On 17 October at the National Assembly House, commemorating the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, the National Assembly Committee on Labour, Ex-Servicemen’s and Social Issues organised a roundtable on “Human Dignity in the Face of Poverty”. Deputies, representatives of the Serbian Government, UN Development Programme in Serbia (UNDP), UNICEF in Serbia, non-government organisations and civilian society participated in the work.

On the behalf of the host, the Committee on Labour, Ex-Servicemen’s and Social Issues, the gathering was opened by Meho Omerovic, the Committee Chairman, who stated that the United Nations declared 17 October (Paris 1987) International Day for the Eradication of Poverty and that on that day the whole world symbolically expresses its dedication to the struggle to eradicate extreme poverty and inequality. In addition, this year also commemorates the 60^th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Poverty does not merely mean hunger and malnourishment, impaired health, lack of education and homelessness, it also means exclusion from social life and decision-making and above all, undermined human dignity, Meho Omerovic stressed.

Greeting the participants of the gathering, the Speaker of the National Assembly Prof Dr Slavica Djukic-Dejanovic reminded them that the parliament has been commemorating this important date for five years thus “contributing to the struggle against the most horrible and painful misfortune that afflicts humanity and to which we must not turn a blind eye”.

The Speaker of the National Assembly pointed out that poverty in the world is growing and worrying, and the gap between the rich and the poor is deepening. The shocking fact that more than a billion people in the world live on less than a dollar a day testifies to it, as well as that 11 million children die every year, and as many as 6 million children die from curable diseases, more than 800 million people are hungry, and every 3.6 seconds a person dies of hunger. Poverty pervades all segments of life, degrades us and puts us in a humiliating position and undermines basic human rights and dignity.

Speaker Djukic-Dejanovic pointed out that in the last five years the number of poor people in Serbia has been halved and reduced to half a million, which is an encouraging fact, but still a lot of people live below the poverty line. The most endangered categories are children, persons over 65 years of age, refugees, internally displaced persons, women, disabled persons, the unemployed and Roma.

Member of the Poverty Reduction Committee and the Committee on Interethnic Relations and President of the Roma National Council, deputy Vitomir Mihajlovic said that since Serbia is chairing the Decade of Roma Integration 2005-2015 this year, it has special obligations concerning their speedier social integration stemming from it. He spoke of the difficult position and problems that Roma, as one of the most endangered social groups, face. On the behalf of the Deputy Prime Minister’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Implementation Team, the participants were addressed by Tanja Jankovic. She spoke of the measures undertaken by the Government in the previous period which have brought about the reduction of the number of poor people in Serbia, but pointed out that in countries in transition, women are particularly endangered.

Director of the UNICEF Office for Serbia, Judita Reichenberg, talked about children’s rights and children’s dignity stressing that every fifth child in Serbia is either poor or on the brink of poverty. Those children have been denied the right to development, health, education and healthy socialisation. Judita Reichenberg emphasised that poverty is a negation of opportunities for development and negation of human dignity.

UN Resident Representative in Serbia, Coordinator of the UN Development Programme in Serbia, David Lance Clark talked about the anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. He gave a positive estimate of the Government’s activity on the reduction of poverty in Serbia, but said that the conditions are far from ideal and that the same social groups are still endangered.

The UN Development Office Representative drew particular attention to the difficult position of Roma and stressed that the UN is ready to help Serbia on the national and local level, in order to aid their speedier social integration.

Afterwards, representatives of certain marginalised groups – Roma, internally displaced persons, refugees, talked to the participants of the gathering about their troubles.