Council of Europe and National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) Serbia launched a series of workshops for staff of psychiatric and social care institutions on the protection of human rights of persons. The first workshop for employees of the psychiatric clinic “Dr Laza Lazarevic” was held in Belgrade on 23rd May and a second workshop for social care staff from social care institutions in Stamnica and Veliki Popovac took place in Pozarevac on 24th May 2022.
The Serbian Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Labour, Employment, Veteran and Social Affairs are the beneficiaries and co-organisers of the workshops. The participants had the opportunity to get familiar with general and Council of Europe standards for the protection of human rights of persons in psychiatric and social care institutions. They also learnt about the alignment of national legislation with international and Council of Europe standards and CPT recommendations following the latest visit to Serbia in March 2021.
Representatives of the Serbian NPM provided a thorough overview of their mandate and operations, as well as NPM recommendations for psychiatric and social care institutions. Subsequently, this will lead to better understanding of the importance and purpose of NPM visits to these institutions.
Further six workshops will follow until October 2022. All workshops are organised in the framework of the Project “Enhancing Human Rights Protection for Detained and Sentenced Persons in Serbia”, co-funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe and implemented by the Council of Europe within the framework of “Horizontal Facility for Western Balkans and Turkey II”.