CITIZENS IN A MULTI-ETNIC ENVIRONMENT ARE SAFE

10. July 2015.

Belgrade - Over 88 percent of the population in the multiethnic communities of Medvedja, Prijepolje, Bac and Backa Palanka, feel safe in the place where they live, while more than 50 percent of them feel safer today than they did in the 90s, according to a survey of the Victimology Society of Serbia (VSS).

Within the research, which is part of the project “Encouraging Dialogue in a Multiethnic Society, Including the Empowerment of Victims”, the period from the 1990s to 2013, during which the survey was conducted, was observed.

According to Nikola Petrovic, a researcher at the VDS, out of 1, 423 respondents, 26,9 percent of them stated that they had experienced some form of suffering from 1990 until the time when the survey was conducted.

“The respondents who had faced some form of suffering in the reporting period named a total of 1, 367 incidents or injuring ways of behavior”, said Mr. Petrovic, adding that most of the events, in which the respondents stated that they were injured, were inter-ethnic in nature.

The largest number of victimizations occurred in the 90s, during the armed conflicts in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo and Metohija, while a significantly smaller number of them took place after 2000.

The respondents from Medvedja in a larger measure responded that they had been victimized compared to the respondents from Bac, Backa Palanka and Prijepolje.

Mr. Petrovic added that the findings of the survey indicated the existence of various aspects of uncertainty, such as physical, economic, legal, social and political.

Source: “Danas” daily, “Dnevnik” daily and Coordination Body