On November 19, the Conference „Harmonization of standards of service provision to victims of domestic violence in accordance with the Istanbul Convention “ organized in cooperation with Agency for Gender Equality of BIH and support of UN Women, was realized.
Bosnia and Hercegovina has ratified Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence on 13 November 2013 and thereby committed to undertake legal and other measures to provide legal, institutional and organizational framework for prevention of violance against women, protection of victims of violence, punishment of the perpetretors and prevention of violence recurrence.
The purpose of the Conference was to present the obligations of the state of BiH, the Federation and Cantons on the implementaton of Istanbul Convention in order of harmonization of the standards in providing the services to victims of violence in Federation of BIH and RS with Istanbul Convention.
Safe houses-shelters for women and children are managed by NGOs on the entire territory of BiH, which are members of the Safe Network. During the conference „Analasys of the existing standards of services provided to victims of violence in Safe Houses in Federation of BIH and RS“ was presented, and also the needs for harmonization of these services with the recomandations from the Istanbul Convention were identified.
Among others, Samra Filipović Hadžiabdić, Director of the Gender Equality Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina addressed to participants of the conference, representatives of the NGO sector and institutions of the system, and presented the implementation of the Istanbul Convention and adopted Framework Implementation Strategy in BiH for the period 2015-2018.
Anne-Marie Esper Larsen, on behalf of UN Women in BiH, presented the planned support to the system institutions and NGOs in the fight against domestic violence.
