The 'missing babies' scandal

By Ana Jankovic Jovanovic, Legal Adviser at Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights

Background

Decades ago, over two thousand couples in Serbia lost their babies. The national authorities provided no information about the disappearances, stating only that the babies died shortly after birth. Since 2002, several groups of parents with similar cases have banded together to compare documentation to uncover the truth. Unfortunately, the long painful struggle of these parents continues.

On their path to learning the truth about their babies, the parents requested funeral companies to provide registries which would help them know whether their children had been buried. In general, the companies provided written answers that the supposedly deceased children never reached the cemeteries from hospitals or maternity wards and had not been buried or cremated. This information led to the parents’ continued search, deepening their belief that the children are still alive.

The national health institutions in turn informed the parents that there were no medical records about their babies, stating that the records had been destroyed by floods or fires. The official state registers of birth and death, which are required by law to keep documentation indefinitely, refused to disclose any information about the babies. Thereafter, the parents informed the Department of Administrative Inspection in the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government, who investigated the case and declared that there had been omissions and deficiencies in the work of the state registers. Unfortunately, no further steps were taken by the Department. Eventually, the parents of the missing babies filed criminal charges, but they were dismissed due to lack of evidence or expiration of statutes of limitation.

The facts behind the disappearances

The ongoing suffering of more than 2,000 parents in Serbia is evident by the facts, including the following:

• the missing children were declared dead by the issuance of death certificates without any other proof of death;

• the parents were not allowed to take over the bodies of their children, instead being told that it was the responsibility of the hospital;

• there are no graves because there are no corpses of the babies;

• the parents were given the moulds of corpses after falsified autopsies, whereupon no analysis was provided confirming the children’s’ death;

• in most cases, it was the first-born child of a young married couple which disappeared;

• the disappearances took place mostly on weekends;

• the same doctors appear in many of these cases over the years; and

• when there were twins, the healthier twin allegedly died.

All of this led the parents to suspect the work of individuals or a well-organized criminal group and everyone believed that the national authorities would investigate the cases seriously and adequately. This was especially the case after the judgment by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in 2013 in the case of Zorica Jovanovic v Serbia. Since 2001, there have been numerous media articles in Serbia on missing babies. But until the Jovanovic judgment, those cases were never taken seriously by the relevant national authorities.

The case of Zorica Jovanovic v Serbia

Ms Zorica Jovanovic gave birth to a healthy baby in a state-run hospital in October 1983. After several days in the hospital for a regular birth recovery, she had frequent contact with her child. One day she was informed by the doctor that her baby had died without any further information on the cause of death.

In March 2013, the ECtHR adopted its judgment in the case of Zorica Jovanovic v Serbia, which became final on 9 September 2013. The ECtHR concluded that “the applicant has suffered a continuing violation of the right to respect for her family life on account of the respondent State’s continuing failure to provide her with credible information as to the fate of her son.”

In addition, as there is a significant number of other potential applicants involving claims of missing babies, the ECtHR ordered the national authorities to provide individual redress to all parents in similar circumstances to Ms Jovanovic by establishing a mechanism which can provide credible answers regarding the fate of each child and award adequate compensation as appropriate.

Current Status

As of December 2019, it is 6 years since the adoption of the Zorica Jovanovic v Serbia judgment even though the ECtHR called for a one-year implementation period which expired on 9 September 2014.

A draft law is scheduled to come before the Serbian Paliament in late 2019. However, according to NGOs monitoring the case, this law is deficient. The main reason for this is that it only formally aims to fulfil its obligations stemming from the ECtHR judgment. More specifically, the Draft Law prescribed that an investigation should be done using non-litigation court procedure. According to members of Serbian civil society, this would not allow for the conduct of adequate investigations, for example in obtaining biometric and biological samples.

EIN Activities

Two EIN members closely monitor this case: the Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights and the Association for the Protection and Legality of Serbia. Members of these organisations have attended EIN training and regularly submit monitoring reports to the Council of Europe, along with EIN partner ASTRA. The case has also been the subject of an EIN briefing to the Committee of Ministers.

Update as of March 2020, drafted by EIN:

Working with parental associations, the three EIN member/partner organisations conducted a sustained campaign of advocacy in Serbia and the Council of Europe (CoE). In Belgrade, this included television appearances, public protests, and parliamentary advocacy. In Strasbourg the case was presented at an EIN briefing, and written submissions were made to the Committee of Ministers (CM) with the benefit of EIN training to authors and/or EIN advice on the drafts. The Council of Europe (CoE) gave the case the highest priority of supervision.

As of March 2020, after 7 years of extensive lobbying, a special law was passed to ensure thorough investigations into the disappearances. EIN members will closely monitor the implementation of the legislation. 

Useful Links

• Summary of Implementation on Hudoc-Exec