ILGA-Europe published its 6th Annual Review of the Human Rights Situation of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex People in Europe. The publication includes events that occurred between January and December 2016 and covers 49 countries.
After last year’s successful completion of the Train the Trainer programme for the police officers of the Cantonal Ministries of Interior (MoI) and the representatives of the Police Academy of the Federation of BiH, this year every Cantonal MoI has to implement education programmes on hate crime. The mentioned education programmes should be implemented in the scope of their permanent trainings that are mandatory for each and every police officer of each MoI. Sarajevo Open Centre has advocated with every MoI in particular and made constant pressure directed towards introducing the module on hate crime into the programme of mandatory education, in which we have, to our great pleasure, succeeded.
The Complaints Commission of the BiH Press Council, whose members are legal and media experts, on 20 July 2017 adopted the Decision by which it suggested to the web portals radiosarajevo.ba and slobodnabosna.ba to remove the published YouTube video made by the blogger Amir Hadžić, named Today’s Girls, and to, in the future, avoid publishing and giving media attention to contents that promote any kind of violence, discrimination, disdain, as it was, in this case, done by the video “Today’s Girls”, regarding women. You can find this decision on this link.
These days we are in contact with all the Cantonal MoI’s, in order to see how things are progressing. The information we have is that some of the MoI’s have already implemented the education on hate crime, some are in the process of implementation at the moment, and the others will implement them by the end of 2017. So, in the regular and mandatory topics for educating the police officers of FBiH each Cantonal MoI has included the module on hate crime.
Last year in Kosovo, equality laws and better implementation of existing legislation in regard to anti- discrimination laws were cited to be very important by an advocacy and coordination group for LGBTI rights. In addition, as part of the annual enlargement update, the EU Commission stressed the importance of commitment by local leaders, in regard to LGBT issues. Two local NGOs conducted a research on health and social care for LGBT people in Kosovo; through which they found troubling results, where those surveyed tended to be very homophobic. The NGOs made recommendations to relevant institutions.
Fear of violence and discrimination is part of everyday life for the LGBTQ community in the Balkans. Same-sex couples often conceal their sexual identity. DW spoke to Haris and Lazar, who left their home countries.
Damir Banović, president of the SOC Assembly, on 16 June 2017, participated in the symposium called „Gender, Sexuality, and Law Research” (GSL) that was organized by the Keele University (United Kingdom) that has a multi-year tradition of research in the field of gender and law.
During the meetings, discussions on how the representatives of these institutions should deal with LGBTI people were held. There has been talk of sensitization through the education that will follow in the upcoming period for the representatives of these precise institutions through info sessions, but also through a two-day education on the human rights of LGBTI people.
The Equality Academy programme aims to be a new platform for political leadership and space for joint actions of representatives, leaders of political parties and civil society organizations. Third generation of the Equality Academy is intended for: Town/Municipality councilors of the Counciles/Committees in Bosnia and Herzegovina; Heads of municipalities in Bosnia and Herzegovina; City mayors … Continued
The Equality Academy programme aims to be a new platform for political leadership and space for joint actions of representatives, leaders of political parties and civil society organizations. Third generation of the Equality Academy is intended for: Town/Municipality councilors of the Counciles/Committees in Bosnia and Herzegovina; Heads of municipalities in Bosnia and Herzegovina; City mayors … Continued