Full Coverage: Serbia and Montenegro

28.02.2006 In 2005, the Ministry of Justice, in collaboration with Save the Children UK program in Montenegro and Professor Radoje Korac, PhD, Law Faculty, department for family law, formed a working group to develop a draft Law on the protection from violence in the family.

27.02.2006 The first SOS Phone-Line for Roma Women Victims of Violence in Serbia was opened in Nis. The SOS Phone is open to women and children from other ethnic communities, while the volunteers can communicate in Romani and Serbian languages.

27.02.2006 The Centre for Modern Skills, in cooperation with the Belgrade Centre for Political Excellence and the Provincial Secretariat of Labour, Employment and Gender Equality, will organize the conference Towards Gender Equality Law – Serbia’s European Perspectives. The Conference is scheduled to take place in Belgrade, 16 March 2006.

23.02.2006 The Mileva Maric-Einstein WomenÂ’s Studies and Research Center started a survey on gender equality principle in the mother tongue textbooks for elementary schools in Serbia.

22.02.2006 In spite of the fact that Serbia has a very strict and rigorous legislation against family violence for over a year now, the perpetrators are still punished with fines and conditional sentences, shows the survey conducted by the Women Research Centre from Nis and the Autonomous Women Centre from Belgrade.

22.02.2006 The man who has been called "the Butcher of Bosnia" and "one of the world's most wanted men" is rumored to be close to arrest in Serbia. The Advocacy project, which works to support the widows of the Srebrenica genocide, offers insight into what happened ten years ago and what the town is like today.

20.02.2006 The Centre for Independent Living of Disabled Persons in Serbia announced a regional conference on access of physical environment and freedom of movement of disabled persons, to take place in Belgrade, 22-23 February.

16.02.2006 The Vojvodina Youth Action Plan which offers programmes and policies for solution of problems of education, employment, health, culture and free time was presented in Zrenjanin.

15.02.2006 Several parents of children with special needs, tired of waiting for the state institutions to take action regarding their problems, established a daycare centre for children with impaired development.

09.02.2006 Every child in Serbia has been exposed at least once to some form of violence, and about 10 percent of the children are regularly subjected to serious forms of physical and sexual abuse, shows a survery conducted by UNICEF.

08.02.2006 “Media Initiatives” from Sarajevo, the STINE Institute from Split and the Novi Sad School of Journalism promoted the newly established consortia “New Media Initaitives”, under the “From Conflict to Trust” module.

08.02.2006 The position of the media regarding the non-governmental organizations, and vice versa, varies within a wide range of manifestations of both the media and the NGOs. This variety of manifestation is an expression of plurality and, as such, it is a measure of the democrative values of any society.

08.02.2006 Serbian Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management announced the start of the four-year “Reduction of Industrial Pollution of the Danube in Serbia” 22 million US Dollars project.

03.02.2006 Rolf Ekeus, OSCE High Commissioner for National Minorities, said the Serbia and Montenegro has achieved extraordinary progress in terms of protection of minority rights in the country.

02.02.2006 The Security and Information Agency (BIA) filed a lawsuit to cancel the decision by the Commissioner for Free Access to Information, which ordered BIA to provide the Youth Initiative for Human Rights the information on the number of persons whose communications were tapped in 2005, reports YIHR.

01.02.2006 The Organiztions for Respect and Care for Animals (ORCA) strongly condemnen the ongoing indiscriminate mass extermination of stray cats and dogs, under the pretext of the fight against rabies.