Donor: Swedish International Agency for Development Cooperation (Sida)
Duration of the project: April 1996 – May 1997
The adoption of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child coincided with the beginning of a transition period in Yugoslavia. From the legal point of view, the ratification the Convention did not bring changes in the existing law, nor the adoption of new legislation. There is no special act on children in Yugoslavia. The main goals of the project were: to produce a publication on the state of the rights of the child, to collect information on NGOs involved in the protection of the rights of child and to analyse their work, to advocate improvement of legislation, and to monitor the system of protection of the rights of the child.As a part of the project a Round Table debate “The Rights of the Child in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia” took place in Belgrade from 1 to 3 November, 1996, with the following resource persons and topics:
Nevena Vuckovic Šahovic, Belgrade Centre for Human Rights: International Legal Status of the Child and Obligations of FR Yugoslavia; Paulo David, Committee on the Rights of the Child, UN Centre for Human Rights, Geneva, Susan Fauntain, UNICEF, New York, Ricardo Dominice, Defence for Children International, Geneva: The Child in International Law; Dr Milan Paunovic, University of Belgrade Law School, The European Convention on the Exercise of Children’s Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights; Dr Marija Draškic, University of Belgrade Law School, The Child in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia – Children’s Rights in Internal Legislation; Dušanka Lukic Havelka, Assistant Minister in the Ministry for Labour, Veterans and Social Issues of the Republic of Serbia: Protection of the Rights of the Child in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia; Kevin Byrne, UK Save the Children Fund, Dr Ruzica Rosandic, “The Bridge”, Dr Ivan Ivic,”Friends of the Children of Serbia”: Non-governmental Organisations in Yugoslavia and the Protection of the Rights of the Child.
On the basis of research carried out within the project the Centre highlighted the following problems related to children’s rights in FRY: reduced level of protection concerning the right to survival, reduced level of protection concerning the right to development, problems in connection with personal rights as a result of increased nationalist tensions and territorial changes, substantial increase of difficulties related to protective rights, abuse of children, misery of refugee children, lack of special protection of children without families, children of minority groups, inadequate protection from exploitation of child labour and in particular no protection in armed conflicts. Civil and political rights of the child are new in local culture, which is generally characterised by paternalistic and over-protective attitude towards children.
Valuable information was also collected regarding the status of the rights of the child at the national and international level. Fruitful co-operation with many local NGOs, local authorities, international NGOs, courts, judges, social workers and journalists was established. As results of the projects, two books were published:
Prava deteta u svetu i Jugoslaviji (Rights of the Child — National and International Standards), in Serbian. The authors come from different professional backgrounds and represent the wide audience involved in the issue of children’s rights. In addition to the text provided by the co-ordinator of the project, the book contains revised lectures given at the 1996 round table debate and of other texts written specially for the project. The book has been used as a source of information for international organisations, institutes, international NGOs and researchers. It also serves as a manual for all those in Yugoslavia that deal with children’s rights
Rights of the Child. Global and Yugoslav Perspectives, in English. This is a shorter version of the preceding book, containing contributions which are of particular interest to foreign readers.
