Every year, the Republic of Serbia records progress in respecting the rights of persons with disabilities, but these advances are insufficient for the assessment that the position of this vulnerable group in the 21st century is satisfactory to be true, the Protector of Citizens, Zoran Pašalić said today on the occasion of 3 December – International Day of Persons with Disabilities.

He pointed out that the individual's right to live in the community and be included in it, as well as his right to equal choice with other members of the community, derives from the most basic standards of human rights.

With new laws and the ratification of international conventions, the state provides a good normative framework for the improvement of the position of persons with disabilities, but there is still a significant violation of their rights, Pašalić pointed out. He stated that the complaints sent to the Protector of Citizens indicate that the biggest problems arise in exercising the right to education, social and health care, employment, but also the lack of special services and support services in the community.

The Protector of Citizens closely monitors the situation of persons with disabilities and I call on citizens to continue to continue contacting us, and the competent authorities, to effectively solve problems and deficiencies in respecting the rights of persons with disabilities as well as all citizens from vulnerable social groups through good intersectoral cooperation, said Zoran Pašalić.

Improving the normative framework and preventive mechanisms and policies in the area of protection of children from sexual exploitation and abuse in the private sector, as well as educating children and adults about recognizing and protecting themselves from this type of violence, are the best ways to improve the position of children, it was assessed today at the conference "National dialogue on the protection of children from sexual exploitation and abuse".

The conference, which was organized by the Protector of Citizens of the Republic of Serbia and the Network of Organizations for Children of Serbia, was attended by representatives of parliamentary groups and committees in the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, representatives of relevant ministries, state and provincial institutions, city administrations, courts, professional associations, the civil sector, independent state institutions and international organizations.

Opening the conference, the Protector of Citizens, Zoran Pašalić, stated that in recent years, children are the most frequent victims of human trafficking, and that the most common form of their abuse is exactly sexual exploitation.

"The private sector and the economy, especially tourism and catering, represent a critical point where children are at particular risk of sexual exploitation. For an effective fight against the sexual exploitation of children, first of all, changes in normative acts are necessary, but also the engagement of socially responsible companies", Pašalić said.

The Director of the Network of Organizations for Children of Serbia, Saša Stefanović, also emphasized the importance of participation of the private sector and civil society in preventing the sexual exploitation of children through the application of internal norms, through self-regulation and co-regulation, and added that the organization has developed internal policies that are useful to all associations that work directly with children.

The Vice-President of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia and member of the Parliamentary Committee for Children's Rights, Elvira Kovač, presented the parliament's activities on changing the domestic legislation and implementing international conventions in the area of child rights protection, and stated that peer education is also needed in the fight against sexual exploitation.

The Minister for Family Welfare and Demography, Darija Kisić, emphasized that any kind of violence is unacceptable and that in the fight against sexual exploitation of children, prevention is very important, as well as pointing out sexual harassment, which is often a prelude to sexual abuse.

The State Secretary of the Ministry of Labour, Employment, Veteran and Social Affairs, Miomir Đorđević, pointed out that centres for social work are often the first to encounter cases of sexual abuse of children and stated that this topic requires the engagement of several competent authorities and other state actors and expressed the Ministry's readiness to participate in activities to protect children from sexual exploitation.

"Every year, millions of children are exposed to sexual abuse within the family, social community, in sports, at school... Every country has a problem with the sexual exploitation of children, and the only difference is in the approach to solving that problem", said the director of UNICEF in Serbia, Dejana Kostadinova.

Gordana Tiodorović, Assistant Director of the Sector of the Serbian Chamber of Commerce for providing support in the representation and protection of interests of members, said that in Serbia there are companies that implement internal protocols for the protection of children from abuse and that the SCC is ready to support the manner in which the problem of sexual exploitation of children in the private sector is solved, with its engagement.

The Deputy Protector of Citizens for Children's Rights, Jelena Stojanović, presented the activities of this independent institution for the protection of children from sexual exploitation and abuse, as well as preventive work that is being carried out through the Youth Advisory Panel of the Protector of Citizens, in which children and young people learn about children's rights and ways to protect them.

The Deputy Protector of Citizens for Gender Equality, Jelena Stojanović, said today that the competent authorities should make additional efforts to enable elderly women in the countryside, who are poorly visible and socially excluded, to fully enjoy all guaranteed rights, especially in the fields of social protection and health care.

Stojanović pointed out the need to include a wide range of relevant actors at the national, provincial and local level in solving challenges important for the realization of the rights of particularly sensitive groups, as well as civil society organizations, in order to collect as much concrete data as possible about the position of elderly women in the countryside.

At the conference "Protection of rights of elderly women in the countryside through monitoring the implementation of the Revised European Social Charter", which was organized in Belgrade by the Protector of Citizens, Stojanović announced that next year, this independent institution for the protection of human rights will use customized questionnaires to obtain data from relevant local, provincial and national authorities and organizations that deal with the protection of rights of the elderly women in the countryside, in order to obtain a complete picture of the availability and quality of the provision of the help at home and home treatment services.

The Deputy Protector of Citizens for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Elderly, Slobodan Tomić, indicated that the Protector of Citizens, through citizens' complaints, but also in direct contact with the elderly women in the countryside, observed that there is significant room for improvement of their economic and social position, primarily in exercising their social and health care rights, as well as pension and disability insurance rights.

The ultimate goal is to protect the rights of this particularly sensitive group through reporting on the implementation of the Revised European Social Charter as an instrument that proclaims and encourages the full protection and enjoyment of the rights of the elderly, Tomić said.

The president of the "Strength of Friendship – Amity" association, Nadežda Satarić, pointed out that in addition to poverty, discrimination and violence, the main problems faced by elderly women in the countryside are the lack of special services and support services, as well as difficult access to health care facilities.

Satarić stated that the basic characteristics of the position of elderly women in the countryside are social exclusion, invisibility and a lower level of education and insufficient information about their rights, as well as that the degree of enjoyment of economic rights is very low, although they participate in the creation of economic goods.

Speaking about the normative framework for realizing the economic and social rights of elderly women in the countryside, the professor of the Faculty of Law in Niš, Nevena Petrušić, pointed out that Serbia has ratified a number of international treaties for the protection and promotion of rights of the elderly and that it has a good normative framework, but that the problem arises when it comes to its application.

The representative of the Red Cross of Serbia – HumanaS, Nataša Todorović, spoke about the capacities and the manner of organizing the work of civil society organizations that deal with the protection of rights of the elderly women in the countryside, while the researcher at the Institute for philosophy and social theory, Jelena Ćeriman, spoke about the application of a research approach to monitoring the realization of the economic and social rights of elderly women in the countryside.

The conference was organized as part of the activities to raise awareness about the rights of the second generation of elderly women in the countryside, which the Protector of Citizens is carrying out with the support of the Council of Europe, through the project "Strengthening the capacity of the Protector of Citizens in the protection and promotion of economic and social rights, in accordance with the ratified provisions of the Revised European Social Charter, with a special focus on improving the rights of elderly women in the countryside", in cooperation with the organization "Strength of Friendship – Amity".

Today, the Protector of Citizens, Zoran Pašalić, on the occasion of 25 November – the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, called on all women in Serbia who suffer mental or physical violence to be brave enough to report it to the competent authorities and the institution headed by him, and pointed out the necessity of economic strengthening of women victims of violence.

"It is necessary to take measures to economically strengthen women who are victims of violence so that they have the opportunity to leave the abuser after the trauma they have experienced and to lead an independent life. 18 years ago, as a judge of the Misdemeanour Court in Belgrade, I started dealing with the protection of victims of family violence, who, as practice has shown, in a situation where they cannot economically separate themselves from the abuser, return to that vicious cycle of violence", Pašalić said.

Pašalić reminded that at the suggestion of the Institution of the Protector of Citizens, victims of domestic violence were enabled an urgent free examination by a forensic medicine doctor in order to "establish" the evidence and to be able to use the medical report later in court proceedings, which enables adequate punishment for the perpetrator of violence.

"We must work to raise the awareness of the citizens of the Republic of Serbia about zero tolerance for any kind of violence. The most serious consequence of domestic violence is the opening of a new cycle of violence because a person who lives with violence becomes either a future offender or a future victim", Pašalić added.