The project “Protecting Children from Violence in Southeast Europe” was funded by the EU with the aim of strengthening capacities of civil society partners to independently monitor cases of violation of children’s rights, and violence against children in particular. The present study was designed to develop a better understanding of challenges faced by systems and service providers in identifying, reporting and responding to violence against children in the four countries covered by the project (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Turkey).
A quantitative survey was conducted on a sample of 171 service providers engaged in the child protection system and 40 in-depth interviews with policy makers and service providers in the field of child protection. Participants from the following key sectors were selected: education, social welfare, judiciarz, police and NGO. It was found that despite the fact that all four countries have developed and/or enforced various policies, protocols and action plans at different levels, they still appear to experience challenges preventing them to properly identify, report and intervene in cases of violence against children. In Serbia, they primarily relate to the lack of s central governmental body tasked to coordinate the implementation of the National Action Plan and insufficient cooperation between different services and sectors.
SeConS wrote the section pertaining to Serbia, giving clear recommendations on how to improve public services, monitoring and complaint systems, and the opportunities in on-going efforts to reform child protection systems that may serve to strengthen the system.