Today, the members of the Children’s Rights Working Group visited two high-schools in Novi Sad, participants of the School without Violence programme realised by the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia in cooperation with the UNICEF Office in Serbia.

The students of the Mihajlo Pupin Electrical Engineering School and Pavle Savic Technical School briefed the deputies on the causes of violence among the youth in their communities and activities undertaken to suppress it within the School without Violence programme. They said that violence was more common on the street than at school, and that it was important to involve young people who had themselves been perpetrators of violence and managed to handle it in the suppression of violence.

The Working Group members presented the competence and work of the Working Group and the Children’s Rights Committee that is yet to be created. They also talked about how they can help improve the position of children and young people, primarily in education.

National Assembly Deputy Speaker and Working Group member Nikola Novakovic stressed that, among its priorities, the Working Group lists monitoring activities aimed at fighting violence in the society as a whole, particularly among children and young people. That is why a direct and open dialogue with the young people participating in the suppression and reaction to instances of violence in schools is invaluable for the deputies’ efforts. He reminded them that the National Assembly, in addition to its legislative role, has a representative and supervisory role as well, and that visits to local communities and meetings with representatives of local authorities, the youth and children, provide the deputies with an opportunity to learn about the implementation of certain laws, primarily the Law on the Basis of the System of Education and Upbringing.

The high-school students and representatives of student parliaments and youth teams pointed out that it would be useful to develop more comprehensive youth programmes in the local communities which would include sports, music and other modern types of expression among the youth so that they may steer them into a positive direction. In addition, the young people urged the deputies to persuade the representatives of the local communities to focus more on their problems.

Deputies Gordana Comic, Meho Omerovic, Zlata Djeric, Nikola Krpic, Elvira Kovacs, Snezana Sedlar and Milan Stanimirovic, as well as Provincial Secretary for Education Zoltan Jeges took part in the meeting.