…IZ KRUGA – VOJVODINA, Organization Providing support to Women with Disabilities, in cooperation with the UN Entity for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women (UN Women) and with the support of European Commission, has started a project aimed at advancing the support services system for women with disabilities experiencing violence.
The overall goal of the project is for institutions and other service providers of general and specialized support services for women survivors of any type of violence to have a capacity to implement standards proscribed by the CEDAW and Istanbul Convention when handling complaints of women with disabilities experiencing any kind of violence, with special focus on sexual violence.
Besides only partial statistics, Serbia and Vojvodina have no systematic analyses concerning domestic and partnership violence that affects women with disabilities. This project will collect data on the number of women with disabilities experiencing gender based violence, as well as their experience with the support services in healthcare and welfare, as well as security-providing authorities. The research and data analysis will be done in cooperation with organizations of persons with disabilities and women’s organizations providing support to women in situations of violence and will include towns where there are Centers for Victims of Sexual Violence (Novi Sad, Subotica, Sremska Mitrovica, Vršac, Zrenjanin, Kikinda and Sombor).
The analysis will indicate the extent to which healthcare and welfare system, the police and judiciary are accessible to women with disabilities and point to the key obstacles faced by these women when accessing protection services. At the same time, good practice recommendations for changing the existing proceeding and attitudes in order to advance the legal and strategic framework will be communicated to all relevant national Ministries and Provincial Secretariats. Five towns will be selected for further mentorship based cooperation in order for them to implement the best practices in specialized services provision to women with disabilities. The project will result in a publication encompassing a baseline analysis, an overview of its findings and recommendations, good practices and conclusions.
