The Study on the Application of Standards Regarding the Protection of Rights of National Minorities in BiH, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia is the result of research conducted by Helsinki Citizens' Assembly Banja Luka, in cooperation with partner organizations - Association for the Protection of Human Rights and Civil Liberties "Homo" from Pula, the Center for Regionalism from Novi Sad, the Alliance of National Minorities of Republika Srpska, and Helsinki Monitor for Human Rights from Ljubljana, within the regional project "Neighborhood - Affirmation of Multiculturalism and Cooperation at the Municipal Level in the Western Balkans", supported by the European Commission.

The study included an analysis of compliance of municipal documents with international and domestic legal norms and standards relating to the rights of persons belonging to national minorities, in order to determine the extent of the practical application of local policies in relation to cooperation and improving the position of national minorities.

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We are presenting you 13th publication related to ”Woman Today” project activities, implemented in partnership of nongovernmental organizations ”Helsinki Citizens Assembly” and ”United Women,” with support of Kvinna till Kvinna Foundation from Sweden. All these years we had the same goal — decreasing all forms of discrimination against women. Progress is noticeable, however, we cannot be, and we are not satisfied with level of acquired rights of women in all fields of life. Women in Bosnia and Herzegovina are factor that cannot and must not be ignored in process of democratization in our society — therefore we arecontinuing our fight and advocacy actions to improve position of a woman in BiH society.We are continuing to work through this and all other projects implemented by our two associations. As a part of this project, we implemented majority of activities on the local level, in municipalities and cities of Western Bosnia and Herzegovina. We were cooperating with nongovernmental organizations throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina. We exchanged positive and negative experiences with women from the region, and focused on marginalization of women in Bosnia and Herzegovina, especially in relation to the negotiations with the international community. This brochure represents compilation of texts we used in our activities, and activity reports that are offering possibility to women and men readers to become familiar with attitudes and priorities of women that were involved in our local and regional activities.

The Publication “Woman Today 12” offers overview of the activities implemented during 2008 within partnership projects of non-governmental organizations “Helsinki Citizens Assembly” Banja Luka and “United Women” Banja Luka. Since 2008 was the year of local elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the majority of activities was directed to women that were candidates for representatives or municipal mayors in their local communities. The objective of these activities was to ensure their greater visibility during the pre-election campaign and to achieve good election results. As a part of this publication, we are presenting diaries that some of female candidates were keeping during the pre-election campaign, as well as the interviews with women that were elected for representatives in local councils/municipal assemblies.

This publication also brings key summaries of other activities – workshops, public discussions, and round tables organized during 2008.

This book was created as the result of a ten year-long work on the SOS phone and legal consulting service for children and women victims of domestic violence. In ten years of our work, 6868 clients visited our office and received legal aid. We received 7096 calls on the SOS phone.
When we started with our work on the SOS phone and consulting service, we did not have any legal foundation to refer to in order to help women victims of violence. However, through lobbying activities at the legislative level we managed to take the domestic violence out of the “family surrounding” and put it into the legal frames, where it belongs. This publication contains confession of a number of women that sought help on our SOS phone.

The eleventh publication of “Woman Today” provides an overview of activities implemented within the project during 2007 in partnership of Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Banja Luka and United Women Banja Luka. During this period, we implemented numerous activities: six preparatory meetings, preparatory workshop and research about gender stereotypes, round table in Banja Luka and public discussions in Bihać, Mostar, Sarajevo, Tuzla, Tomislavgrad, Trebinje, Višegrad, Prijedor and Bijeljina, where we presented the research result, four public discussions in Banja Luka with the common title “The Current Moment”, six TV programs, four press conferences, and publication “Why Didn’t You Choose Somebody Better?” on the occasion of tenth anniversary of the operation of the SOS telephone for women.