There are 2,000 child marriages in Serbia each year, It is feared that the number is even higher, because the statistics do not include persons under the age of 16, as a marriage before that age is prohibited by law, nor under-age common law marriages. Such marriages are a vicious cycle of poverty, illiteracy, family and social violence.

Whenever any of my friends returns from abroad, especially from the US, they keep talking for days and days about the bagel they ate there, fantastic bagel, the best, which, as such, does not exist anywhere else in the world. All the TV series, in which groomed lawyers are chewing a delicious, creamy bagel with coffee for breakfast, while rushing to a meeting with a client, and my pathetic attempts to make them myself... All this has come to an end, because (for a year now) I have been smothering myself in bagels in the middle of Belgrade. Salty, sweet, wholemeal.

In Belgrade, on April 21, 2016, within the UN Population Fund Regional Initiative, a Working Group for Gender Based Violence, consisting of representatives from ministries, UN agencies and civil society organizations was established.

Within the project “Improving the protection of unaccompanied minors in the region” which NGO Atina carries out together with the Permanent Mission of France to the UN and other international organisations in Vienna, a two-day training was held in April for the representatives of the Association for the Social Support of Youth - Arsis from Greece and the Association for action against violence and human trafficking - Open Gate: La Strada from Macedonia, which are in their own countries engaged in providing direct support to the refugee population.

Russian prima ballerina, Irina Kolesnikova, visited refugee camps in Tabanovce, Preševo and Krnjača and announced a new version of “Carmen” of the St. Petersburg Ballet Company, which seeks to highlight the problems of refugees in Europe. With the support of the international humanitarian organisation Oxfam, Kolesnikova wants to show how the answer to one of the biggest crises in Europe can also be provided through art, and she will, together with the choreographer of the St. Petersburg Ballet Company, set up a new “Carmen”.

Within the project “Local support for the most vulnerable refugees”, which is implemented by the Association Atina in cooperation with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), on April 14 2016 a meeting was held in Vranje with representatives of relevant institutions and organisations from Vranje and Preševo, i.e. actors who are involved in solving the problem of refugee crisis and providing assistance and support to the most vulnerable among them - those who have experienced human trafficking and gender-based violence.  

In March 2016, Association Atina organized two two-day trainings for a total of 21 employees from Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières - MSF) engaged in providing direct assistance to the refugee population in Serbia.

We are pleased to launch the report Women Refugees at Risk in Europe prepared by Nobel Women's Initiative.

Tennis star Novak Djokovic has thanked the Duchess of Cornwall for taking the time to visit one of the projects supported by his foundation.

The world number one player took time out of his busy schedule to record a video message for the Duchess which was played when she visited the Zvecanska Centre in Belgrade, Serbia.

Camilla was at the centre as part of a six-day tour of the Balkans with the Prince of Wales, and she met representatives of Unicef and the Djokovic Foundation who have been providing family outreach workers.

Belgrade non-governmental organisation Atina has been fighting against human trafficking and all forms of gender-based violence since 2004, and dedicates a special place in their programmes to the assistance to refugees, and the protection and advocacy, especially of women and children refugees. In Kontrola leta, we talked with Jelena Hrnjak from NGO Atina.