Map source: CIA World Factbook

last updated April 16, 2004

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Gender discrimination is prohibited under the laws of the Republic of Serbia.  Article 13 of the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia provides that, "Citizens are equal in their rights and duties and have equal protection before the State and other authorities, irrespective of their race, sex, birth, language, nationality, religion, political or other belief, level of education, social origin, property status, or any other personal attribute." Article 32 provides that education is to be accessible to everyone under equal conditions, and Article 35 provides for equal access to employment. Article 60 of the Criminal Code punishes any person who violates the Constitutional rights of a citizen based on protected grounds, including gender, shall be punished by three months to five years in prison. 

With regard to sexual violence, Article 107 of the Criminal Code of Serbia criminalizes sexual intercourse or "unnatural lechery" with a female person who is either subordinate or dependent upon him, through the abuse of his position. Punishment ranges from six months to five years in prison. Article 103 of the Criminal Code of Serbia, last amended in 2003, punishes rape, which is defined as sexual intercourse by force or threats to assault a female victim or someone close to the victim. Punishment is a prison sentence between one to ten years. This provision precludes any application to marital rape, as it refers to a female victim, "with whom he does not live in matrimony." Article 104 criminalizes forced sexual intercourse by threatening to reveal something harmful to the victim's honor or by other cruelty and imposes a punishment of one to ten years' imprisonment. Article 105 imposes a prison sentence of one to ten years for sexual intercourse with a helpless person, or someone who suffers from a mental illness, temporary mental derangement, infirmity or other state by which she is incapable of resisting. 

The Serbian parliament has also taken action in the area of trafficking in persons.  Article 111(b) of the Criminal Code of Serbia, last amended in 2003, criminalizes human trafficking by one to ten years' imprisonment. Trafficking is defined as the use of force, threat, deception, perpetuation of deception, abuse of power, trust or of a subordinate position of another to recruit, transport, transfer, surrender, sell, buy, mediate a transfer or sale, conceal or keep another person for the purpose of material profit, exploitation of labor, criminal activities, prostitution, begging, pornography, organ transplantation, or exploitation in armed conflicts. Article 113 also punishes brokering an invalid marriage by three months to three years in prison. Other aspects of trafficking are also criminalized, including coercion (Article 62), unlawful detention (Article 63), kidnapping (Article 64), exploitation of minors for pornography (Article 111(a)), extortion (Article 180) and different forms of sexual assault (Articles 103 to 107).

Compiled from:

Women 2000- An Investigation into the Status of Women's Rights in Central and South-Eastern Europe and the Newly Independent States, International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, 5 November 2000. (PDF, 30 pages).

2003 Country Report on Human Rights Practices: Serbia and Montenegro, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, U.S. Department of State, 25 February 2004.