What is Social Protection?
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© UNICEF/BiH/Anthony Asael |
The term social protection social protection (društvena zaštita) is introduced in the project after consultations with partners in Bosnia and Herzegovina, to make a clear distinction between this term and the term social welfare socijalna zaštita which in Bosnia and Herzegovina is mostly used to describe the competencies and the mandate of the Ministries for Social Work and the appertaining Centers for Social Work. So the term social protection presupposes a child protection through the system of health, education, special protection and social welfare. Our partners still believe that the term social protection is not the most appropriate and that it could be replaced with the term social policy for children. Terminology debate is still open. The applicable definitions of social welfare in Bosnia and Herzegovina include:
The Law on Social Welfare of Republika Srpska, Article 2, defines social welfare as an “organized activity aimed at curbing and removing causes and consequences of social need in all forms of life and work through the provision of support to citizens and their families, when they find themselves in such circumstances.”
In the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, under the Law on Basic Social Welfare, the Welfare of Civil War Victims and the Welfare of Families with Children, the welfare of family with children is ensuring the family through material and other allocations to help in raising, upbringing and providing for the child, and preparing them for independent life and work, in the best interest of the child. Welfare of families with children is aimed at creating equal conditions for proper and healthy development in the family for each child, to ensure support to achieve the reproductive role of the family, to nurture, raise, bring up and protect children and improve the quality of life in the family, to ensure more favorable conditions to acquire and exercise the rights and higher financial and other allocations for a child without one or both parents and a child with psycho-physical development.
