Human Rights Ombudsman Zdenka Cebasek Travnik presented to the press on Tuesday the 2006 Ombudsman's Report, highlighting violations of children's rights and the need to introduce a special spokesman to safeguard the rights of children, the elderly and the disabled.

The report, compiled by Cebasek Travnik's predecessor Matjaz Hanzek, shows that the ombudsman's office dealt with 2,492 cases in 2006, a 3.2% decrease over 2005. As usually, most of the cases were related to judicial and police procedures (654), while social security and administration issues were close behind.

In her foreword to the report, Cebasek Travnik highlighted among other things violations of the rights of children, which often occur during divorce procedures. According to the ombudsman, Slovenia's divorce legislation fails to protect children involved in divorce proceedings.

Cebasek Travnik announced she would focus this year on violence in all areas of life.

She meanwhile also pointed to the problem of the erased (some 18,000 people from the former Yugoslavia who were removed from Slovenia's permanent residence registry in 1992), which was also once more highlighted by Hanzek.

"The Constitutional Court has rendered its verdict, it is now up to the legislative branch of power to adopt adequate measures implementing the decision of the Constitutional Court," Cebasek Travnik said.

She explained she had also pointed to the problem of the erased when handing the report to Parliament Speaker France Cukjati last week and at Monday's meeting with President Janez Drnovsek.

Other areas highlighted by Cebasek Travnik include education, health care, labour legislation, discrimination and the environment.

Hanzek meanwhile included in his report a number of issues which have been dragging on in Slovenia for years: the erased, the integration of the Roma population, the need for a law on mental health, and domestic violence.

He also highlighted the disregard for rulings of the Constitutional Court - 13 of the court's rulings remained unimplemented in 2006, the report says. Among grave violations of human rights and the rule of law, Hanzek singled out the events in Ambrus and the subsequent relocation of the Strojans, a Roma family involved in a dispute with its neighbours.

According to the report's findings, in 2006 the greatest increase was recorded in discrimination, with the Ombudsman's Office dealing with 46 such cases. Also up was the number of social security-related cases (324), while the most obvious decrease was recorded in housing, judicial and police procedure cases.

The 2006 Ombudsman's Report is expected to be discussed by parliament in October.