November 25 – December 10, 2004
16 days campaign 2004 in Serbia reflected the research done by Health program of Autonomous Women’s Center in Belgrade – that every fourth woman in Serbia survived physical violence, every fifth had serious injuries, and 78% of women never address any institution. The slogan of the campaign: “They don’t have trust. Why?” followed the process of AWC’s introducing coordinated community response program to institutions, including medical system, and the parallel monitoring program by feminist lawyers on the insufficient implementation of the new criminal code on domestic violence in the judicial system.
Media response was supportive, free broadcasting of the video clip of the campaign in Serbian language in 25 local and 2 Belgrade TV stations, radio jingle and Serbian and Romany languages in 30 local and 14 Belgrade radio stations – from November 25 to December 10.
Traveling performance for the campaign created by ACT Women and Academic Theatre was played on the squares or green markets in 7 towns, provoking citizens’ and media attention.
Autonomous Women’s Center was a coordinating body and its volunteers distributed leaflets to women’s groups in 45 towns who organized local campaigns.
The leaflets were also distributed among MPs in the Parliament of Republic of Serbia on November 25. President of the Parliamentarian Committee for Gender Equality gave interviews for the main press and TV, and on December 10 she organized press conference for journalists covering parliamentarian affairs. In the Parliament of Autonomous Province of Vojvodina leaflets were distributed to MPs together with informative text on 16 days of activism and the Manifesto of men from Spain against violence against women. Secretariat for Gender Equality presented the issue on various local and regional media. In Vojvodina on December 10, one day conference on institutional models of resolving problems of violence against women was organized with participation of 35 centers for social work, 5 SOS hotlines, ombudswoman office, gender equality and other secretariats of Vojvodina and various human rights organizations – various operating models were presented by Autonomous Women’s Center, Counseling for Marriage and Family and Center for Social Work Sombor.
Short monitoring : during the campaign, the rate of women victims of violence calling for the first time Autonomous Women’s Center doubled. The leaflets delivered in the local campaigns had an option for local groups to put their contacts so women could reach them.
The campaign was supported financially by Reconstruction Women’s Fund , as well as two seminars for journalists with participation of experts coming from or cooperating with women’s NGOs. Performance costs were covered by Balkan Initiatives Community Fund . All media broadcasting was free. All coordination, logistic and activist work, as well as the design of the campaign was free volunteers contribution.
