No comprehensive reports have been published to date in Serbia on the exercise of youth rights. For many years, the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights has been implementing activities in the youth sector and working with young people throughout Serbia, so  thanks to the experience of working with and for young people and to the comments received from fellow youth workers and everyone else who include youth issues in their programmes, we are convinced that there is a need to produce a special report on the exercise of youth rights in the Republic of Serbia. In addition, the long-standing practice of the Belgrade Centre to report on human rights in Serbia through its Annual Reports has contributed to the methodology of drafting this Zero Report, thereby launching a new youth rights reporting practice on an annual basis as of 2020. 

You may download the publication here.

The Belgrade Centre for Human Rights hosted a Round Table on the implementation of the Asylum and Temporary Protection Act in the field of integration in Belgrade on 16 December 2019. The Round Table was opened by UNHCR representative Mr. Hans Friedrich Schodder, who familiarised the participants with the future Global Refugee Forum.

Serbian Refugee and Migration Commissariat (CRM) representative Ivana Ćurko spoke about the CRM’s competences with respect to the integration of refugees, its experiences to date and 2020 plans. Representative of UNHCR’s durable solutions team Ksenija Papazoglu discussed UNHCR’s experiences in the integration of refugees in the labour market and the assistance UNHCR has been extending.

Psychological Innovation Network (PIN) Director Maša Vukčević Marković shared PIN’s experiences in working with refugees in Serbia and issues of relevance to their mental health. The participants also had the opportunity to hear about the experiences of refugee life from the very people granted asylum in Serbia.

In cooperation with the Serbian Youth Umbrella Organisation, the National Association of Youth Workers (NAPOR) and the National Youth Office, the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights hosted the event “From the Inclusion Standard to Inclusion as the Standard”. The event was held in the Belgrade Hotel Mama Shelter on 23 December 2019, with the support of the Serbian Ministry of Youth and Sports and the OSCE Mission to Serbia. The event was opened by BCHR Executive Director Sonja Tošković, who welcomed the participants and invited them to continue working together on the social inclusion of all youths.

The participants went on to present five good practice examples of work with youths from vulnerable groups, providing the project partners and representatives of organisations of youths and for youths with better insight in the diverse practices and policies, with a view to facilitating the design of inclusion standards that will be meaningful, clear and applicable. The event is part of a broader consultation process aiming to define inclusion standards in order to improve the policies and practices of organisations of youths and for youths addressing youths from vulnerable groups.

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We marked International Human Rights Day on Tuesday, 10 December by awarding Human Rights House plaques to individuals who contributed to the promotion and improvement of human rights in Serbia in the year that is coming to a close. 

This year’s winners are:

• Marija Ratković, art and media theorist, journalist and columnist.
• Renewables and Environmental Regulatory Institute,and 
• Aleksandar Obradović, whose award was accepted on his behalf by his wife Kristina. 

International Human Rights Day was also marked by the opening of the exhibition “25 Pictures: Universal Declaration of Human Rights” which is the result of cooperation of the UN Human Rights Team in Serbia and the BCHR. Inspired by pop art and cartoon aesthetics, its author Nebojša Petrović shared with us his visualisation of the UDHR.  

Furthermore, Civic Initiatives launched the global Freedom Runner campaign, the goal of which is to disseminate stories of Freedom heroes who are initiating changes in society by alerting to injustices.