Protecting Children from Poverty and Violence

Challenges

Many children in Kosovo are deprived of access to a safe home environment, essential services and equal opportunities to reach their full potential. While UNICEF has worked to address many of these issues, violence against children, a lack of infrastructure to support children with disabilities, a developing alternative care system for children unable to live with their parents and a fledgling juvenile justice system continue to cause growing pains.

While institutions in Kosovo have worked to address violence against children through legislation and policy, violent discipline and other forms of abuse continue to be socially accepted, despite the known long-term developmental impacts on children and the wider society. Cases of violence against children in Kosovo often go unreported, and over 60 per cent of children (70 per cent of Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian children) aged 1–14 were reported to have experienced physical punishment or psychological aggression. Weak institutional responses to violence against children persist, including a lack of appropriate services to prevent, protect or reintegrate victims and witnesses of violence. There is also a lack of systematic child-sensitive training for professionals who respond to these situations, including police officers, prosecutors, judges, lawyers, and social workers.

Interventions targeting school violence and bullying in Kosovo are limited and evidence-based approaches are lacking as they are not considered a priority by policymakers, school managers and teachers. Schools also lack school psychologists who could promote the implementation of anti-school violence and bullying preventions programmes

The number of children with disabilities in Kosovo is unknown, but their situation remains very concerning. According to the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) conducted by the Kosovo Agency of Statistics in partnership with UNICEF in 2020, 8 per cent of children aged 2–17 years were reported to have a functional difficulty in at least one domain. Disabilities and functional difficulties are most often identified after a child begins school and many of these children lack individualized plans to address their impairments. Coordinated services and legislation have remained inadequate due to limited professional understanding about disabilities and strained human and financial resources.

Only 1 in 4 children in street situations is currently attending school.

Children in street situations are amongst the most marginalized children. They experience severe violations of their rights before and during their time on the streets. These children face multiple deprivations, including lack of access to basic services, violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation, as well as vulnerabilities to alcohol and substance abuse.

For most of the children, 88% poverty is the primary reason for their street-involvement, and 20% have been on the street for less than 6 months. While more than half of the children have attended school at some point in their lives, currently, around 75% report that they do not go to school, and this was equally the case among boys and girls.

Ensuring a wide range of safe alternative care options is critical for an effective child protection system. Alternative care services, such as kinship care, foster care and guardianship, continue to develop in Kosovo. Yet, many challenges in the alternative care system need to be addressed before it can reach its full potential. Currently, 47 children are in foster care, 20 per cent of whom have disabilities, and 425 children are under kinship care. There continues to be a shortage of professional foster care families—just 17 out of 38 Kosovo’s municipalities have licensed foster families.

Progress has been made in providing care for abandoned babies, but foster care has failed to be implemented in practice for children who have been abused, trafficked, or exposed to violence. Unlike many of its neighbours, Kosovo does not house children in big institutions. However, some children continue to reside in residential children’s houses for long periods. Once a child ages out of alternative care, few programmes exist to ensure their successful transition into adulthood. Even children with disabilities or without parental care do not receive any kind of financial support from the state or special social services to support their independent living. Legislative action, policy development, capacity development for frontline workers and new support services are crucial to improving the situation of these children.

Kosovo has worked to develop a solid juvenile justice system to serve better children aged 14–18 in conflict with the law. Laws, procedures, institutions and required capacities are mainly in place, and pre-trial detention is used only as a last resort. It remains challenging for children under criminal responsibility to access specialized services such as counselling, delinquency prevention programmes, education, vocational and life skills programmes and rehabilitation programmes for juvenile offenders. Other challenges include the limited capacity and lack of coordination between correction and probation services and the Centres for Social Work, which hinders effective social reintegration and prevention of recidivism.

Solutions

UNICEF in Kosovo works with partners to model and scale up promising solutions and interventions to protect children. We support the development of communication strategies and mobilize communities and service providers to change social norms and prevent violence against children. We offer technical assistance and expert advice to local and central institutions to develop a robust and well-coordinated child protection system.

UNICEF in Kosovo supports the development of critical secondary legislation to implement the Law on Child Protection.

Implementation of the Law on Child Protection has progressed with the approval of 13 Administrative Instructions. A training programme for implementing the Law was developed for child protection professionals and other frontline workers.

We continue to support local and central institutions to establish effective child protection coordination and monitoring mechanisms to ensure better implementation, monitoring, and provisions of integrated child protection services.

UNICEF in Kosovo works with local authorities and relevant institutions to advocate for adequate financial and human resources to implement child protection programmes and policies. We support the development of pre-service and in-service training for social workers and other frontline service providers to improve child protection case management, including for high-risk cases and children with disabilities.

We continue to support local institutions in advancing the child rights agenda in Kosovo. The approval of the new Law on Social and Family Services will bring significant reforms in social services. It aims to improve the lives of children, families, and those in need by offering a wider range of social services, including preventive, protective, and rehabilitative options.

We support the Centres for Social Work and other related stakeholders in municipalities across Kosovo to ensure that community-based rehabilitation models for children with disabilities, based on a bio-psycho-social approach, are functional and implemented. We are also supporting the review of “the draft law on evaluation, status recognition, benefits and services for persons with disabilities” to help ensure it adheres to regional and global standards and best practices for services for children with disabilities.

We are working with partners to assist vulnerable children in street situations, and offer them the necessary support and services for their complete integration into society. It is essential that all responses to address the needs of children in street situations are firmly placed within a child rights-based approach in accordance with the Committee on the Rights of the Child General Comment No. 21 on Children in Street Situations (2017).

Our technical assistance also improves social service workforce capacities to deliver psychosocial services for children without parental care. Coordination with relevant ministries and partners will bolster the number and support of foster care families, improve specialized family-based alternative care services, and develop the capacity to monitor alternative care services.

Finally, UNICEF advises the Kosovo institutions on the implementation of juvenile justice programmes to better address prevention, alternatives to detention, improved vocational and life skills training and the reintegration of youth in contact with the law into their communities.