Within the project “Links for Change”, in cooperation with Association of Paraplegics Doboj, hCa organized the meeting titled “Status of Women with Disabilities in Local Community” in Doboj on 3 December. The participants of the meeting were representatives of Association of Dystrophics, Paraplegics Association, Center for Public Security, Educational and Resource Center Doboj, Association of Civil Victims of War, Mine Victims Association, NGO «Budućnost» Modriča, NGO «Prima Natura», Center for Mental Health, NGO «Doboj», Women Association, and Doboj Municipality.

Gordana Vidović, director of NGO «Budućnost» Modriča was in the role of introductory speaker and moderator of the meeting, and she opened the meeting with the presentation titled “Status of Women with Disabilities in Local Community”, which summarized a range of problems that women with disabilities had in their everyday life and work. She especially underlined the verbal violence in marriage that women do not recognize as such, and frequent cases of husbands abandoning their wives for their disability, while the opposite cases are very rare.

In the discussion that followed after the presentation, participants talked about their personal experiences ranging from problems related to receiving health services, through not having enough understanding for their condition in the local community, to the problems of actual verbal and physical domestic violence and abuse.

This meeting was concluded with the suggestion that a number of initiatives should be taken for solving problems for persons with disabilities.

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S.N.

“From January to October 2009, in Republika Srpska, 1572 victims of violence called the SOS telephone line 1265, out of which the majority were women aged between 19 and 60. At the same time, 2120 victims of violence called the SOS telephone 1265 in Federation BiH. However, these data should not be taken for granted, since a large number of cases of violence remains unreported”, said Aleksnadra Petrić, the activist of United Women organization, as part of  announcement of the campaign “16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence in BiH”.

She reminded that “16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence in BiH” is an international campaign, which has since its first launch in 1991 until 2008 gathered 2800 organizations from 156 countries. The campaign marks the dates from 25 November – International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women to 20 December – International Human Rights Day, in order to link symbolically violence against women and human rights and to emphasize that such violence is a violation of human rights.

“Some of key demands of this year's campaign are related to more efficient and stronger inclusion of courts and police in elimination of violence against women, as well as to the increase of financial allocations for all programs related to elimination of violence”, said Ms Petrić.

After “Brunch with Journalists”, the United Women Banja Luka and Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly at Krajina Square in Banja Luka distributed leaflets and calendars with massages of this year’s “16 Days of Activism” campaign, as well as white ribbons that are primarily intended fro men that by wearing them show willingness to end violence against women.

D.D.

U okviru projekta «Partnerstvo za promjenu – podrška implementaciji Zakon o ravnopravnosti polova BiH», Helsinški parlament građana je 23. novembra u Prijedoru organizovao mini-radionicu na temu «Početni koraci u procesu osnivanja ženskih udruženja» na kojem su učestvovale žene sa područja opštine Prijedor, a  koje su iskazale inicijativu da pokrenu ženska udruženja. Ovaj sastanak je organizovan u suradnji sa Gender centrom Vlade Republike Srpske, Komisijom za ravnopravnost polova opštine Prijedor i nevladinom organizacijom «Teodora» iz Prijedora.

Trener radionice, Aleksandar Živanović iz Udruženja medijatora BiH, je učesnice proveo kroz osnovne pojmove, definicije i procedure koje se tiču nevladinog sektora, aktivizma i građanskog udruživanja.

Učesnice su kao moguće oblasti za udruživanjem na polju osnaživanja žena navele bavljenje ženskim pravima, poboljšanja statusa žena na selu, pravima žena na radnom mjestu, izbjegličke populacije, očuvanje kulturne baštine, kao i sve ostale aktivnosti u vezi sa poboljšanjem statusa žena.

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S. N.

A two-day conference titled “Professional and Ethical Standard in Reporting on Marginalized Groups” was held in Banja Luka on 20 and 21 November. Participants were 29 representatives of media, marginalized groups and experts from media field.

The participants supported the idea of establishing Antidiscrimination Award that would be awarded for newspaper articles, as well as radio and TV reports that deal with problems and status of marginalized groups in our society. These awards would be awarded for media accomplishments that either make positive breakthroughs in relation to professional and ethical standards or result by positive steps and/or concrete solutions of the problems of marginalized groups.