The topic of the seminar was “How to make children’s rights a reality for the most vulnerable children” – i.e. children from the most underprivileged groups under 3 years of age.

The conference gathered parliamentarians from 10 countries – Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Armenia.

The panelists comprised distinguished UNICEF, Council of Europe and IPU experts and the Norwegian Ombudsman. Judita Popovic addressed the conference as a panelist on the first day of the seminar, presenting Serbia’s experience in the field. Milica Vojic Markovic spoke on the second day, presenting the legal solutions Serbia uses to combat violence among the most vulnerable groups of children under 3 years of age, and also on the third day, after the adoption of the joint recommendations of the gathering, when she informed the parliamentarians on the behalf of the Serbian delegation what Serbia intends to do regarding the recommendations (Serbia has already completed most of what makes up the essence of the recommendations).

The address of our delegation was followed by a discussion in which Serbia was said to have accomplished a great deal in the field of children’s rights protection and has set up a series of good legal solutions. The creation of a permanent parliamentary working body to address children’s rights and play an important role in supervising the work of the executive government was also emphasised as a good solution.

Visits to an experimental school implementing the principle of inclusion and day care centre for children from vulnerable categories were extremely important for the delegation members, as they enabled them to see clearly how much effort Armenia puts into the fight for the rights of children from all vulnerable groups.

At the close of the conference, the parliamentarians adopted an outcome document in which they committed to a number of actions including to:

• Strengthen or develop parliamentary mechanisms to address children’s rights and support the establishment and functioning of an ombudsperson for children
• Invest in early childhood development as a priority, prevent institutionalisation of children under 3 years of age, and invest in quality alternative care and support.