Natalia Petkevich: UNICEF should address child abandonment

Resolution of problems of child abandonment, children with special needs and disabled children should be in the centre of attention of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the Permanent Representation of Belarus in the UN quoted Deputy Head of the Belarus President Administration Natalia Petkevich as saying at a substantive session of the UNICEF Executive Council in New York.

Natalia Petkevich informed participants of the Executive Council session about efforts Belarus exercises to protect underage children when their parents fail to fulfil their parental duties and put the children in a socially dangerous situation. She informed about Belarus’ practices used in education and upbringing of kids with special needs and disabled children, including the establishment of integrated institutions, which allow the kids to stay with their families and get education in the usual way as well as receive special psychological and pedagogical support.

The official stressed, Belarus has worked out a new state policy for childhood protection. The policy is aimed at creating conditions for observing children’s rights, providing the necessary aid and support of the society and the government to them, further improving their status. Belarus ranks thirteenth among countries with favourable maternity conditions. Infant mortality in Belarus is the lowest in the CIS and corresponds to the European level.

The attention of the session participants was drawn to the advisability of UNICEF’s participation in developing and promoting general systematic UN strategies, which are related to the security and protection of childhood. In view of Belarus’ initiative for a UN strategy for fighting slave trade that children may also fall victim to, UNICEF experience is extremely valuable for the correct and systematic explanation of the part of the strategy that covers trade in children, said Natalia Petkevich.