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Expert meeting in the project Prevention of Elder Abuse Targeting Older Women (EmPreV)


25/09/2020

As part of the project Prevention of Elder Abuse Targeting Older Women (EmPreV) on Wednesday 23 September an expert meeting was organised simultaneously in Austria and Serbia with participants from both countries.

The meeting was a part of the project that the Red Cross of Serbia has been implementing over the past year in cooperation with Austrian Red Cross and Austrian Institute for Conflict Research with support provided by European Union and Austrian Development Agency, with speakers at the event being experts from the Red Cross of Serbia, Austrian Red Cross, Institute for Conflict Research, Medical Faculty and Faculty of Philosophy of the Belgrade University. In addition, the participants, partially online and partially at the Austrian Red Cross and Red Cross of Serbia premises, were the representatives of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Medical Faculty of the Belgrade University, Chamber of Social protection of the Republic of Serbia, Vienna General Hospital and Vienna University.

After the opening speeches of the Secretaries general of the two Red Cross societies, Mr. Michael Opriesnig and Ljubomir Miladinovic, Cornelia Zwicker of Austrian Red Cross presented the project to the participants, highlighting its achievements in the first year. Susan Somers, President of International Network for Prevention of Elder Abuse provided a recorded message that was played during the meeting and in it she explained the context of violence against older persons and older women specifically, at global level.

Prof. Dr Marija Babovic of the SeConS think tank presented the quantitative part of the research on violence against older women that was implemented in Serbia, as well as the research on legal framework related to protection of older women from violence at national, regional and global level. The data received from OSCE processed in this research shows that among women in Serbia aged 65-74, 55.4% experienced some form of gender based violence since they were 15 and 16% had such an experience in the last twelve months.

Natasa Todorovic of the Red Cross of Serbia and Prof. Dr Bojana Matejic of the Medical Faculty of the Belgrade University presented qualitative part of the research. In this part of the project 17 focus group interviews were organised with 157 participating women of younger, middle-aged and older age coming from urban and rural areas of six Serbian municipalities, along with 40 in depth interviews with social workers and staff and volunteers of the Red Cross of Serbia. This data presents the complexity of violence against older women as a phenomenon, demonstrating it is part of the continuum of violence that targets women all their lives and that it is reported only rarely as women fear for their safety, fear losing support and care, fear poverty and also fear that their spouses, children and grandchildren will be criminally prosecuted and may end up in jail.

Dr.in Birgitt Haller of the Institute for Conflict Research presented the part of qualitative research done in Austria showing that violence against older women in this country is to a significant extent a function of existing social norms and that, despite it being present in all parts of the population, risk is higher in the poorer parts of the population and those families where patriarchal relations are a firm part of tradition.

The afternoon sessions of the meeting included group work for Austrian and Serbian participants to discuss and provide recommendations how to change public policy to contribute to evolving social norms. This will contribute to decreasing the risk of violence over the life course and reducing the stigma that prevents women to report violence. At the same time, it is recommended to provide better coordinated system support that will decrease the negative social and economic effects linked to reporting violence.