Action points based on findings

·         More progress needs to be made to improve the quality and sustainability of services for survivors and other persons with disabilities including by upgrading community-based rehabilitation (CBR) centers.

·         Discrimination based on the cause of disability persisted and needs to be addressed, as certain categories of civilians with disabilities were not receiving adequate assistance on an equal basis with others.

·         The national casualty database should be regularly updated as planned and shared with appropriate actors and government authorities so that the data is used to improve victim assistance coordination and access to services for survivors and other people with disabilities.

Victim assistance commitments

Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) is responsible for significant numbers of landmine survivors, cluster munition victims, and survivors of other explosive remnants of war (ERW) who are in need. BiH has made commitments to provide victim assistance through the Mine Ban Treaty and Convention on Conventional Weapons Protocol V, and has victim assistance obligations under the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Casualties

Casualties Overview

Details and trends

In 2013, the Bosnia and Herzegovina Mine Action Center (BHMAC) reported 13 mine/ERW casualties in BiH: six boys, six men, and one woman. Boys made up half of all civilian casualties.[1] Twelve casualties recorded in 2013 were civilians and one was a deminer. The 2012 casualty total of 12[2] had been significantly less than the 22 mine/ERW casualties recorded in 2011 but was similar to the 14 recorded for 2010.[3]

For the period 1992–2013, BHMAC recorded a total of 8,319 mine/ERW casualties: 1,833 killed, 6,039 survivors, and 447 unknown. From 1997 to the end of 2013, BHMAC recorded 115 casualties among humanitarian deminers.[4]

Cluster munition casualties

BiH reported having identified 230 cluster munition casualties according to preliminary data, out of which 44 civilians were killed and 181 were injured; one deminer was killed and four were injured. The data is not disaggregated by age or sex.[5] At least 86 casualties during cluster munitions strikes were identified in BiH in 1995.[6]

Victim Assistance

There were at least 6,039 mine/ERW survivors in BiH.

Victim assistance since 1999[7]

From 1999–2004, most victim assistance targeting mine/ERW survivors was provided by international NGOs without adequate coordination, often resulting in unsystematic service provision. Until 2003, no overall coordination mechanism existed. As post-conflict funding for NGO efforts began to wane after 2004, so did the international support for victim assistance. In 2009, a centralized database on survivors was developed from data provided by national and international NGOs, but the final database was found to be incomplete and inconsistent.

Medical assistance has been adequate since 2004, despite an overall dependence on international aid as a result of the conflict. Improvements have mainly been made in emergency response services, again due to international donor contributions. During the period, the quality of physical rehabilitation services remained variable, but overall satisfactory, despite incomplete rehabilitation teams, a lack of personnel trained to international standards, and a complex bureaucracy.

Government capacity to finance rehabilitation services has improved since 1999. State-run social centers and a network of CBR centers in 64 municipalities that have been created since 1998 provided psychosocial support as well as physical rehabilitation. These continued to endure a lack of capacity and community awareness. NGOs also provided this type of support.

Persistent gaps in economic reintegration remained during the entire period, partly due to high unemployment in general and unemployment of persons with disabilities at around 85%. Almost all of the economic reintegration activities were carried out by NGOs. However, the two entity governments—the Federation of BiH and Republika Srpska—introduced specific funds for persons with disabilities in 2007 and in 2011. Disability legislation existed but was not sufficiently enforced. Services for disabled military persons and pensioners were better than those for civilians.

Services provided by NGOs decreased from 2009 through the end of 2013, mainly linked with the ongoing decline in international funding.

In 2014, catastrophic flooding affected a significant number of landmine survivors (about half of all known survivors according to early reports) and their families, some of whom lost their homes and other resources. The flooding disrupted victim assistance and other mine action activities, including emergency marking in many of the flooded areas. There was no specific assistance to mine/ERW survivors or other persons with disabilities during the response as the help provided to the affected population was not selective. In media statements, BHMAC urged special attention to the needs of mine/ERW survivors.[8]

Assessing victim assistance needs

The national database maintained by BHMAC includes results of a survivor needs assessment compiled in 2009. Data was available for use by victim assistance service providers on request. However, data lacked detailed information and was not usable for planning or analysis.[9]

Victim assistance coordination[10]

Coordination through the Landmine Victim Assistance (LMVA) Working Group, hosted by BHMAC, primarily consisted of information sharing by victim assistance actors. The main tasks of the LMVA Working Group were to promote the needs of survivors and the coordination, monitoring, and approval of the implementation of those victim assistance projects that received international donor funding. The group was also involved in the approval of statements for international meetings.[11] In 2013, there were three coordination meetings of the LMVA Working Group, as well as several individual meetings, with the aim of improving implementation of assistance to mine/ERW survivors.[12]

In 2013, as recommended by external actors, the Victim Assistance Sub-Strategy 2009–2019 was revised as the Victim Assistance Sub-Strategy 2014–2019, in consultation with survivors’ representative organizations.[13]

There is no body with a mandate to monitor the implementation of the sub-strategy, and NGOs were not actively monitoring it. BHMAC itself does not have a monitoring mechanism to follow the implementation of the sub-strategy and all information related to implementation of the sub-strategy was obtained from voluntary reporting of NGO activities. BHMAC is not authorized to monitor the government activities in regard to the implementation of relevant legislation. However, other actors in the government sector regularly report on the progress of the implementation of legislation.[14]

BiH made a detailed statement on victim assistance at the Thirteenth Meeting of States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty in December 2013. BiH provided information on victim assistance in its Mine Ban Treaty and Convention and Cluster Munitions Article 7 reporting for calendar year 2013.[15]

Participation and inclusion in victim assistance

Mine/ERW survivors and their representative organizations were included in the LMVA Working Group and survivors were included in the implementation of services through NGOs.[16]

Service accessibility and effectiveness

Victim assistance activities[17]

Medical care and rehabilitation

CBR centers continued to provide services to mine/ERW survivors but required renovation, upgrades, and an expansion of the services offered.[18]

Economic and social inclusion

Despite an overall decrease in the availability of economic inclusion activities, a number of projects were implemented in 2013. Economic inclusion projects were implemented by the Center for Development and Support and LSI.[19] The Center for Development and Support and LSI jointly implemented a “best practice model” for the employment of persons with disabilities project in Tuzla Canton.[20] In addition to assisting ongoing peer support beneficiaries, the LSI peer support program also reached 59 previously unassisted survivors for the first time in 2013, 40 of whom had not yet been registered in the national casualty data base. Part of LSI’s 2013 project was small business training focused on female mine/ERW survivors and women with disabilities.

The NGO Hope 87 launched a new e-learning program for mine/ERW survivors in October 2013.[21] In 2013, Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund Deutschland (ASB) began calls for tenders for livestock for mine/ERW survivors through a €1 million project on the socioeconomic empowerment of survivors funded through the European Union’s Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA). In discussion with BHMAC, available information was analyzed on potential beneficiaries in 20 municipalities to be included in the project.[22]

Laws and policies

The National Council for Persons with Disabilities includes 10 representatives of persons with disabilities and 10 representatives of state and entity ministries. NGOs lobbied for improvement and implementation of the legal framework for persons with disabilities. Legislation was reportedly relatively well-regulated but was not actually implemented in practice. No representative organizations of mine/ERW survivors were on the council, though there were representative of disabled veterans organizations and civilian war victims’ organizations.[23] LSI was primarily responsible for building the capacities of the National Council for Persons with Disabilities; activities were finalized in 2013.[24]

The Federation of BiH has a strategy for people with disabilities (2010–2014) and Republika Srpska has a strategy for persons with disabilities (2010–2015). However, the implementation of the entities’ strategies remained weak.[25] BiH’s initial report on the rights of persons with disabilities under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) 2012 noted that “the area of social welfare in Bosnia and Herzegovina is not resolved well, it does not even provide minimum security to citizens and does not define a social minimum for persons with disability either.”[26] Some limited steps were taken in 2013 to harmonize the social protection systems of the Cantons of the Federation of BiH and introduce a social minimum for financial benefits. The implementation of the social protection legislative framework remains weak in both the Federation and Republika Srpska.[27]

Entitlement to rights and benefits for the disabled is still based on status, not on needs. There remained clear discrimination between different categories of persons with disabilities. Persons with disabilities resulting from military service during the 1992–1995 conflict were given a privileged status above civilian war victims and persons who were born with disabilities..[28]

BiH has reported that “Bosnia and Herzegovina with its entities implements standard procedures related to care on persons with disabilities. In these government programs, cluster munitions victims are equal with other disabled people and they receive help that is regulated by legal acts of governmental institutions for this field. Discrimination in this matter does not exist.”[29]

Legislation at all levels prohibits discrimination against persons with disabilities. However, in practice there was discrimination against persons with disabilities in all the areas of employment, education, access to healthcare, transportation, and the provision of other state services.[30] In its initial reporting to the CRPD, BiH reported that “The most important mechanism in protection from discrimination is the Law on Prohibition of Discrimination.”[31] However, the European Commission (EC) reported that the anti-discrimination law is in place but does not include disability as a category for discrimination. The law allows for a broad range of exceptions and only limited steps have been taken to ensure its implementation.[32]

Persons with disabilities faced poor recognition of their rights and needs for accessibility. Physical accessibility is still a major problem in BiH and is not included in the priorities for addressing the challenges faced by persons with disabilities. There are no action plans to address the removal of physical barriers.[33]

BiH has legislation to ensure physical access to persons with disabilities. In the Federation of BiH, the law mandated that all public buildings must be retrofitted to provide access and new buildings must also be accessible. In practice, however, buildings were rarely accessible to persons with disabilities, including several government buildings. Republika Srpska had comparable laws for public accessibility, but few older public buildings were accessible. Human rights NGOs reported that many new public buildings continued to be built without access for persons with disabilities.[34]

BiH ratified the CRPD on 12 March 2010.