From the fear that your child will be beaten up at school if they find out that they have parents of the same sex, through the institution of another "ghost parent", to costs that reach the price of an apartment in Vračar - they face all these problems same-sex parents who live in Serbia, and had a child abroad via surrogate mother or donor.
Lawyer Olga Turčinović Makević went through the struggle for the child with many of them, who spoke for "Vreme" about the enormous bureaucratic and emotional problems of these families. She says that it is very important to protect these people from the public and to preserve their anonymity, because a large part of society condemns same-sex unions, especially with children, and in Serbia they are not recognized by law.
"When heterosexual families in Serbia are faced with the fact that they cannot have a child, they go through a kind of trauma," says Olga Turčinović Makević for "Vreme". "When, on the other hand, homosexual communities want it, the obstacles are almost insurmountable, so many of them don't even think about it. This is exactly why I agreed to talk about my clients, who decide to make this dream come true. Because it is actually possible, but it requires incredible stress, almost insurmountable fears and money that is measured by the price of an apartment in Vračar."
This was exactly the situation of a couple of men who moved from Serbia, had a child abroad with the help of a surrogate mother, and then decided to return to the country before giving birth.
"We had almost no obstacles in a country where surrogacy is legal, but the problems started the moment they stepped on Serbian soil," she adds.
Why, how, can't...
The system, he says, met them with a blockade.
"The arduous procedure to give birth to a child in Serbia began, and the state tried in every way to make that possibility difficult. You face a million questions and problems - why did someone come to Serbia, why does he want to give birth there, does he have a place of residence, how to organize a place of residence..." says the lawyer.
Only one father can register as a parent, while the other has absolutely no right over the child. If the partner registered as the father died, the child would be left without parents.
Her other two clients found themselves in an even more incredible situation, because they had two children abroad. In Serbia, each of them can be the parent of only one child, while the second child is a "ghost parent", and this is exactly the example of the President of the Assembly of Serbia, Ana Brnabić.
"It is true that the child is not mine on paper, but it is mine in my heart. It is as if I gave birth to him."
This is how Ana Brnabić commented in 2022 for N1 news that she had a child with her long-term partner - but that she herself, even though she was the prime minister of Serbia at the time, had no rights over him.
BRNABIC AND DJURDJICSerbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic and Milica Djurdjic at the Pride Parade in Belgrade; PHOTO: TANJUG / ANDRIJA VUKELETIC
Dragoslava Barzut, human rights activist, told "Vreme" that these families in Serbia "are in a legal vacuum".
"Although certain legal institutions, such as cohabitation, exist as an alternative to marriage, they are also implicitly or explicitly understood as applicable to opposite-sex couples, thereby excluding same-sex partners from analogous forms of legal protection," says Barzut.
In practice, he adds, the absence of legal recognition of same-sex partnerships leads to systematic exclusion from the right to inheritance, access to family pensions, recognition in decision-making in the field of health care and the right to social benefits.
"As long as this government is in power, there is no progress"
The children of Olga Turčinović Makević's clients generally do not go to kindergarten. Not because their parents don't want it, but simply - they can't.
"These people constantly live under the radar, they are afraid to go out of the small closed circle and that someone will find out that they are raising children together," he adds. "They are very concerned that their children will be discriminated against, they choose not to draw attention to themselves, because that is dangerous in Serbia. Their biggest fear is - what will happen when their children start school."
Olga Turčinović Makević thinks that in Serbia there will be no major progress in the field of families with same-sex parents, "at least while this government is in power".
Pride_Parade_2025_017Preparations in Manjez Park ahead of the gathering before the protest Pride march in Belgrade, Photojournalist: Marko Dragoslavić, Source: FoNet
The material can - but you have to put it together
Lesbian couples can, if they want to have a child in the country, report one of them to the Reproductive Cell Bank in order to receive donated material, i.e. spermatozoa.
This "bank" was opened in Serbia in 2019, but it is still empty, explains Dragana Krstić from the Adoption Counseling Center for "Vreme". The Counseling Center is a non-profit organization, which was created due to the great desire of people who cannot become parents and have a problem coping with the procedure.
"Sporadic donations happen here and there, we have three donors per 30 requests," says Krstić. "The bank in Serbia is empty because the state simply did not work on promoting the donation of egg cells and spermatozoa. That is why in recent years we have been importing reproductive material from Spain, Denmark and the Czech Republic."
That's not all though.
In order for two women who want to have a child with the help of donated material in Serbia to succeed, they have to lie.
"According to Serbian law, the material cannot be obtained by two women together, but only by one, who must notarize the statement - that the woman is without a partner," explains Krstić.
How was it regulated by the region?
If you look at solutions from the neighborhood, Barzut says that you can see a stable European trend - from special laws on life partnership to full marriage equality, with progressive equalization of family rights and administrative procedures.
"The Law on Life Partnership of Persons of the Same Sex in Croatia systematizes the establishment, legal effects and termination of a partnership, introduces a register and offers a wide range of property, inheritance and social rights (with restrictions regarding adoption, with the institution of the "partner's guardianship role" for the partner's child). This model shows how, with one umbrella law, high legal certainty can be ensured without redefining marriage," she adds.
He reminds that in Montenegro the Law on Life Partnership of Persons of the Same Sex was adopted in 2020 and regulates the conclusion, records and legal consequences of the partnership. He adds that the content of the model is close to the Croatian one, but the practice was characterized by gradual implementation.
"It is an important lesson for Serbia: it is necessary to plan a package of by-laws and intersectoral training for full implementation," says Barzut.
After the decision of the Constitutional Court in June 2022 in Slovenia, that the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage is against the Constitution, the legislator amended the Family Code so that marriage is defined as the union of two people, and same-sex couples have access to marriage and family rights, which includes adoption. Slovenia thus moved from the register of partnerships to full marriage equality. In February 2024, Greece passed a law on same-sex marriage with full recognition of parentage, with separate restrictions on surrogacy.
"This example, although outside the region of the former SFRY, is important as an EU candidate for Serbia: it highlights the movement of standards in the direction of complete equalization, but also shows that some specific issues remain governed by special regimes," she says.
Italy introduced civil unions in 2016, giving same-sex couples almost all the rights of marriage with restrictions on parenthood. It is seen as a pragmatic intermediate step in societies with strong resistance to marriage, but ready for formal recognition and protection of partnerships.
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