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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Caring for safety of children task for whole society

Subotica, 27 September 2019

Prime Minister Ana Brnabic announced today that the government of Serbia is open to cooperation with all relevant domestic and international institutions, as well as with civil society, in order to improve the safety of children in our country.

Brnabic, opening the fourth expert conference on child safety "Security and Accountability" in Subotica, organised by the "Tijana Juric" Foundation, called on the founder of that foundation, Igor Juric, to discuss next week the introduction of the "Amber alert" public address system for missing children.

It is a warning system when there is a realistic assessment that a missing child is at risk of life and is one of the intensive and public search mechanisms that in practice results in finding missing or abducted children.

She pointed out that there is an increasing number of reported cases of peer violence, noting that specialised teams, associates of the Ministry of Education are working to combat it, and that there is also cooperation with organisations such as UNICEF or Save the Children.

We strive to learn from the best examples from abroad and to always be open to specific suggestions and will continue to work on it. It is good that we finally talk openly about the topic of peer violence and acknowledge that we have a problem. We have examples that the problem is escalating so that someone loses their lives, the Prime Minister said.

She pointed out that in such cases only families, schools or ministries could not be blamed, but, as she said, it was a problem of the whole society.

Every child should be a topic for all of us, Brnabic said, adding that the Government of Serbia completed the Mental Health Programme from 2019 to 2026 in December last year and is now working on an action plan.

Igor Juric emphasised that it is very important to start the search for missing children immediately and that the introduction of the "Amber alert system" is therefore significant.

EU Delegation to Serbia Noora Hayrinen stressed that the EU is keen to follow developments in this area and outside the Union, stating that they have invested around €100,000 in child safety projects.