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The 30th Anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child: „Rights of the child in Serbia – Where we are and where we want to go“

21.11.2019.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child has played a central role in improvement of  lives of children around the world. This year we marked its 30th  anniversary by organising a conference on 20 November 2019 titled: „Children’s rights in Serbia – Where we are and where we want to go“. The conference was organised jointly by the Council of the Rights of the Child of the Republic of Serbia and the Child Rights Centre.

In light of the above, this year’s conference was an opportunity to take stock of what has been achieved so far in Serbia with regard to children’s rights, as well as to look ahead and identify priority areas for our joint work on strengthening the rights of the child.

The conference was opened by Prof. Slavica Đukić Dejanović, President of the Child Rights Council of the Government of Serbia, Suzana Paunović, Director of the Office of Human and Minority Rights of the Government of Serbia, Regina de Dominicis, Deputy Representative of UNICEF Serbia and Yngve Engstroem, Head of Cooperations, European Union Delegation to the Republic of Serbia.

The opening remarks were followed by three panel discussions with the aim to present the report prepared by the Coalition for Monitoring the Rights of the Child in the Republic of Serbia: „Halfway through – What has been done so far and what lies ahead of us“ and highlight gaps and challenges in particular in the areas of child participation, violence against children and justice for children. Several experts and practitioners shared their opinon on what priority areas for future work we should concentrate on in future. Apart from professionals in the systems of justice, social welfare, education, health care, civil society sector and academia, children took an active role in all conference panels.

The participants also had an opportunity to get acquainted with the main findings of the Report on the State of the Right of the Child to Protection from Online Sexual Abuse and Exploitation, prepared by the Child Rights Centre. The report, among other things, pointed out at certain shortcomings of the legislative and strategic framework, and also gave recommendations for its improvement.

The conference was organised in the context of the project “Child Rights in Policy and Practice” implemented by the Child Rights Centre in partnership with the Save the Children International, funded by the Government of Sweden.