Source: STA, VČP
The Human Rights Ombudsman Dr Zdenka Čebašek-Travnik and her co-workers conducted activities today in Novo mesto. On this occasion she also prepared a short press conference, at which she said, among other things, that the Ombudsman's office conducts external activities once a month in various parts of Slovenia. In the frame of today’s visit, they first had a talk with the mayor of Novo mesto, Alojz Muhič, and in the second part they met with eleven initiators of greater Novo mesto.
The visit to Novo mesto was connected also to solving the Roma issue. Accompanied by Silvo Mesojedec, vice-president of the local community Bučna vas, they visited the Roma settlement Brezje, where they talked with the locals and visited the Roma nursery school.
After speaking with the inhabitants of the Roma settlement the Ombudsman said that she understood Silvo Mesojedec’s opinion that the concentration of the Roma population in one single place was causing many difficulties. On the one hand, this is some kind of a ghettoization and isolation, and on the other hand, severe disputes occur in the settlement with a lesser chance to be solved and participation of external factors.
Within the topics of other talks, which were confidential, the Ombudsman considered mostly the disputes arising from employment relations and, in her opinion, with regard to other areas relatively few litigation cases. Otherwise, the number of complaints from the Novo mesto area is comparable with the Slovenian average, with one fifth of them being legitimate.
According to the Ombudsman’s words, people marked by tragic stories and severe material distress often turn to the Human Rights Ombudsman. In her assessment, poverty represents a serious problem in some parts of Slovenia, which is why they decided to hold a special consultation on the topic of Poverty and Human Rights on 20 May 2008.
The Human Rights Ombudsman of the Republic of Slovenia has been carrying out the pilot project Advocacy of Children for the second year now. Deputy Human Rights Ombudsman Tone Dolčič explained that the project was being carried out in cooperation with non-governmental organizations, Ministry of Labour, Family and Social Affairs, and the Faculty of Social Work, and that it was awarded budget funding. With the project they shall ensure that the children, who find themselves in distress, in which their legal representatives cannot help them, will receive a confidential representative. Based on the project’s conclusions, statutory amendments or a special act, which would legalise such a representative, will be created, said Mr Dolčič.
