Commissioner for the Protection of Equality Brankica Jankovic congratulates the Universal Children’s Day to all children in Serbia, but also reminds that many of them are still exposed to various types of discrimination, from peer to digital and that they also face discrimination and exclusion, primarily children with physical disabilities and developmental difficulties.

„That is why I want to draw special attention to the important role of the local self-governments in providing of additional support of companions for children and pupils with developmental difficulties that they are entitled to by the law. In this respect, Commissioner for the Protection of Equality issued a recommendation to the ministries of education, work and health aimed to amend the rulebook that regulates the engagement of companions for personal help to a child, in order to eliminate all doubts related to this mode of additional support”, stated Commissioner Jankovic.

Having in mind problems that are still present in accomplishing of right to education of children and youth from sensitive groups, Commissioner is working with focus groups for recognizing and reacting to discrimination, within the cooperation with UNICEF, in order to produce manuals for recognizing of discrimination in schools for employees of educational institutions, pupils and parents. Also, the creation of a new platform for the activities of the Commissioner’s Youth Panel Discrimination Busters is underway.

All these activities are aimed at establishing more adequate procedures and prohibition of discrimination in the educational institutions, concludes Commissioner.