• 2020-12-09

Vulnerable Groups and the Pandemic

On 9 December 2020, the UN Human Rights Team and the Social Inclusion and Poverty Reduction Unit presented an analysis entitled Impact of the Covid-19 on Vulnerable Groups and Groups at Risk - Causes, Outcomes and Recommendations.

During the discussion of urgent and mid-term recommendations, Nataša Vučković emphasised that this Analysis was exceptionally valuable as it speaks of the real-life situations of groups which are affected by the pandemic and the state of emergency in various ways. “This Analysis discloses the issues in a very specific manner, even to those who deal with human rights and regularly monitor vulnerable groups. For example, how transgender people without any form of ID been even more vulnerable, or how the homeless have been exposed to a lack of drinking water when public fountains were closed during the state of emergency, children with special needs were left without their personal assistants all at once, or how many of those belonging to the LGBT community were exposed to the threat of family violence if they were forced to return to their primary family home due to a loss of employment or flat, etc.” She pointed out that in some form or another, the Analysis should turn into a textbook for primary and secondary schools because "there is too little empathy and knowledge in our society on how to ‘walk a mile in someone else’s shoes’, to imagine how others are feeling and what we can do to help.”

Vučković tied the findings of this Analysis to a study prepared by the FCD this year in collaboration with the UN Human Rights Team entitled The Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on the Position and Rights of Workers in Serbia, and highlighted the necessity of providing special forms of support to frontline workers, those working in the informal sector, social protection institution workers, persons engaged in precarious forms of work, self-employed in micro-enterprises, as well as the need for additional legal regulation of remote work.

Center for Democracy Foundation