Miladinka Mijatovic, consultant on the SOS helpline of the Organization …IZ KRUGA – VOJVODINA, spoke at the online panel discussion Tailor – made support, organized by the Initiative for Equality, Innovation and Social Engagement IRIDA. The discussion was held on March 31, 2021. from 7 to 8:30 p.m. via the Zoom application.
The topic of discussion was the sensibility of professionals from various fields, as well as the citizens themselves, in order to better support women victims of domestic violence. Participants in the discussion were introduced to the trainings that are organized for judges dealing with domestic violence, but also to the issue of sensitizing professionals to work with women with disabilities.
Miladinka Mijatovic presented and compared the experiences in the work of the Organization …IZ KRUGA – VOJVODINA from the period before and during the pandemic, as well as the opinion that individuals and professionals need to be additionally sensitized to work and provide support in a situation of violence.
– Reporting violence and taking preventive measures can be significantly more difficult for women with disabilities, who need continuous assistance in their daily functioning. Inaccessible communication has also come to light, for example, women with hearing impairments have been unable to read from their lips in an environment where everyone wears protective masks. That is why it is important to continuously organize trainings, increase cross-sectoral cooperation, so that we can listen to each other and jointly list the present problems and approach their solution. It is very important to work on sensitizing individuals, who still observe women with disabilities from a medical, not a social model – says Miladinka Mijatovic.
Panelists at the discussion were: Slobodan Josimovic, Deputy Public Prosecutor at the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Novi Sad, Tanja Ignjatovic, a psychologist engaged in the Autonomous Women’s Center in Belgrade, and Marijana Markovic, a representative of the IRIDA Organization.
The discussion was moderated by Dragana Coric, assistant professor at the Faculty of Law in Novi Sad.
The common conclusion of the panelists is that it is important to start with sensitization at the faculties, as an integral part of the educational process of students, because often only formal education is not enough, and that is where we create future experts. In addition, it is important that the services provided by the institutions are architecturally and communicatively accessible, and that they are equally accessible to all women.
