform system, experts in the field of social protection systems, education, health, justice, police and NGO sector have been continually trained to identify and take joint coordinated actions to protect children from abuse and neglect. ⁴⁵

Note #45

The Government of the Republic of Serbia and other responsible state bodies adopted the following binding documents: the National Actin Plan for Children; National Strategy for Prevention and Protection of Children against Violence and Action Plan for its implementation; General Protocol for the Protection of Children against Abuse and Neglect and relevant special protocols (social protection system, health, education, justice, police).

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209. The national strategy for the prevention and suppression of violence against women and domestic violence in the Republic of Serbia encourages implementation of international and domestic legal norms and standards that protect human rights, promote gender equality and prohibit any form of violence against women, including domestic violence as a form of violence that mostly affects women. In developing the strategy, particular importance was given to the identification of specific and particularly vulnerable groups on the basis of the number of members and vulnerability. The strategy pays special attention to groups of women that are or may be exposed to multiple discrimination, as well as to vulnerable groups of women which include: women with disabilities, Roma women, mothers of children with disabilities, developmental disabilities or chronic illnesses, rural women, elderly women, refugees and internally displace women, etc. To the development of the document also significantly contributed women representatives of the association ...Iz Kruga, an organisation for the protection of rights of and support to persons with disabilities of Serbia.

210. The publication Women with disabilities – invisible victims of violence by the organisation ...Iz Kruga is the only material of this kind in Serbia which provides statistics on cases of domestic violence reported to this association, as well as case studies on violence against women with disabilities. Since 1997 to 2008, the association ...Iz Kruga received 5,520 calls. Most of the calls (93%) were made by women with disabilities who were exposed to various forms of violence. Most common was verbal abuse (28%), then economic (24%), physical (11%), forced isolation (22%) and sexual violence (6%). Most vulnerable are women with intellectual disabilities 48%, with cerebral palsy 32%, muscular dystrophy and neuromuscular disease 15% and women with combined disabilities 5%. Reasons for these figures lie in the fact that women with a higher degree of disabilities physically depend on assistance and support in carrying out their basic needs. Not only are they more vulnerable, but are often subject to specific form of abuse, which is reflected in the denial of assistance in self-care, hunger, deprivation of orthopadic devices and means of communication, as well as threats that they would be left alone on the street without any assistance, that they will end up in a home or a psychiatry clinic, that they will live in total isolation if they are disobedient, and similar forms of abuse. Bullies were in 87% men, most often family members whom women with disabilities fully depend on. MLSP also monitors operation of facilities in the social protection system.

211. MLSP supported work of the association ...Iz Kruga, which has an SOS line, free psychological and legal counselling for women and children with disabilities who are victims of violence and discrimination.

212. The Office of Ombudsman is competent for monitoring services in the facilities for accommodation of children, youth, adults and elderly persons with disabilities and in 2009 and 2010, employees in the Office monitored operation of facilities for accommodation of persons with disabilities and elderly homes.

213. In 2006, the Government of the Republic of Serbia adopted the Strategy for fight against human trafficking in the Republic of Serbia ⁴⁶, which establishes mechanisms for fight against human trafficking.

Note #46

Official Gazette of RS No. 111/06

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