20 Years of Internal Displacement in Serbia – Experiences and Lessons for the Future

The marking of the 20 years of internal displacement in Serbia organized by the A 11 – Initiative for Economic and Social Rights through the support of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Office in Serbia, will take place on Thursday, 16 May 2019, at 1pm at CZKD.

The event is organized in light of the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the internal displacement crisis and with the aim of drawing attention to the fact that a certain number of individuals in Serbia are still in the state of protracted displacement, without access to economic and social rights through local integration or the possibility of return to Kosovo.

Keynote speaker will be Sawsan Zaher, Deputy Director and Coordinator of the Economic and Social Rights Department of the non-governmental organisation Adalah. She will present the problems internally displaced members of the Palestinian minority in Israel face accessing economic and social rights, and the ways in which Adalah provides aid to this vulnerable group in regard to said obstacles and share lessons learned in that regard.

As part of the event, there will be a premier screening of the short documentary film on the last collective center Salvatore in Bujanovac and the problems of Roma living therein since their displacement from Kosovo in 1999.

Finally, the discussion and film screening will be accompanied by the opening of the photo exhibition titled Internal Displacement through the Eyes of a Child. The photographs were produced by the children living in the informal collective center Stara škola (Old School) in Belgrade.

Please confirm your participation by Wednesday, 15 May 2019 at: office@a11initiative.org

Agenda:

1pm – 1:30pm Registration of participants

1:30pm – 1:40pm Opening of the panel on internal displacement
Danilo Ćurčić, Programme Coordinator, A 11 – Initiative for Economic and Social Rights

1:40pm – 1:50pm IDPs – Global situation and the situation in Serbia
Hans Friedrich Schodder, Representative, UNHCR in Serbia (tbc)

1:50pm – 2:00pm Outstanding issues through the eyes of IDPs
TBD

2:00pm – 2:40pm Situation of Palestinians facing protracted internal displacement in Israel
Sawsan Zaher, Deputy Director, Head of Economic and Social Rights Department, Adalah

2:40pm – 3:00pm Discussion

3:00pm – 3:15pm Projection of the film on persons living in the last collective center in Serbia Salvatore

3:15pm – 3:30pm Opening of the photo exhibition

3:30pm – 4:30pm Cocktail