Country Profile Serbia

General Country Information

Summary

There is one national women’s helpline in Serbia, which operates 24/7 and is free of charge. Additionally, there are other national and regional helplines supporting survivors of violence against women. There are 11 women-only shelters in the country offering 178 beds, as well as one shelter for survivors of trafficking with six beds. There are 42 women’s centres, and five support services for survivors of sexualised violence in the country. Prevention is included in the National Strategy for Preventing and Combating Gender-based Violence against Women and Against Violence in the Family, although there is no dedicated budget and no definition of primary prevention. The state collects data on women’s specialist services licensed as social protection services, not on all specialist services for women, and not on those provided by non-governmental organisations that are not licensed. No data is collected on primary prevention activities. The data collected by the state is available upon request, but access to it is not guaranteed.

Women’s Specialist Services

There is one national women’s helpline in Serbia called SOS Helpline for Women Who Experience Violence (SOS telefon za žene sa iskustvom nasilja, tel.: +381 0800222003). It is free of charge and operates 24/7, meeting the standards of the Istanbul Convention. Nevertheless, it does not offer multilingual support. The helpline is run by the Centre for Protection of Infants, Children and Youth in Belgrade, and it provides support for all types of domestic and intimate partner violence against women, including neglect, physical violence, sexualised violence (also technology-facilitated), sexual exploitation, psychological violence (including technology-facilitated), exploitation, economic violence, and bullying.

Additionally, there are eight other helplines which are state-wide and support women survivors of violence free of charge and 24/7. These helplines are run by organisations such as the Union of Associations Network SOS Vojvodina, the Citizens Association Women’s Centre Užice and the Association Autonomous Women’s Centre. In terms of funding, two SOS helplines (those run by the Centre for the Protection of Infants, Children and Youth in Belgrade and the Counselling Centre Against Family Violence in Belgrade) receive state funding from national and local authorities, while the other helplines are supported by donations and international funding. According to unofficial data, in 2024, the licensed helplines received approximately between 10,000 and 13,000 calls, and the number of callers was between 3,500 and 5,000. The most common forms of violence reported by callers were physical, psychological and economic violence.

In addition to the nine licensed national SOS telephone lines for women who have experienced violence, one of which is specialised in human trafficking, there are 15 non-licensed helplines: two specialised in supporting women with disabilities exposed to violence, one for the support of women survivors of sexualised violence (details in the dedicated section below), one for women from national minorities and 11 for all women.

There are 11 women-only shelters in Serbia offering 178 beds, which falls short of the actual needs of the country. Seven of these shelters are licensed as services of social protection, while four are not licensed. Although all shelters have 24/7 access, most do not have a sufficient number of employees and specialised staff available around the clock. Moreover, shelters are not directly accessible to survivors, especially in emergencies, because access is managed by the Centre for Social Work. Women who accessed shelters in their municipality are not expected to pay, while the costs incurred by women coming from other municipalities are usually borne by social work centres from their place of residence; this is not possible when municipalities do not plan budget lines for these purposes. Women-only shelters are financed by local governments and donations from foundations and individuals. Ten shelters are run by local authorities, while one is run by an NGO. The territorial distribution of shelters is not adequate and covers 11 out of 25 districts and the City of Belgrade. On average, women stay in the shelters for three months.

The main reasons for declined referrals were the lack of space/capacity to accommodate survivors with children, survivors being ineligible for support, or the shelters not being adequately equipped for the needs of the women/children, for instance, in cases of women with disabilities or with substance abuse issues. There are cases of refusal to admit Roma women. The most common forms of violence reported by survivors in 2024 were domestic violence, physical violence, and violence directly/indirectly affecting children. The services provided by shelters include casework, counselling/psychological support, referrals/collaboration with other services, and practical and legal advice. Casework and referrals/collaboration with other services are predominant, because in most of the shelters, there is not enough professional staff employed to provide other services. On average, the licensed shelters support between 250-300 women per year.

While all shelters can accommodate older women, some of them can also be accessed by and are accessible to women with physical and sensory disabilities, women with older sons and women with children with disabilities. No shelters are accessible for women with uncertain residence permits and undocumented women, refugee women, homeless women, women with cognitive disabilities, women with substance abuse issues, transgender women and unaccompanied girls under 18. There is one licensed shelter for survivors of trafficking run by a women’s NGO with a feminist approach in the country.

Additionally, there is one shelter for survivors of trafficking in persons, which had six beds in 2024

There are 42 women’s centres in Serbia, 25 are only for women survivors of violence, and 17 for all survivors. Women’s centres provide different types of services: 32 centres provide counselling and psychological support, referrals and collaboration with other services; 12 centres provide legal advice, eight provide representation at court/police/social services, six offer financial and social welfare support, and one also supports with employment. Additionally, women’s centres can provide specialist support for survivors of sexualised violence, including needs assessment, specialist psychological care, specialist sexualised violence advocacy services, community awareness and education for prevention, and legal advice.

In terms of accessibility, seven centres are accessible for women with uncertain residence permits/undocumented women, six centres can be accessed by and are accessible to women with physical and sensory disabilities, five are equipped to support black and minority ethnic women and survivors (at risk) of forced marriage, three are accessible for refugee women, girls under the age of 18, transgender women and non-binary people, while two centres are equipped to support survivors (at risk) of trafficking, women with cognitive disabilities and older women.

Out of the 42 centres, 32 are run by women’s NGOs and 10 by other NGOs. The main sources of funding are donations and international funding, as most NGOs do not receive support from the state. Women’s centres are predominantly located in cities and much less in rural parts of the country, with some districts where there are no centres available. It is estimated that women’s centres in Serbia provided support to 1,500 to 2,500 women in 2024.

In Serbia, there are five centres for survivors of sexualised violence which operate 24/7. They are located in the hospitals of Kikinda, Zrenjanin, Novi Sad, Sremska Mitrovica, and Vrbas. The Centre for Victims of Sexual Violence at the General Hospital in Vrbas was opened in 2024. These centres are specialised in supporting women and girls over the age of 15 who have survived rape and attempted rape or other forms of sexualised violence. The centres provide survivors with specialist forensic and medical care, needs assessment, specialist psychological care, specialist advocacy services, community awareness and education for prevention, and support for family members. In 2024, 67 cases of sexualised violence were reported, of which 22 survivors were minors. A total of 492 psycho-social support and psychological counselling services and 148 health and care services were provided. The most common perpetrators were acquaintances, friends (47%), then family members (19%), and then a married or extramarital partner (12%). All existing services are financed through a project supported by the United Nations Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women, and they are located only in major cities in the North of the country. In Serbia, there is a SOS helpline for women survivors of sexualised violence run by the Association Women’s Support Centre from Kikinda (tel.: +381 693044050); the helpline is not free of charge, does not offer multilingual support, and operates on working days from 8:00 to 16:00. In 2024, it received 31 calls.

In Serbia, there is a National Strategy for Preventing and Combating Gender-based Violence Against Women and Against Violence in the Family for the period 2021–2025. In the Strategy, there is a specific provision on prevention, even though the term “primary” is not used. The Strategy talks about the importance of and the forms of prevention, campaigns, information, and raising public awareness, as well as education and training of experts to act against various forms of violence, including that in the digital sphere. Nevertheless, only in the second half of 2024 the Action Plan for the period 2024–2025 was drafted, meaning that the activities planned for 2024 remain unrealised. In the National Action Plan, there is no definition of prevention. The funds allocated by the state for primary prevention are minimal and funds are not allocated for systemic actions aimed at prevention, but local and short-term actions such as campaigns, awareness-raising activities and educational activities. No evaluation of such activities is conducted. Most women’s centres carry out activities aimed at empowering different groups of women to recognise violence and familiarise themselves with existing support services in the community, raising the capacities of institutional and non-institutional service providers, developing educational materials or advocating for educational programmes. Actions are mainly aimed at all types of violence, but there are also those specialised in the prevention of sexualised violence, digital violence, and violence at the workplace.