Download | PDF - IFSH

4.2 Women’s Centre, Leskovac
The feminist group Women’s Centre has its roots in the citizen protests against the Milosevic
regime in 1999. In 2001 they formed a women’s organisation, the only one in the town of
Leskovac. The Women’s Centre deals with all women’s issues, starting with psychosocial help for
marginalised women.
The centre employs DWP methods to achieve its central aim of providing women with more knowledge
and making them more capable. They have organised a number of projects in collaboration
with WiB, including a library project, wherein members of both organisations read the same books,
and then come together to discuss them. The women try not only to come to a closer understanding
of one another, but also to relate the new material to themselves. In the second phase of the library
project, members prepare four films, which they watch together. They then share their opinions and
experiences of the topic.
4.3 WOMEN in Action, Velika Plana
Women in Action is a women’s organisation that tried to participate in the women movement in
Serbia in 1999. In those days DWP was essential to the organisation’s work, according to the
founding member, Jovanka Brkic. She emphasised that unless DWP work was first completed,
conducting other WiA activities made no sense. She stated, “DWP is a prerequisite for any further
work [to establish the] values which have to be the basis for any activism in women’s movements
and in civil society.” Women in Action organised two conferences on DWP, in 2001 and 2003, in
the framework of the Victimological Society of Serbia. The first tribunal was organised for a vast
public audience. There were also women from refugee camps. In 2001, emotional involvement in
the issue was still very strong. Although it was not very pleasant to listen to so many sad, tragic,
and sometimes horrific stories at the conference, everything ran smoothly and a peaceful
atmosphere was maintained. The Victimilogical Society of Serbia even published the introductory
speeches from the conference in its journal, “Temida”, as part of a volume dedicated to DWP.
4.4 Organisation Impuls, Tutin
Tutin lies in Sandzak, in South Serbia, where the majority of citizens are Bosnian Muslims. The
women of Organisation Impuls include gender aspects of peace politics into their work. In Sandzak
the population experienced a great deal of torture during the 1990s. Because the population is
mainly Muslim, the DWP work done here differs from the work done in Belgrade. Organisation
Impuls thinks that it is too early to work on certain issues or bring up certain questions.
4.5 Esperanca, Novi Sad, Vojvodina
Esperanca is a young women’s peace group from Novi Sad, Vojvodina which was founded in
2004.
As a liberal feminist, Nada Dabic of Esperanca believes that women’s human rights can not be
realised without men. Accordingly, Esperanca carries out its work on two levels: (1) education of
women in feminism, (2) work with the male population, informing them about feminism and showing
them what “women’s needs” are. It should be mentioned here that while almost all the
women’s groups in the area do have male activists, Nada Dabic emphasises Esperanca’s uniqueness
in that its male members are the only heterosexual men in the women’s peace groups. Esperanca
has a lot of contacts with all women’s organisations (not just the peace organisations), including
lesbian organisations, but a number of problems arise when seminars are arranged explicitly for
women. Esperanca works in four fields: promotion of human civil rights, anti-human trafficking,
psycho-social help in cases of direct and indirect violence, and the peace movement. The group is
involved in different activities, especially in DWP. They are unpopular with in media circles, and
have been verbally attacked on numerous occasions. Once, on Vojvodna local TV, they were provoked
several times as the interviewer repeatedly asked, who gave them right to work when they
work against the state? The group has also been attacked physically. When Esperanca organised a
46