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Experience in Processing Cases of Domestic Violence Against Women

AZC okt 2014 DSCI0405The Provincial Protector of Citizens - Ombudsman (PPCO) has been included in the international qualitative research on functionality of the national and local mechanisms for fighting violence against women conducted by the American non-profit organization Advocates for Human Rights in collaboration with the Autonomous Women's Centre from Belgrade.

The Gender Equality Deputy Ombudsman Danica Todorov and Expert Associate Andrijana Čović presented their experience in working with the women complainants who had been victims of violence and examples of collaboration between the PPCO and other institutions in charge of processing domestic violence against women.

Researchers were introduced to the experience of coordinating the Life Without Violence institutional network aimed at facilitating more efficient processing of domestic violence cases founded on the initiative of the PPCO in 2005.

The discussion concerned data collection and processing on domestic and violence against women, while the researchers were interested in complaints of women who had experienced domestic or partner violence filed with the PPCO. Most particularly, the researchers were interested in the cases in which the institution had initiated formal proceedings and gave recommendations to the relevant authorities for them to rectify their actions or proceedings, above all to the welfare centers and primary healthcare units. PPCO experience with the protective measures delivery and implementation monitoring, as well as violence perpetrators' processing duration and sanctioning, was also highly relevant in this context.

The research aim is to establish facts and document practice and institutional proceedings in Serbia concerning women's safety protection and promotion of perpetrators' responsibility. The methodology implies a combination of legislation and judicial practice overview and analysis, as well as interviews with the professionals involved in proceedings and other relevant actors (the police, judges, prosecutors, welfare experts, healthcare employees, NGOs, etc.) in the field of protection from violence. The findings will be documented in a report with recommendations to Serbian state to improve its legislative framework and institutional processing along the lines of the international human rights legal framework. Similar research has already been conducted in Bulgaria, Croatia and Moldavia and the resulting reports are available on the Advocates for Human Rights website.