Alternative CEDAW Report of Civil Society Organizations in Bosnia and Herzegovina for the Period from 2019 to 2023 provides an overview of national legislation, administrative rules and procedures and practices, but also identifies obstacles in the enjoyment of women’s human rights and offers insight into the actual state of gender equality in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Activists from various civil society organizations participated in the creatin of the report, and the preparation and drafting of the report was coordinated by the organizations Rights for All and the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Banja Luka.
The alternative report basically follows the general structure of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Each chapter ends with concrete recommendations, which are defined based on the analysis of the situation in the selected areas.
Reporting on individual areas is based on desk analyzes of laws and other relevant documents, but also on a systematic review of available relevant data. This approach facilitated the identification of problems and the formulation of well-founded and concrete recommendations. The analysis, of course, also included pointing out the need for adequate gender-responsive statistics. Also, where necessary, the authors once again drew attention to the previous recommendations of the CEDAW Committee, to which the state still has not fully responded in an adequate manner.
When creating the Report, special care was taken to ensure an intersectional approach, and in each of the thematic areas, attention was drawn to the specific positions of multiple marginalized groups of women. In addition, in all stages of the creation of the Report, the transparency of the process itself was taken into account, and a special emphasis was placed on the inclusion of activists from organizations that deal with the issues of multiple marginalized groups of women.
Activists from all over Bosnia and Herzegovina participated in the preparation of the report: Adrijana Hanušić Bećirović, Aida Ćosić, Aleksandra Petrić, Amina Dizdar, Prof. Dr. Amila Ždralović, Amra Kadrić, Biljana Savičić, Dženana Alađuz, Gordana Vidović, Larisa Kovačević, Maida Omerćehajić, Medina Mujić, Meliha Sendić, Mirsada Bajramović, Tanja Mandić Đokić and Željka Umićević.
The creation of the report was supported by the Swedish Foundation Kvinna till Kvinna.
You can download the report here.
