"Since the beginning of the application of the harmful Social Card Act in March 2022, almost 60.000 citizens have been left without cash social assistance, which is almost every third user in the system. In the year behind us, not a single legal solution was adopted that would improve labor rights, and almost all previous problems in labor legislation came to light", some of the examples in the new annual report of Initiative A 11, which was presented during the "May meetings 2025" under the title "System against the poor".
With this conference, they opened the May meetings of Social Rights Days 2025.
Additionally, "an example of systemic neglect to respect the right to adequate housing is given. It can be seen in the case of the fire in the informal Roma settlement 'Antena' in which, after the fire, several families who were previously displaced from Kosovo were left to sleep under the open sky for days, until they began to build new homes from the remains of burnt houses". It's about this fire "Time" wrote.
The report of Initiative A 11 presents in detail the current state of economic and social rights in Serbia through analyzes of individual areas.
Poverty
The amount of cash social assistance is still insufficient to enable people to get out of the circle of poverty and is so low that individuals and families entitled to cash social assistance cannot provide the subsistence minimum, according to the report.
It goes on to say that the amendments to the Law on Social Protection that were announced more than nine years ago have not yet been adopted, nor is there a new Social Protection Strategy, although in 2024 "the work on the drafting of that strategic document, which should address numerous shortcomings in the field of social protection - including the lack of skilled workers in social work centers, has finally continued".
Dreams about labor law
The position of precarious workers is devastating, according to Initiative A 11.
"These are workers in temporary and casual jobs, for a fixed period of time, under a work contract or on projects, platform workers, seasonal workers in agriculture, in trade and service activities, in construction, workers in the informal economy do not have effective mechanisms of protection at work. And it is best seen in the example of seasonal workers." That's what it's about "Time" wrote.
Housing injustice
Housing injustice it is more and more sensitive. For years, the A 11 initiative has been pointing to the lack of strategic, and above all, political will to legally regulate access to adequate housing and stand in the way of practices that endanger, first of all, Roma and families of internally displaced persons, who are constantly targeted by enforcers, inspectors, municipal police and investors.
"Of particular concern is the practice of treating the homes of families in informal settlements throughout Serbia as 'municipal waste', which facilitates forced evictions and threatens the human rights of residents of informal settlements."
In addition, the Report states that the year behind us was also marked by cases of police brutality in informal settlements, which indicates an unacceptable racist approach to the work of members of the security services.
"We would like to remind you that, more than a year after the violent incursion of the MUP services into the informal Roma settlement in Vuk Vrčević, there is no epilogue and no accountability for those who not only insulted people on a racial basis, but also beat individual tenants with clubs."
This is just a summary of the monitoring and work mapped by the experts of Initiative A 11 for the last year.
