BOSNIA GLOBAL GRANT

April 2018 update from Novi Put

From Ada Pehlic, VP Novi Put

Dear Felicia,

Attached I am sending you some photos from our recent events.

The implementation of all activities is ongoing as originally planned. We have an excellent cooperation with all involved project stakeholders due to relevance of the activities.

The prevention lectures were also organized during the reporting period and we are again surprised with the scale of child abuse, especially through internet.

The literacy course for the Roma girls is ongoing, the girls are very motivated and still eager to learn. Our Roma teacher and the assistant organized a play to mark the International Roma day and our Roma girls were very proud to be able to perform in their settlement. Attached you will find some photos from this event, too.

I am very sad to inform you that one of our Roma girls included in the literacy course was raped and there is an ongoing investigation of the case. Her father had sold the rape victim’s sister (how was also minor) to a Roma family but the poor girl was subjected to forced begging and even sexual exploitation by her in-laws and she run away and came back to her parents. However, as the father had spent all the money he had got for the sale of her daughter on gambling he could not reimburse the in-laws and they raped his younger daughter as an act of vengeance. The parents informed our teacher about that and she advised them to go to the police to officially report the act of rape. The Center for social welfare was involved, too and the prosecutor’s office order a crime investigation. However, the rape victim is currently accommodated at the Juvenile facility and not in a safe house! It demonstrates the fact that Roma population has a different treatment. 

Our mentors work with their mentees and they have become like big sisters to them by now. Most of the girls come from very vulnerable families and we are afraid that some of them have been already identified by predators.

As I wrote to you in my previous e-mail, there is an enormous increase of foreign tourists coming to Sarajevo and many of them use commercial sexual services, and preference is given to younger girls. One of our mentee (13 years) coming from a dysfunctional family informed me when I recently monitored the mentoring activity that she personally was offered 10.000 BAM (approx. 6000$ to sleep with a rich foreigner) by a person on fb messenger. Luckily, she got scared and told her mother about that but they did not report it to the police and she deleted the message. This is something we have been warning parents and children about for quite some time as we forecast this trend. We have drug dealers in every block, even in villages in Bosnia and Herzegovina and they can easily identify potential victims from their neighborhoods. Her mentor is working with her regularly. We are afraid that the same offer has been made to dozens of other girls and some of them were tempted to actually accept it. There is on obvious demand for provision of sexual services by minors, probably due to fear from sexually transmitted diseases or some pervert kicks. 

One mentee was raped last summer and her mentor is intensely working with her aimed at empowering her to recover from the trauma. Unfortunately, she cannot get any more professional help as they live in a rural area and mother seem to pay hardly any attention to her, as she had small children with the second husband and the girl’s father lives in Austria. The girl and the stepfather are at odds all the time and we are very worried about her.

We are worried about another mentee due to her behavior which indicates that there is something wrong going on. She lives with the mother and stepfather, and the school councilor is afraid that the stepfather might sexually assault her. The father is a drug addict and she has no support from him.

As I am writing this to you I am again wondering how come those horrible things happen in our country and the only answer I can give is that there is actually neither systematic response nor sufficient interest to tackle those issue, despite the fact that children are those who are mostly affected. In December last year we wrote a letter to the most relevant state and entity institutions informing them about the current situation regarding exploitation of children sexually and for production of pornographic materials, forcing Roma children to forced begging and commission of crimes and so far we had meetings with two institutions, the last one was held just 2 days ago.

During the street campaigns we promote importance of education of girls among parents but also among all girls we encounter throughout the Canton and we raise awareness about all forms of gender based violence happening in the country.

Besides the project activities, I took part at the Second session of the Advisory council in Sarajevo Canton aimed at inclusion of Roma through education, employment and socio-economic support that was held on March 26. The session was attended by a representative of the Ministry for education, culture and youth of Canton Sarajevo, representatives of the Centre for social welfare Sarajevo (CSW), Roma mediators and principals of elementary and secondary schools with high percentage of Roam students in Sarajevo Canton.

The representatives of the CSW and Roma mediators stated majority of non-Roma parents did not want Roma children attending the same classes as their children. The representative of the Ministry stated that even one parent teaching at the University of Sarajevo came to the premises of the Ministry to express his dissatisfaction with enrolment of Roma children in the school attended by his child! It was also stated that a vast number of Roma children has never been enrolled in elementary schools due to lack of any sanitation and thus absence of personal hygiene, as well as due to extreme poverty and the literacy course for Roma girls was mentioned as an excellent example of bridging this gap and giving a possibility for even informal education of such children, especially girls who are often victims of forced begging and child marriages, and even sexual exploitation in the country and abroad. Unfortunately, there will be no proper systematic solution for this issue in the foreseeable future.

At the end of the meeting the representative of the Ministry praised holding of prevention-education lectures for elementary students by Novi put and said the Minister proposed to hold such activities for all elementary schools in the Canton given the importance of the topic.

May update: While the grant funding expires summer of 2018, the mentoring program will continue another 2 years on a voluntary basis.  Novi Put has found a private donor to continue the Roma education portion for another year.