On Monday, 5 November 2018, the Fifth Meeting of Children’s Rights Council of the Republic of Serbia was held.   The meeting was attended by Jasmina Miković, Praxis Deputy Executive Director and MODS Management Board President, who is also a member of the Children’s Rights Council, and Saša Stefanović, MODS Director.  

Saša Stefanović, MODS Director, presented the Recommendations for the development and improvement of measures, services and programmes for preventing the separation of children from families or returning of children to the primary family if the separation occurred. These recommendations derived from the conclusions of the national conference "Strengthening the Family - A Look at Opportunities", and the basic message is that existing resources in different sectors should be used to strengthen the family and support the child’s staying in the family.

At the meeting, the Preliminary Draft Law on Child’s Rights and Child Ombudsman was discussed. It was pointed out that this Law contained the provisions confirming all rights of the child and instruments of independent control and protection. Adoption of this Law represents a major step in the improvement, promotion and provision of control over the protection of child’s rights in the Republic of Serbia. Also, by adopting this Law, the Republic of Serbia fulfils its obligations contained in the recommendations from the latest Universal Periodic Review of the state of human rights in Serbia as well as in the recommendations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Action Plan for Chapter 23. A representative of the Ministry of Labour, Employment, Veteran and Social Affairs presented also a plan for further work on the adoption of this Law, expected in the first quarter of 2019.

The Council members were informed about the guidelines and practices of UNICEF-supported Child Friendly Cities Initiatives around the world and the continuation of the project "Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour".

The Universal Children's Day will be celebrated in Serbia on November 20th, under the slogan "Let's Paint It All Blue, for Every Child", and on that day all the most important institutions in Serbia will be lighted in blue as a mark of respect for the rights of children and adolescents, as stated at the meeting of the Children's Rights Council.

Jasmina Miković, Deputy Executive Director of Praxis, presented the main achievements of the project "Contributing to Public Administration Reform in Kraljevo", implemented within the framework of the project Western Balkans Enabling Project for Civil Society Monitoring of Public Administration Reform (WeBER), financed by the European Union and co-financed by the Kingdom of the Netherlands

See the film here. 

The first meeting of the Working Group on Early Childhood Development of the Children’s Rights Council of the Government of the Republic of Serbia was held on 15 October 2018 in Belgrade. The Working Group was established by the Council’s decision of 1 March 2018 in order to coordinate policies at the national level.

The Working Group on Early Childhood Development is chaired by Anamarija Viček, State Secretary in the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development. The Working Group has eight members. In addition to representatives from relevant ministries in the Children’s Rights Council, one of the permanent members is Jasmina Miković from Praxis, MODS Management Board President. Saša Stefanović, MODS Director and Jasmina Miković participated in the first meeting of the Working Group as MODS representatives. 

The first meeting was dedicated to strategic priorities in the field of early childhood development and the method of implementing the Call for Action - Joint Message from the Ministers of the Government of the Republic of Serbia - Support to Children in Early Childhood and Their Families. The possibilities of improving the coordination of the activities of different ministries and other players in the field of early development were also discussed.

In the following period, the Working Group will work to initiate measures for the development of a comprehensive and coherent early childhood policy, including the integration of early childhood support policies in the National Action Plan for Children, as well as to define recommendations for achieving important social indicators in the area of early childhood support.

Why a special body of the Children's Rights Council was established to deal with early childhood development?

Early childhood development is one of the priorities of the Government of the Republic of Serbia, recognised in the key national and international documents such as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the Sustainable Development Goals, the Employment and Social Policy Reform Programme, the Action Plan for Chapter 23 and the Common European Guidelines on the Transition from Institutional to Community-based Care. 

Considering the importance of this developmental period for all individuals as well as the fact that every child has the right to a full realisation of his or her potential, it is necessary to systematically provide holistic and complete support to children and their families. In order to achieve this, mechanisms at the national and local levels should facilitate the coordination of programmes and services. The existing legislative and strategic framework for supporting children in different sectors (health, education, social protection) needs to be consolidated, supplemented and its implementation should be ensured through adequate funding.

In September, the number of refugees/migrants met and interviewed by Praxis’ mobile team did not exceed 450 on a daily basis, including the newly arrived ones, the refugees/migrants accommodated in the Asylum Centre Krnjača and the Reception Centre Obrenovac and those who returned to Belgrade after unsuccessful attempts to cross the Croatian, Hungarian, Bosnian or Romanian border. In this period, Praxis provided assistance to a total of 1727 refugees/migrants, through information, psychosocial support, referrals to the targeted assistance provided by various organisations/institutions or covering the costs of transport to the asylum and reception centres. During this reporting period, up to 58 refugees/migrants were seen sleeping rough in the parks near the Belgrade Bus Station every morning.

Praxis continued its field work and provided a total of 1533 newly arrived refugees and migrants (1021 adults - 912 men and 109 women and 512 children - 457 boys and 55 girls, including 393 potential UAMs - all boys) with information and/or referred them to other organisations/institutions.

On 20 September, Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship Dimitris Avramopoulos and Nebojša Stefanović, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior of the Republic of Serbia, initiated a status agreement that will allow European Border and Coast Guard teams to be deployed in Serbia.

Download the whole Protection Monitoring Report here.

The Paperless People Podcast follows the stories of two Roma families, exploring how policies in Serbia are perpetuating their legal invisibility. Through these stories and expert analysis, it is explored how the UN Sustainable Development Goals may struggle to achieve what they set out to do if the approach to implementation and monitoring does not account for structural discrimination that is too often leaving certain people behind: in this case the Roma in Serbia. 

This podcast series, produced by the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, with the support of the Knowledge Platform for Security and the Rule of Law (Knowledge Management Fund), explores how the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals need to be re-thought in order to effectively address statelessness challenges. 

This episode was created in close partnership with Praxis, a human rights organization based in Serbia. With thanks to Ivanka Kostic and her team.

Music from Blue Dot Sessions and Podington Bear under Creative Commons Non-Commercial Attribution License. 

Listen to this episode here.

The report Contributing to Public Administration Reform in Kraljevo  was prepared as the result of the research conducted by Praxis within the project "Contributing to public administration reform in Kraljevo" in the period from 1 June 2017 - 31 March 2018, as part of  the project Western Balkans Enabling Project for Civil Society Monitoring of Public Administration Reform (WeBER), financed by the European Union and co-financed by the Kingdom of Netherlands.

Based on the conducted research of the transparency of local self-government and the efficiency of local administrative bodies in Kraljevo, as well as monitoring of the application of the Law on General Administrative Procedure, Praxis has established that there is a significant  space for improving the work of local administrative bodies in all areas. 

Despite the efforts made in recent years in the field of public administration reform, both at the national and local level, there is no visible progress in some areas. The most serious gaps have been identified in the area of transparency of the work of administrative bodies, in particular regarding public participation in decision- and policy-making processes, since the participation of citizens and civil society organisations in such processes is almost non-existent. Consequently, discriminatory decisions have been made in several cases indicating the failure of local self-government to respond to the needs of vulnerable groups. Active citizen participation in the decision-making and policy-making process can undoubtedly prevent the adoption of discriminatory and inappropriate decisions and make the work of administration accountable and efficient.  

In addition, it has been established that there is no proactive approach in terms of improving the conditions and creating a conducive environment for the development of civil society at the local level. 

The role of the local media in Kraljevo, as drivers of public debate, is not sufficiently developed in the area of public administration reform, due to both financial instability and insufficiently encouraging environment for reporting on specific topics.

Download the report here.

The Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government believes that there are no reasons to amend the by-laws that hinder birth registration immediately after birth of children whose parents do not possess personal documents. Such an opinion stems from the response which the Ministry sent to Praxis upon the recently submitted appeal to amend the provisions of two by-laws (Instruction on administering registry books and forms of registry books and Rulebook on the procedure for the issuance of birth notification and form of the issuance of birth notification in a health care). Praxis stated in the appeal that these by-laws were in contradiction with the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia, Family Law and ratified international conventions, since many children are left without birth registration immediately after birth.

The Ministry disregarded these arguments in its response, stating that the normative framework enabled every person to be registered in the birth registry books. It also stated that the problems in birth registration were overcome. However, the Ministry did not take into consideration the fact that not only would the children whose parents do not possess documents not be able to get registered in the birth registry book immediately after birth, but also that additional, often lengthy procedures would have to be conducted for them.

In this way, the Ministry disregarded the opinions of many international organizations and treaty bodies which emphasised in their recommendations to Serbia that the children whose parents do not possess documents must be enabled to register in the birth registry books immediately after birth. Furthermore, the Ministry also neglected its obligation stemming from the Operational conclusions from the seminar “Social Inclusion of Roma in the Republic of Serbia 2017”  to ensure the fulfilment of the right to report and register births of children whose parent do not possess personal documents.