State Secretary in the Ministry of Trade, Tourism, and Telecommunications Tatjana Matić, has welcomed the continuous efforts of the Foundation “Tijana Jurić”, organising the conference “Safety and Responsibility” in Subotica, for protection of children, and in particular for the efforts made for making sure that the protection of children online gets all the necessary attention of the public.

She has reminded that the Ministry in charge of telecommunications has worked on these issues since 2010, with the participation in the programme “Safer Internet” of the European Commission.

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“The risks we faced back then were at the level of incidents, while today they are a regular thing. Apart from the attacks of predators and improper contents, the children are exposed to digital violence, degradation of dignity, challenges which might have tragic consequences, data theft and abuse, overuse of the Internet which might develop an addiction, and other forms of physical, sociological and psychological threats”, says Ms Matić, stressing that due to the complexity of the issue Serbian Government is making a strong response.

“We have adopted the Strategy of Development of the Information Safety which particularly deals with the issues of safety of children online and the creation of the Action Plan is ongoing. Also, in the Ministry for Telecommunications we have established the National contact centre for safety of children online as a centralised system for the coordination of all services in charge, based on the Decree for Protection and Safety of Children using the Information and Communication Technologies. In the work of the Centre participate also the Ministry of Interior and Prosecutor’s Office for High-Tech Crime, on cases with the elements of criminal act, and the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Social Issues”, says Ms Matić, stating the information that the Centre has had over 3000 calls and electronic complaints in seven months, out of which over 600 cases have been made.

“The calls and complaints forwarded to the Centre require strengthening of the prevention. Activities have been undertaken on their further development, education and counselling units have been created and the digital platform has been expanded”, says State Secretary.

She has announced the Road Map for strengthening of the protection of children online, realised by the Ministry in cooperation with the international organisation “Save the Children”, expressing her hope that the Foundation “Tijana Jurić” with which the Ministry has signed the Memorandum on Joint Activities Fighting for Better Safety of Children in Digital Environment, will be a partner on this project.

The conference “Safety and Responsibility” held in hotel “Patria”, was opened by the Minister of Interior Nebojša Stefanović, and the speech was also given by Mr Igor Jurić, the founder of the Foundation “Tijana Jurić”.