Advocacy

Sarajevo Open Centre as part of its program of work has been devoted to the advocacy of new public policies and the implementation of existing ones. Our work focuses on rights of LGBT person and women’s rights, but additionally we work on different human rights and general issues of importance to women and LGBT people.

As part of our advocacy work on the rights of LGBT persons in the period from 2015 to 2017 we will focus on:

  • Monitoring the rights of LGBT persons in Bosnia and Herzegovina;
  • Reporting on the rights of LGBT person, through Pink Report – Annual Report on the Rights of LGBT Persons, and the submissions and reports by domestic institutions and international bodies (ia EU Progress Report, the CEDAW, UPR);
  • legal regulation of the hate crimes and hate speech, and comprehensive introduction of the judiciary and the police on the same;
  • combating discrimination against LGBT people, through changes to existing policies and legislation, the adoption of new and their implementation;
  • legislation and bylaw the access of the rights of trans* persons;
  • legislation and bylaw the rights and obligations arising from the cohabitation of two people of the same sex (life partnership).

PRESS RELEASE: Coalition for Combating Hate Crime and Hate Speech appeals to the media and public officials to refrain from incorrect, discriminatory, profiling and stereotyping statements on refugees in BiH

Even though the Balkan route had been officially closed, a high number of migrants and refugees has been trying to reach Western European countries daily. Compared to last year,...

A new monitoring of implementation of CM/Rec(2010)5in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Sarajevo Open Centre is participating, under sponsorship organisation ILGA-Europe, in a project of monitoring the implementation of the Committee of Ministers’...

The apprentices of the courts and prosecutors’ offices of Sarajevo and Banja Luka went through training on hate crimes

Sarajevo Open Centre, continuing trainings for police bodies, prosecutors and judges, on 29 and 30 November 2017, in Sarajevo, organised one more training, the topic being “Hate...

Hate crimes in 2016: There is still low level of LGBTI persons’ trust in the institutions

On 16 November 2017, the International Tolerance Day, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), on its website that serves for reporting on hate crime,...

SOC filed a submission to the UN Committee Against Torture about hate crimes against LGBTI persons and activists in Bosnia and Herzegovina

UN Committee Against Torture (CAT) is currently doing review of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s fullfilment of obligations that derive from the Convention against Torture and Other...

BiH Ombudsmen for Human Rights confirmed: personal name does not have to be harmonized with the sex marker in the identification documents of the person

In August 2017 the Ministry of Interior in Tuzla (MoI) disabled the name change of the person to a name that is not harmonized with the sex marker on the identification document,...