At the sitting held on 8 March, the members of the Children’s Rights Working Group adopted the Working Group’s 2011 Work Plan.

The Working Group Chair, National Assembly Speaker Prof. Dr Slavica Djukic-Dejanovic, presented next year’s Work Plan, stressing that part of last year’s activities which had not been realised according to plan will be incorporated into the new work plan. The Speaker stated that the Working Group members have reason to be pleased with their efforts in the past two years which will enable the operation of the new National Assembly working body tasked with children’s rights issues. She said that the Working Group will particularly focus on analysing laws from the children’s rights perspective and hoped for a more intense legislative activity in the sphere in 2011.

With it in mind, Suzana Paunovic from the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy presented the Bill on Social Welfare to the Working Group members and briefly outlined the basic innovations the Bill introduces. The Bill includes solutions already proven in practice and realised via project activities with the help of domestic and international organisations, primarily UNICEF. The changes introduced by the Bill relate to assistance for poor families, especially families with children; raised level of social benefits and a clearer structure of welfare beneficiaries; increased community services; support to foster care; establishment of community service standards; strengthening of control mechanisms; licensing of social welfare experts and better assistance for biological families of children with developmental difficulties.

In the debate on the Bill on Social Welfare, which Judita Reichenberg, Director of the UNICEF Serbia Office also joined, the Working Group members applauded the changes introduced into the sphere of social welfare, shared their opinions on the amendments submitted to the Bill, particularly those enabling support for biological families of children with developmental difficulties. In addition, they stressed that one of the basic problems of social welfare is the families’ lack of information on the rights they can exercise. They listed the difficulties faced by single-parents caring for special needs children, amount of the material compensations granted to the families, foster care, institutional housing of children with developmental difficulties and the need to record the total number of such children. The Working Group members agreed that the list of legal solutions important for children’s rights should be updated on a bi-monthly basis so that the Working Group could analyse them, and appointed deputy Elizabet Paunovic coordinator on the matter.

In the continuation, deputy Elvira Kovacs informed the Working Group members on the progress of the draft law on youth and commended the introduction of informal education into the system, but also pointed out some of the law’s potential flaws. She invited the Working Group members to take part in the drafting of said law.

By the end of the sitting, the Working Group Chair presented some of the other items of the 2011 Work Plan relating to the organisation of public hearings, participation in seminars and conferences, with a particular focus on the presentation of the deputies’ Handbook on exercising the rights of children with disabilities. The Working Group members agreed to request information from the competent institutions on the results of the inclusion process in Serbian schools, and appointed deputy Milica Vojic-Markovic coordinator for it. It was also agreed that she and National Assembly Deputy Speaker Nikola Novakovic be the coordinators of the surveillance process over the implementation of strategies and laws. The Working Group members also agreed to visit two local self-governments in the upcoming period and take part in the regional conference on efficient surveillance and monitoring methods and techniques organised by UNICEF and the Inter-Parliamentary Union, in June of this year.

Following the detailed presentation, the Working Group members unanimously adopted the 2011 Work Plan.

Deputy Elvira Kovacs presented the participation in the work of the PACE Social Affairs Committee which promotes the fight against violence against children that includes all the CE member states and set out some ideas about how the Working Group could join said promotion. She also briefed her colleagues on the process of introducing health education into Serbian schools.