Tag: LGBT

North Macedonia readopted the Anti-Discrimination Law

Posted on by Milutin

North Macedonia’s parliament adopted the Anti-Discrimination Law, which among other things guarantees protection from gender-based discrimination.

The previous governments led by the conservative right-wing VMRO DPMNE from 2006 to 2017 refused to include sexual orientation in the law. It was then originally passed by the Social Democrat-led majority in 2019. However, the Constitutional Court struck down the law in May this year, to the dismay of LGBT organisations and human rights groups, ruling that it was not passed with a proper quorum in parliament. The Law now passed in parliament with 69 out of 120 members of the parliament supporting it, from both ruling and opposition parties. No MPs voted against it.

Prior to the vote in parliament, the Network Against Discrimination, which comprises many prominent North Macedonian NGOs, criticised the government’s recent decision to dismiss its proposal to add stricter rules for a more transparent and inclusive procedure to elect members of the Anti-Discrimination Commission, which the government said is already part of the law.

The Trust Team established in Montenegro

Posted on by Milutin

One of the goals and tasks of the Strategy for Improving the Quality of Life of the LGBT Community in Montenegro, adopted in 2013, was the creation of a Trust Team consisting of members of the Police Administration and the LGBT community. The main tasks of the team include timely and constructive communication between the LGBT community and the Police Administration, constant monitoring of LGBT people’s safety, finding the best models to address their problems, monitoring the development of a contact network of the police officers working with LGBT community, supporting all activities related to police capacity reinforcement and cooperation with international partners monitoring the LGBT inclusion process.

The new team, formed by the decision of the Minister of the Interior, held its first meeting on 1 July 2019. The Team consists of officers of the Police Directorate, the Ministry of Interior and representatives of non-governmental organizations dealing with the protection of LGBTI persons – LGBT Forum Progress, LGBTIQ Social Centre, Juventas, Queer Montenegro and SPECTRA.

The team noted that non-governmental organizations dealing with the protection of LGBTI rights and the Police Directorate have a continuing quality cooperation and that Tim will ensure that the cooperation in the future period is further enhanced. The previous Action plan needs to be innovated in order to make the activities of the Team more concrete, which will further contribute to continuous monitoring of the issues of LGBTI security, confidence building and solving specific cases of relevance to the LGBTI community.

Coming Out of Unemployment

Posted on by Milutin

Youth workers from five countries: Serbia, North Macedonia, Croatia, Montenegro and Bosnia Herzegovina took part in nine days long training hosted by the Association Rainbow in Serbia (Šabac) from 8 to 16 May 2019, for obtaining adequate knowledge about social entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship in general. The concept of training was developed out of the study visit in Spain and personal years-long experience of the Association Rainbow as the project leader in this field.

Participants also learned how to transfer their knowledge as trainers from experienced trainers and now they are able to disseminate the acquired knowledge and skills further in their countries. This will lead to the domino effect where youth workers continue to transfer their knowledge and skills to others through their own trainings after this project is completed, whereas in doing so we increase the duration for which the aims of this project will be achieved.

The Erasmus + project “Coming Out of Unemployment” is related to raising capacity of youth workers with the aim of acquiring knowledge and skills and also raising their professional competence in working on the economic empowerment of the LGBT population through the development of social entrepreneurship. Populations which are not economically empowered cannot adequately nor in the long run advocate for the practicing of their human rights.

The project participants encompass six organizations from Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina and Spain, which want to share experiences and improve the economic position of LGBT persons and in this way secure the fight for their human rights and sustainability of LGBT NGOs in the long run. Members of these organizations will, through active work, acquire knowledge and skills for practical work and further transferring of knowledge in the field of developing social entrepreneurship, raising capacity and empowering young LGBT persons to become entrepreneurs.

One of the results of the project will be “The Manual on the Development of Social Entrepreneurship” which will provide guidelines for future trainers and help them realize their trainings, thus reaching medium-term and long-term aims of this project.

The concluding activity of the project will be a working conference taking place in Serbia. It will gather 100 participants from partner organizations, public institutions, embassies, the donor community, and the media with the aim of presenting the results of the project and influencing the state policy concerning the economic empowerment of the LGBT population.

More about the project is available following this link>>>

LGBT survey on happiness, sex and quality of life

Posted on by Milutin

The LGBT Foundation and the United Nations (UNAIDS) partnered with the Universities of Aix-Marseille and Minnesota for this quick survey on happiness, sex and quality of life. Aim of the survey is to better understand social and legal environments and amplify voices, concerns and needs of these communities.

The survey is available in 17 languages. It takes 12 minutes to complete it.

You must be at least 18-year-old to perform this survey. Your responses are completely anonymous. You can choose to skip any question you would prefer not to answer.

To contribute to the survey, please follow this link>>>>