http://www.javno.com/en/world/clanak.php?id=25288
Bosnia-Herzegovina: Fathers Have United and Want Their Rights
They want to break stereotypes and gain equal rights in children up bringing

By Tatjana Ljubic

March 9, 2007, Javno World Service (BiH)---In Bosnia and Herzegovina divorced fathers have united for the first time to seek their rights. The initiative was launched through web portal otac.ba by a foreigner, whose parents are in Sarajevo.

From San Francisco to Sarajevo
Morgan Sowden, a British citizen who grew up in Milan, is father of two children: a seven year old son and a five year old daughter. They were born in the United States, where he and his wife, BiH citizens, had moved.

'My wife took the children from San Francisco where we lived to Sarajevo for a holiday,' said Mr Sowden. 'After two weeks she phoned me and said, "Our marriage is over, I am not returning to the States."

'What could I do? I tried, according to the Hague Convention of civilian aspects of international abduction of children, which BiH signed, to report kidnapping. But my lawyer advised me against it, because the judiciary in BiH is very slow, and the convention can be applied only within the first year,' Mr Sowden said, .

He then decided to leave everything behind and come to Sarajevo. He sold the house, his company and moved to BiH in order to be close to his children. He sees them couple of hours after school, he furnished their rooms in his flat, but their beds remain empty.

'I pay for their schooling; I moved here and centred everything round them. I wish they would sleep over at my place, but their mother would not let them. I take them on vacation when she allows it, but I have to fight for every minute spent with them.'

Prejudices built in the system
It has been three and a half years since he returned to BiH, but still the date for the first hearing in his divorce proceeding has not been set. He will demand joint tutorship, because he thinks he has a right to it.

'The entire system is not fair, it has built-in prejudices,' said Mr Sowden. 'When I visited social institutions and said I wanted tutorship, they laughed at me. Mother will get the child. Only if she is a drug addict she will not. After four years of honesty and fair play, and a hope for understanding from legal and social workers, not much hope was left to me and my children that they will allow us to be together as much as we deserve.'

This is why he decided to make a web page www.otac.ba, which is a beginning of the initiative that fathers in such a situation should unite, help one another, share information and fight for equal rights. They gather three times a month over a drink, where they talk about their problems.

Adam Boys, also a foreigner, sees his children once a month. The children live with their mother in Belgrade and he is on good terms with her.

'The law is discriminating fathers. It is a system which judges father's love. I want to break the cycle in which fathers are judged as incapable of loving their children. How can a social worker order it?' Adam asks.

I want to be a father, and not a bank
Ranko Milanovic from Sarajevo has a girl, who is seven and a half, and he saw her only twice in the last two years. His wife took the child to Germany.

'She phones me and says, come in three days time to see the child,' said Mr Milanovic. 'But that is so rarely. I cannot influence the upbringing of my child, I cannot see her. I am content with the fact that she is progressing, but she is progressing without me, I cannot contribute to that upbringing, apart from the financial aspect.

'I wish to contribute as a human being, and not as a bank,' says the embittered Mr Milanovic.

Fathers who wish to participate have it tough
It is true that a great number of fathers do not wish to participate in any other way, and that you rarely find fathers who wish to be present in the child's upbringing as much as possible. They have it tough though, they say in the Council for BiH Children, which an advisory body in the Ministers' Council.

'Some neglect their role, it is a fact, not to mention the support, but the fact remains that fathers who would wish to take part in the upbringing of their child are often prevented in it by their partners, who withdraw the child from them. It is a practice that only one parent has a dominant role, and that both parents' needs should be met; the fact is that BiH courts most often give custody of a child to only one parent, while the other vanishes,' said Saliha Duderija from BiH Council for Children.