The degree of respect for the rights of the elderly, discrimination and violence against the elderly, as well as whether they recognize and how they react to violence, were all topics talked about at today's workshop in Aleksandrovac, organized by the association "Strength of Friendship – Amity" from Belgrade and the Protector of Citizens for the elderly local population and representatives of the local health centre.

The participants of the workshop stated that the biggest problems of the elderly in Aleksandrovac were difficult access to health care services, lack of the service of housewives for the elderly and the service of the home for the elderly. As they state, violence against the elderly is present, but it is rarely reported due to the rooted stereotypes and prejudices, as well as that better cooperation with the Centre for Social Work and the local self-government is needed.

Borjana Peruničić from the institution of the Protector of Citizens pointed out that this institution can initiate changes in regulations, but that it also handles individual cases on citizens' complaints or on its own initiative, and called on senior citizens to contact the Protector of Citizens if they believe their rights are endangered.

Nadežda Satarić from the association "Strength of Friendship – Amity" pointed out that research shows that in Serbia, most elderly people feel discriminated against primarily in access to social and health care services and public services, and every fifth person has experienced some form of violence. Violence among the elderly is still treated as a family matter, so it is not necessary to seek protection for the victims. The most common is psychological and economic violence, as well as neglect. Satarić added that in the previous year, every third woman killed was over 60 years old.

The event was realized within the project "Improving the security of women in Serbia", implemented by the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), in cooperation with the Ministry of Interior of Serbia and with the support of the Norwegian Embassy in Belgrade.

Today, the Deputy Protector of Citizens for Children's Rights and Gender Equality, Jelena Stojanović, greeted the future educators of the summer school of the Protector of Citizens "Learn Your Rights", which is being held within the project "Children to children – know your rights", funded by the Bulgarian Development Aid. The training will be held in the next three days by the selected educators and the employees of the Sector for the Rights of the Child of the Protector of Citizens.

Future educators, youth advisory panellists of the Protector of Citizens will get to learn about the skills of public communication, that is, public appearance, the challenges and the role of children and youth in the media, violence on the Internet, as well as about the content and the essence of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, in order to educate their peers about their rights in the most successful way possible.

The training is conducted in compliance with the principle of participation and implies creating conditions so that the voice of children and youth can be heard, which the Protector of Citizens strongly promotes, in order to encourage children and youth to raise issues of importance for improving their position in the Republic of Serbia.

Acting on his own initiative, and based on information from the media that one person in Čačak was suspected of killing three members of his family, the Protector of Citizens launched a control investigation into the legality and regularity of work of the General Hospital and the Centre for Social Work in that city, as well as the Ministry of Interior of the Republic of Serbia.

The Protector of Citizens asked the hospital in Čačak to inform him within 15 days whether members of this family have previously reported any form of violence, whether this was indicated in the doctors' findings and whether and when the attending physicians reported the suspected violence to the competent institutions (the police, the CSW, prosecutor’s office).

The Centre for Social Work in Čačak should inform the Protector of Citizens within 15 days whether they were aware of the situation in this family, whether the family is on the records of the Centre and on what basis, whether there have been reports of violence in the previous period and which activities has the Centre, in cooperation with other authorities, undertaken in order to provide adequate support and protection to potential victims of domestic violence.

The Protector of Citizens asked the Ministry of Interior to inform him within 15 days about the actions in this particular case and about the possible previous reports of violence in this family, about the achieved cooperation with the CSW, the prosecutor's office and other authorities, as well as about the activities that the police have undertaken in order to provide adequate support and protection to potential victims of domestic violence.

Having in mind the obligation of all state authorities to undertake activities and exchange information in order to protect the rights and freedoms of all citizens, the Protector of Citizens, in the spirit of good cooperation, asked the Basic Court in Čačak to inform him on whether any criminal proceedings are being conducted against the person suspected of having killed three family members in that city, whether he was convicted and whether any security measures were imposed on him.

After the reaction of the Protector of Citizens regarding the protection of rights and freedoms of national minorities in the Republic of Serbia, the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technological Development requested the publisher of Serbian language textbooks for the eighth grade of primary school to change the contentious part of the content related to the names of South Slavic languages by mid-May 2022.

Further to the complaint filed by the Croatian National Minority Council, the Protector of Citizens launched an investigation to control work legality and regularity of the Institute for the Improvement of Education and the competent Ministry and found that the contentious textbook states that Croats, Bosnians, and Montenegrins use the Serbian language but name it Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin.

Considering that such a definition denies the existence of national minority languages, which is contrary to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages ratified by the Republic of Serbia, especially since the Croatian and Bosnian languages are in official use in our country, the Protector of Citizens, in the recommendations for rectifying the shortcomings, requested the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technological Development to withdraw this textbook from the use by the beginning of next school year.

In the notification on acting upon the recommendations of the Protector of Citizens, the competent Ministry explained that the Institute for the Improvement of Education issued guidelines to all publishers of those textbooks laying out that the change in the part of the content in Serbian language textbook for eight-graders should be carried out as a narrative explanation of South-Slavic languages division, with no table or list.

The competent Ministry further states that the Institute gave the publishers the deadline until 15 May 2022 to submit the request for establishing that the new edition of the approved textbooks contains the corrections and that the publisher was asked to supplement all copies of these textbooks that are still on the market with a correction of the published text in the form of a printed corrected page enclosed to the existing page in the textbook.