Child Protection Organisations Send MPs to Project Civil Code proposals

Proposals for Civil Code Project have been submitted by NGO coalition for Children's Protection in Kosovo KOMF, U Office NICEF in Kosovo, the SOS Children's Villages in Kosovo, and the Association for Children Without Parental Care OFAP have addressed the deputies of the Republic of Kosovo's Parliament for the Civil Code Project.

Through a media communiqué from the KOMF, it is said that special forms of child protection without parental attention, including custody, family housing, residential and adoption, need complements and changes.

“Special child protection forms without parental care, such as custody, family housing, residential housing and adoption, need complements and changes. And the need for new forms of child protection without parental care, such as the supervised Independent Living, is more than necessary”, says the media communiqué.

It is also said that adoption as the form of child protection without parental care during its practice has faced many difficulties

<x) The most disturbing of all remains the firm legal deadlines, resulting in delays in making adoption decisions that create circumstances that could affect children's development pending adoption procedures. Likewise, current legislation does not define the types of family housing, regulate and envision forms of protection regarding the rights and needs of children who are without parental care and who need further state care after reaching the age of 18. As an example to point out is when a child without parental care reaches the age of 18, the legislation in force should leave the nursing family. Unable to have a child stay in the same foster family after he is 18, the Care Organization is obliged to place children at the Institute in Development, which negatively affects the child's overall well-being. Also related issues with residential housing, especially community-based housing for children without parental care, need to be adjusted further to the Civil Code” Project, the communique says.

In order to draft proposals for the Civil Code Project, the communicate has been pointed to as having developed a series of public consultations to bring in the attitudes of key civil society and public institutions' acts regarding the drafting of the Civil Code Project, with a focus on protecting children.

These consultations have enabled bringing in discussions among major field activists and provided opportunities to give voice to the views of civil society, public institutions and interest groups, thus drafting proposals for protecting children without parental care under the Civil Code Project. The proposals are aimed at protecting and improving the situation of children without parental attention. Moreover, the proposals are intended to have an inclusive Civil Code and easily implemented by public institutions and other organisations, thus creating powerful mechanisms in protecting children, as well as increasing the accountability of institutions responsible for implementing the law”, the media community is said to be among others.