State Council: Mayors and municipal councils should face consequences if they do not form child-prevention bodies
State Council presents 2025 report, calls for law changes and better local action as Skopje remains the hotspot for child violence.
The State Council for the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency and Justice for Children presented its 2025 annual report and demanded that mayors and municipal councils be made legally accountable when they fail to establish functioning local prevention bodies for child violence and bullying.
The council said only the municipalities of Ohrid and Tetovo have treated the obligation seriously, while the City of Skopje, its mayor and the municipal councils in Skopje have not — despite the capital recording the highest number of incidents and child victims.
“One of the most significant challenges remains the failure to fulfill the legal obligation to form municipal councils for the prevention of juvenile delinquency in a large number of municipalities. In some municipalities these bodies have not been formed at all, in others they exist but are not active, while only a small portion function and implement the planned activities,” said the council president, professor of Criminal Law Dr. Gordana Lazetić from the Faculty of Law "Justinian I" in Skopje.
The report recommends an amendment to transfer responsibility for sanctioning municipal inaction from the Law on Child Rights to the Law on Local Self-Government, so that mayors and municipal councils can be held accountable for failing to establish and support effective prevention mechanisms. The council also urged local authorities to prepare annual work programmes and to secure funding and institutional engagement.
The State Council noted gaps in cooperation with some courts during 2025, reporting that certain courts failed to submit required data or supplied irrelevant information for monitoring the implementation of the Law on Justice for Children. The council called for improved institutional coordination and timely, quality data.
Key figures in the report show that 1,201 children were recorded as in conflict with the law in 2025 — that is, they were summoned to a police station — a decrease of 45 children, or four percent, compared with 2024 when 1,246 were recorded. The council also explained that a 50 percent reduction in recorded children at risk in 2025 reflects a change in indicator coverage: children up to 14 years are now counted in that category and a separate indicator was introduced for those aged 14–18. The number of girls at risk fell by 55 percent compared with 2024 and by 47 percent compared with 2023, also due to the methodological change.
According to the report, the majority of recorded child victims came from the Ministry of Internal Affairs (694), then the public prosecutor’s offices (629), courts (404) and centres for social work (334). The largest relative increase in registered child victims — 118 percent compared with 2024 — was observed in courts.
Photo: SDK.MK)
