Tanja Ignjatovic

"Children are not sufficiently recognised as victims in the context of gender-based violence because it is not sufficiently recognised how violence affects children's emotional, physical, psychological development, their behaviour and the process of socialisation," Padejski Sekerovic told BIRN.

Serbian civil rights activists have raised their voices against the possible formation of a special body, that could include priests, that would advise women on abortions, after Serbia's Demography Minister, Slavica Djukic Dejanovic, hinted at such a plan in an interview. Later she said she had been misunderstood.

The Autonomous Women's Center said on Thursday that the MPs' refusal to support an amendment to the Police Act which would allow perpetrators of domestic violenceto be removed from the family home was symbolic of wider misogynistic attitudes in Serbia.

A new report by the NGO coalition PrEUgovor says Serbia has made little progress in addressing the issues in Chapters 23 and 24, which are the most important chapters in Serbia's accession negotiations with the EU.

The only real progress was observed in terms of normalization of relations between Serbia and the former province of Kosovo.