A woman from a municipality in the Pčinj district was forced to leave the Safe House where she was hiding from abusers because the Center for Social Work warned that the local self-government would not bear the costs and forced her to sign that she was leaving "voluntarily".
"They made me sign that I was leaving voluntarily, that paper remained with them. I know it shouldn't have been like that, but it's their policy to do it that way," she says.
As the woman claims, she was admitted to the Safe House with a medical report, and a CSW worker from her municipality came the same day and confirmed to the expert workers at the Safe House that she had reported violence several times and that her case was high risk. She stayed in the Safe House for about 15 days.
"I wouldn't have stayed that long if I hadn't gotten sick and received injections, so they waited for me to finish the therapy." I had to leave the Safe House because the CSW said that they had no money to pay and that I had to leave. They said that since I am alone and my children are grown up, I can take care of myself," she says.
When she returned to her town, she went to CSW and they found her a job in the field of domestic services, and in one fell swoop they gave her both a job and a place to live.
"I was not safe there, because my ex-husband came there several times. Even my employer called the police a couple of times. I reported it, they intervened and then it was fine for a while," she says.
He adds that the institutions did not take care of her safety, and that they did not take her seriously and believe her when she reported violence. After contacting the SOS phone in Vranje, she says that the attitude of the institutions towards her changed and that then they took her "a little more seriously".
Another woman from the territory of Vranje states that she stayed in the Safe House with her daughter for six months and that she asked to extend their accommodation, but they did not approve: "When I reported the violence to the CSW in Vranje, they said that I should go to the police first, but I was not allowed to because he has friends in the police, and then I was on the phone with the SOS team until they placed us in the Safe House."
She claims that professional workers forbade them to contact the SOS telephone, and that they urged her to return to her husband: "I was outraged, no one could take me back there." Some tried to take us back, but I said that I would rather sleep on the street, but that we would not go back. They told us that he should be forgiven."
Since the Safe House is out of town, it had to stop working because it had no transportation to work. The girl went to school alone, and the woman had to sign a statement that they were going out at their own risk.
After leaving the Safe House, the woman states that the institutions did not create an individual protection plan, nor did a safety assessment for her and her daughter, and that even after leaving the Safe House, her ex-husband harassed them.
Councilor for social affairs from Vranje Danijela Milosavljević states that the capacity of the Safe House has been reduced from 25 to 10 places, but that they have never had more than 10 women in the Safe House and that there is no problem with capacity. He also points out that the problem of accommodation "never existed for women from the municipality of Vranje": "Only if they are not from Vranje, it is their local self-government and we do not get involved." That didn't happen with the women from Vranje, only because of time running out and if the security assessment is that she can leave the Safe House. We had a woman who was in the Safe House for a year or more," points out Danijela Milosavljević.
IN VLADICINA HAN AND BOSILEGRAD "NO VIOLENCE"
The director of the Center for Social Work in Han, Ljubiša Mihajlović, says that neither this year nor last year did they have a woman placed in the Safe House, and they do not have funds for housing women, but they have about three million for all services and types of material support provided by the local self-government.
"There is no violence. It cannot be requested that the woman be accommodated because there is a procedure for determining whether or not violence is involved," says Mihajlović.
Bosilegrad Municipality President Vladimir Zaharijev said that the Safe House does not have any female beneficiaries from Bosilegrad, and that there are no plans in the budget to house women in the Safe House: "Considering that there are no cases of women victims of violence being accommodated in Vranje, we cannot to allocate money for it. We always have social welfare for cancer patients, for people in homes. It is also allowed to finance accommodation in the Safe House from the municipal budget, but if there are no such cases, you cannot pay. If the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Health Center or family members decide that someone should be in the Safe House in Vranje, the CSW can accommodate him, and we will pay for it," says Zaharijev.
The Director of the Center for Social Work in Bujanovac, Nijazi Ameti, confirms that they do not have planned funds for placing women in the Safe House: "We place either just the woman or with the children in the Safe House if there is violence, until a compromise is found, until the manager leaves case to talk to relatives, husband, and if a compromise is found, good, if not - nothing."
The CSR and Trgovište state that during 2022 and this year, one million dinars is planned for the accommodation of women in the Safe House, which, they say, is enough for ten women, and that 89.808 dinars have been paid for these purposes. During 2022, two women from this municipality were placed in the Safe House, and two women during this year. Milena Kostić, director of CSR at Trgovište, pointed out that they allocate enough money for the accommodation of women: "We have never had a problem with a lack of funds." There was always enough space in the Safe House", stated Milena Kostić.
The president of Trgovište municipality, Nenad Krstić, explains that the spent funds of 89.808 dinars actually refer to all vulnerable categories: "This includes family members, the homeless, as well as other vulnerable categories, and all the funds that were foreseen have been spent." Victims of violence do not have to be only women, but also men and children."
During 2022, as well as this year, CSR Surdulica allocated 500.000 dinars for the care of women, but as they state, "there was no official request and assessment that a woman should be placed in a safe house". In the answer, they point out that "it is not known in advance how many requests or accommodation there will be on official duty" and that the financial plan foresees that the funds can be increased depending on the need. According to the data of the CSW Surdulica, during 2022, no woman was accommodated in the Safe House, and from the beginning of 2023 until May, one woman was accommodated. The Director of CSR in Surdulica Ružica Vukašinović states that there were no problems regarding the financing of accommodation for victims of violence.
"Some woman cannot say that she wants to go to the Safe House, bypassing CSW, bypassing other institutions, because there is an assessment. In Surdulica, fortunately, we do not have many requests from the prosecution, nor from the court and the parties. Funds are always provided, it is planned, it goes out of the box if it happens. We had one woman who was in the Safe House for a long time with two children. Money is the least of the problems, there is always a way to pay. CSW Surdulica is obliged to our users who were in Vranje or other centers where they are", says Vukašinović. Since the beginning of the year, a woman with children was housed in the Safe House through the MUP, and she stayed there for less than a month because, as stated by the CSW in Surdulica, she "voluntarily left the Safe House."
Director of CSR in Preševo Liridon Latifi states that they receive 250.000 dinars from the local self-government on an annual basis and that the amount is not limited but is in accordance with needs. He states that in six years, he had only one case when a woman from the municipality of Preševo was placed in a safe house.
"I have been working at the CSW in Preševo for six years, and only once did we have to place a victim of violence in the Safe House for two months. In 2022, only nine cases of domestic violence were recorded, not only against women but also against men - father, son, relatives", says Latifi.
Latifi adds that every year they receive 250.000 dinars from the local government, and that this money is enough for five to seven months to accommodate one person.
"If there were more situations, I would have to ask for more funds because it is covered by the local self-government and they come to the rescue if something goes wrong, when rebalancing the budget they give us funds or we transfer from one position to another and that's how we solve it," says Latifi.
LANGUAGE BARRIER
Antić Ristic says that the SOS phone, which is one for the entire Pčinj district, has had calls from Preševo and Bujanovac, otherwise multi-ethnic areas, but that there is a language barrier for Albanian women to seek help because they do not have a translator on the SOS phone. She states that there was an initiative to open a multi-ethnic SOS phone in Bujanovac, however, as she claims, there was also a problem with the municipality allocating money for those purposes.
She explains that it is a big problem to place a woman from the territory of another municipality in a facility that is of regional character and is located in the territory of Vranje, where the City is the founder of that service and the owner of that facility. The city has signed inter-municipal financing agreements with other municipalities, and according to Antić Ristic, the problem is the financing model of the Safe House.
"I have the impression that municipal budgets are being saved, that victims of violence are not a priority, and that savings are being made on the program for housing women and children who are victims of violence," says Antic Ristic. She also wonders how it is that the responsible Ministry for Social Affairs does not find it strange that Vladičin Han or Surdulica, for example, do not have a single woman housed in a Safe House for 12 months. Contrary to the interpretation of CSW employees, any woman who thinks she is at risk can make a plan to go to the Safe House alone or with her children the first time she is safe, and they must accept her.
Antić Ristić claims that some in the institutions still label the knowledge and work of the civil sector and treat them as if they are "interfering with the work of the professional sector": "In the institutions, they are offended when the SOS team goes to support women, because it bothers them that a woman along with SOS phone support knows its rights and seeks and defends them in a better way in that institution. We often receive information from women that certain professionals either in the police clearly told them that if they came to SOS again not to ask for help from them, or they openly forbade women to contact us. We conveyed it to the directors of those institutions, who refused to believe it and who deny it," says Antic Ristić.
She claims that professional workers often try to return the woman home, that sometimes they do not record the violence and try to downplay what the woman says, and tell her "to go home and come back if he attacks her again". He also points out that civil organizations advocated the adoption of a rulebook for the actions of institutions and professional officials, stating that when it comes to violence, mediation, that is, reconciliation, cannot be applied, and this was adopted. "That procedure is inadmissible, but in practice they obviously do not recognize that it is violence and find a way to reconcile them, which is very dangerous. When the professional says 'conflict', he puts the victim of violence in the same position as the abuser. Conflict is when we fight for an opinion, and when it comes to violence, you don't have an equal position and two sides, because violence is not an 'equal position'. "Violence is the abuse of one's power against another," says Antic Ristić.
NO ONE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR OMISSIONS
Antić Ristic points out that the competent institutions must have responsibility "starting with the director, then professional teams, and up to the professional worker in the police, in the prosecutor's office, CSW in, in the hospital". "I don't remember anyone being held accountable for not properly applying protocols and laws and reacting to stop the violence. Last year, a woman was killed who actively sought help from the CSW in Vranje in connection with reported domestic violence. She was killed in her home. The previous year, in 2021, a girl was killed in a horrific femicide at a gas station in Vranje. The man who killed her is a returnee, he got out of prison where he was for attempted murder, and before that he killed a girl," says Antic Ristić.
As he claims, in the first case, the Protector of Citizens initiated proceedings, but still no one was held accountable and suffered the consequences.
"When a case happens, it is known exactly how to check who worked and how well in their place. The Protector of Citizens initiated the procedure of checking the work of the institutions, and we still do not have feedback on who did not do their job in the institutions in Vranje. Someone must not have done their job if the woman was actively seeking help in the system. When we restore the system of responsibility in Serbia, I think that a small number of people and experts will think that when reporting violence, they convince women to return home."
"Several years ago, SOS phone Vranje was contacted by the German Embassy in Belgrade because the safety of their citizen who came to see her partner was threatened. They asked us to come to her and for the police to place her in the Safe House", says Antic Ristić. "We managed to reach the girl that the partner was actively looking for at that moment. We contacted the police, and they knew the abuser from before. The woman spent fifteen days in the Safe House, and the embassy organized her return to Germany. A week after that, the German embassy called the SOS phone and they asked how the Safe Houses in Serbia are financed, because they received an invoice from the CSR Surdulica to pay the costs of that woman's stay and accommodation in the Safe House in Vranje."
As he states, Safe House "is not a 10-star hotel, but a social service", and CSR Surdulica did not plan in the budget that such a case could happen during the year.
