In her address at the opening of the conference, the Deputy Chairperson of the Committee on the Rights of the Child Zagorka Aleksic stressed that the prevention and preclusion of all forms of violence that involves children is a priority of the Committee’s activities and with it the monitoring of the work and results of the "I'll keep you safe" platform. “As we all know, the rights of the child are guaranteed by the Constitutions of the Republic of Serbia and founded in the Convention on the Rights of the Child and a whole series of international human rights documents that have been ratified by the Republic of Serbia. Peer violence is a serious challenge that modern society is faced with”, Aleksic said.

She highlighted the deeper underlying causes to peer violence, such as the lack of adequate emotional support or domestic problems, which is why it is vital to nurture family values, tolerance and non-violent conflict resolution. “We share the same goal, to inform the children and their parents about the legal recourses and help define the role and responsibility of students as well as teachers, pedagogists and psychologists in the application of violence prevention procedures and practices. Mobilising all the available resources and combating violence against children is an important step for our society because the child protection system can be successfully improved only with concentrated efforts of all the subjects and by advancing normative and institutional prevention mechanisms”, said the Deputy Chairperson of the Committee on the Rights of the Child.

Zagorka Aleksic stressed that the National Assembly and the Committee on the Rights of the Child will continue to contribute to the creation of legal preconditions for the additional improvement of children’s rights in the Republic of Serbia, so as to ensure a safer living environment and enable the full realisation of their right to live and grow up without being exposed to violence.

“It is our duty to spread the message that we should work together build a society with zero tolerance for violence”, Aleksic concluded.