REFORMA HRANITELJSTVA U SISTEMU SOCIJALNE ZAŠTITE DJECE U BOSNI I HERCEGOVINI
FOSTER CARE REFORM IN THE SYSTEM OF SOCIAL PROTECTION OF CHILDREN IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

Summary/Abstract: This study is about the legal status of children, especially for children without parental care, in the social protection system in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Special attention was paid to the legal regulation of foster care at both, the domestic and international level. Unfortunately, Bosnia and Herzegovina does not have credible and official statistics on the number of children without parental care, and as a result there are no official data on their protection. The current situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina is far from the one that would satisfy the principle of protecting the interests of children throughout the country in accordance with the applicable UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Instead of one law that would be directed towards harmonization in this area, in accordance with international standards and applicable legal acts in the area of protecting the rights and interests of children, in our country there is a large number of legal texts governing the disputed issue of family law and social welfare of children, and even other vulnerable groups. Since the current standards on the protection of children in our state (in terms of regulation of family legal protection and social protection) are largely non-harmonized and in some cases even contradictory, it is necessary to make a single law, with the aim to codify general norms on the protection of children at one place, especially of children without parental care. The State should use measures to encourage guardianship, i.e. foster care, as an efficient, but also unjustly neglected way of protecting children. Thematizing the most appropriate forms of protection for children without parental care, this study tries to portray foster care as an efficient way to protect the best interests of children without parental care, and to point out the inadequacy of the legal norms for this institution in the Bosnian legal system. In order to fulfil the objectives of this paper in a systematic manner and taking into consideratino the current positive legislation, the existing legal regulations will be presented within the institution of fostering for the whole territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Analyses of the law (cca. 18 Act) which directly protects the interests of children in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of Srpska and Brčko District of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and through the prism of repercussions carried by legal action norms for protecting the interests of children, an urgent need for the adoption of the Law on the protection of children in Bosnia and Herzegovina will be highlighted. On the trail of integration into the European Union, our country will be required to redefine and regulate the institution of foster care for children without parental care in a similar way as was done by Croatia, the latest member of the European Union.

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