Impact• Comprehensive programmes to improve child protection have been established in five municipalities. The project is implemented with the NGO partner (Independent Bureau for Humanitarian Issues – IBHI) and respective social welfare ministries. Municipal management boards consist of representatives from municipal administration and civil society organizations jointly developing and implementing participatory municipal action plans that strengthen the protective environment for children. • Building on the expertise of “Medica” Zenica and other local NGOs, UNICEF offered support to establish multidisciplinary professional networks to strengthen responses to gender-based violence in four regions of BIH. More than 700 professionals from police, judiciary, social work and media participated in the training for working with victims of violence. • The first comprehensive research on the situation of children without parental care and the ability of government and civil society to address their rights was undertaken with funding from USAID. This research has revealed that in BH exist 3,500 children without parental care and that one third of them are institutionalized. With support from UNICEF, government is now using the research to design a policy approach for the protection of children deprived of their liberty or in foster, residential and institutional care. • Trafficking of women and girls for sexual exploitation and of children for begging and forced street work, and the responses in BIH have been documented and analyzed in a comprehensive participatory research that involved 12 local NGOs in partnership with Save the Children Norway. • The Temporary instructions on the treatment of victims of trafficking, including special treatment of children under 18 have been developed by the State Ministry for Human Rights and Refugees with UNICEF’s assistance. The regional Guidelines for the protection of children victims of trafficking in Southeastern Europe proved to have been a major influence on the amendments to the official rulebook governing the treatment and protection of victims and trafficking that entered into BIH law in August 2004.
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