Consciously and intentionally, directly or indirectly, the provisions of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child have been continuously violated in the Una-Sana Canton over the past ten years.


It is my opinion that discrimination of children has been legalised in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and that provisions of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child are being violated, consciously and intentionally, directly or indirectly, but certainly continually. Namely, I am referring to more than 1,400 children of deceased members of the National Defence of the so-called Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia, who died on the territory of the Una-Sana Canton. These children now live mostly in the municipalities of Velika Kladusa and Cazin. A considerable number have left for western or transoceanic countries. For the authorities of the Una-Sana Canton and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, both for those from 1996 and the current ones, the Convention on the Rights of the Child has not seemed to be applicable to these children. When they are mentioned, they are dismissed as children of the enemy.

Consequences will surely remain

Over the past ten years, these children have experienced through their early childhood, adolescence to their maturity, various forms of discrimination, known or unknown. The competent structures have not reacted to this issue in the past ten years. Only the non-governmental organisation “Our Children” from Velika Kladusa has spoken and cared for these children, as well as the Ombudsmen of the Federation in their annual reports and the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights on a number of occasions.
 
I will add several more facts about violation of these children’s rights. They and their mothers have not been recognised by legislation of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina either as children of deceased soldiers or children that the state must support due to their tragedy, although they are victims of war from all aspects, double refugees and returnees, their parents’ property was destroyed, robbed and devastated and most of these children live under miserable social conditions. Their mothers, if they had been employed, were fired together with all “separatists” from Cazin krajina during 1996 and 1997, while they were in exile – with the closing date of 27 September 1993. Single mothers and their children do not have health insurance, as they failed to register two months after dismissal from work in 1993, in accord with law, because they returned from exile in 1997 and 1998. They do not even have the right to a free phone connection, electricity connection, no benefits for enrolment to secondary school, they had to pay university fees for a long time, and they have not had other benefits like children whose parents died as members of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

These children have been subjects of intolerance, discrimination and have been a stumbling block for reconciliation in Cazin krajina. The decision of the Constitutional Court of 10 May 2005, which ordered the Parliament of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina to harmonize legislation on rights of veterans and their families with the Constitution of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina within six months after publication of the decision in the Official Gazette, and to include members of the National Defence and their families in the legislation, could end the agony of these children, but the consequences of years’ long discrimination will surely remain.

Another issue is the unprotected right of citizens who had earned their pensions in Slovenia, Croatia and countries of Western Europe. These citizens do not have health care in Bosnia and Herzegovina, thanks to the lack of care of the state and Federation authorities. I think that the foreign ministries failed to establish good contacts and agreements with regard to this issue.

The third issue is the fact that the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina who reside in border municipalities with the Republic of Croatia, have not been able to use their property properly due to undefined inter-state relations and unsatisfactory arrangement of border area movement or lack thereof. The citizens must travel up to 30 km to their properties, even though they are only a couple of hundreds metres away. The Velika Kladusa authorities have contacted all border municipalities in the Republic of Croatia and their mayors on this issue and have had firm agreements on several occasions that we would insist in the foreign ministries on establishment of more border crossings. Velika Kladusa borders with seven municipalities and there should certainly be more border crossings instead of only one. The citizens’ property is frequently subject to vandalism, thefts, etc., due to infrequent visiting.

These are the issues of the lack of respect for human rights of local character, but I believe I managed to attract attention of this committee and the Conference to the problems of people. My goal was to stress these issues primarily because of the rights of citizens, human and children’s rights, but less because of the association process, although I, as a citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina, care for our membership of the European Union.

(From the speech by Sejfo Mustafic, chairman of the Velika Kladusa Municipal Council, at the conference “What does Bosnia and Herzegovina need to achieve in the field of human rights in order to meet the criteria of the European Union” organised by the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina)