Committee on the Rights of the Child

List of issues in relation to the combined fifth and sixth periodic reports of Slovenia *

1.The State Party is requested to submit in writing additional, updated information, of 10,700 words maximum, by 15 February 2026. The Committee may take up all aspects of children’s rights set out in the Convention during the dialogue with the State Party.

Part I

2.Please describe the measures taken or envisaged:

(a)To introduce a comprehensive child law in compliance with all the provisions of the Convention and to ensure its effective implementation;

(b)To ensure the effective implementation of the Programme for Children 2020–2025 and the National Programme for Youth 2013–2022;

(c)To establish a tracking system for the allocation, use and monitoring of resources for children and to ensure transparent and participatory budgeting processes in which children can participate;

(d)To establish a framework for interministerial and inter-institutional coordination;

(e)To systematically involve communities and civil society in the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies, plans and programmes related to children’s rights;

(f)To ensure pathways for access to justice and remedies for children, including administrative complaint mechanisms and child-friendly judicial procedures.

3.Please provide information on the measures taken to ensure the legal accountability of the business sector in relation to international and national human rights, health, environmental and other standards, especially those relating to children’s rights.

4.Please explain the measures taken to eliminate, in law and practice, discrimination against and the social exclusion of Roma children, children with disabilities, asylum-seeking and refugee children, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex children.

5.Please describe the measures taken:

(a)To ensure universal and timely birth registration of all children, including children from marginalized communities and children of undocumented migrants, and to guarantee their right to acquire a nationality and avoid statelessness;

(b)To respect, protect and facilitate children’s exercise of their right to freedom of association and of peaceful assembly, including by establishing safe and accessible platforms for children and adolescents to organize, express their views and influence decision-making processes that affect them;

(c)To provide children with access to information from a variety of sources, including online sources, while protecting them from content that is harmful to their well‑being and guaranteeing their right to privacy, including in the digital environment.

6.Please describe the measures taken:

(a)To promote positive and non-violent forms of child-rearing and discipline and to enforce the prohibition of corporal punishment, particularly in the home and all forms of alternative care;

(b)To strengthen awareness of violence against children, including online sexual abuse and exploitation, measures to prevent and address stigmatization and victim-blaming and disseminate information on mandatory reporting;

(c)To ensure access for all child victims of violence and abuse to Barnahus (children’s houses), as well as well-being and mental health trauma recovery treatment;

(d)To strengthen the local child protection system, inter-agency collaboration, professional capacity and interventions aimed at protecting children at risk, such as Roma children, children with disabilities, children living in poverty and migrant children;

(e)To prohibit all marriage under the age of 18 years, without exception, and to prevent child marriage, particularly among Roma girls.

7.Please provide information on measures taken or envisaged:

(a)To establish well-resourced family courts as a means to tackle the family-case backlog while considering the right of children to have their best interests taken into account as a primary consideration;

(b)To promote the deinstitutionalization of children in care, including by interventions to support families at risk, recruitment of foster families and pre- and in-service support for foster carers.

8.Please provide information on the measures taken to adopt a human rights-based approach to disability and to ensure that children with disabilities can grow up in their family environment and receive support for their social integration, individual development and protection from discrimination.

9.Please provide information on the measures taken or envisaged:

(a)To reduce neonatal and under-5 mortality rates;

(b)To ensure access to age-appropriate reproductive health information and services, including free and safe abortion and post-abortion services and free access to contraceptives, including in Roma communities;

(c)To ensure comprehensive education on sexual and reproductive health and rights, including by providing, as part of the mandatory school curricula and in teacher training, information on the prevention of early pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, as well as on gender equality, sexual diversity and sexual and reproductive health and rights;

(d)To address substance abuse and the use of tobacco products by adolescents;

(e)To prevent suicide among young people and address children’s significant mental health challenges, including the scarcity of specialized professionals in the public sector and the lack of psychosocial services, including in schools.

10.Please provide information on the measures taken or envisaged to develop environmental or climate change policies incorporating children’s rights and addressing climate-related adverse effects on children.

11.Please describe the measures taken:

(a)To address teacher shortages at all levels, which directly affect the quality of teaching and care;

(b)To address inequalities in educational outcomes, including among children in socioeconomically disadvantaged situations, migrant children and Roma children;

(c)To provide children with disabilities with inclusive education in mainstream schools by ensuring reasonable accommodation and sufficient support, including accessible school buildings, facilities, school materials and equipment;

(d)To improve children’s access to early childhood education, in particular for Roma children;

(e)To ensure the right of children to leisure, play, recreational activities, cultural life and the arts, including for children in rural areas and children with disabilities.

12.Please update the Committee on efforts made:

(a)To ensure that asylum-seeking and refugee children are provided with sufficient protection and the necessary assistance, including legal aid, at all stages of the asylum and refugee determination procedures and that guardians are appointed for unaccompanied and separated asylum-seeking children;

(b)To reduce disparities in the enjoyment of rights between children belonging to minority groups, in particular Roma children, and children belonging to the majority population in all areas covered under the Convention, particularly health and education;

(c)To reduce the prevalence of child labour, including in forced illegal activities such as theft and the sale of illegal drugs in the State Party, particularly among children in vulnerable situations, such as Roma children;

(d)To ensure effective protection and rehabilitation of children at risk of trafficking or children identified as victims of trafficking.

13.Please provide information on the measures taken to implement the Committee’s previous recommendations that the State Party establish special provisions in its Criminal Code for children, strengthen alternative and non-judicial dispute resolutions for children alleged as, accused of or recognized as having infringed criminal law, ensure that the deprivation of liberty is used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest possible amount of time, improve measures of rehabilitation and social reintegration and consider placing children aged 14–16 years alleged as, accused of or recognized as having infringed criminal law in open or semi-open educational institutions.

14.Please provide information on the measures taken to implement the Committee’s previous recommendations regarding the Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, in particular any steps taken to protect child victims of forced marriage and sale, and to fully harmonize national legislation with the Optional Protocol by explicitly prohibiting the sale of children and forced adoptions.

15.Regarding the Committee’s previous recommendations regarding the Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict, please inform the Committee of the measures taken to provide suitable security and protection to asylum-seeking children fleeing war zones, and refrain from the practice of providing subsidiary protection only until they reach the age of majority.

Part II

16.The Committee invites the State Party to provide a brief update, of no more than three pages, on the information set out in its report with regard to the following:

(a)New bills or laws, and their respective regulations;

(b)New institutions and their mandates or institutional reforms;

(c)Recently introduced policies, programmes and action plans and their scope and financing;

(d)Recent ratifications of human rights instruments.

Part III

Data, statistics and other information

17.Please provide consolidated information for the past three years on the budget lines regarding children and the social sectors, indicating the percentage of each budget line in terms of the total national budget and the gross national product. Please also provide information on the geographical allocation of those resources.

18.Please provide updated statistical data, for the past three years, disaggregated by age, sex, ethnic origin, national origin, geographical location and socioeconomic status, on the following:

(a)Cases of abuse and violence perpetrated against children, including torture and other inhuman or degrading treatment, all forms of corporal punishment, sexual abuse in and outside of the home, domestic violence, bullying and online sexual violence and abuse, and prosecutions and sentences handed down in the State Party in such cases;

(b)Cases of child marriage;

(c)Cases of adolescent pregnancy;

(d)Stateless children;

(e)Asylum-seeking, refugee, unaccompanied and migrant children;

(f)Children working, including in the informal sector;

(g)Children in street situations;

(h)Children living in poverty;

(i)Children who are victims of trafficking in persons.

19.Please provide updated statistical data, for the past three years, disaggregated by age, sex, ethnic origin, national origin, geographical location and socioeconomic status, on the situation of children deprived of a family environment who are or who have been:

(a)Separated from their families, including the duration of the separation;

(b)Placed in institutions, including the number of institutions and the number of children in each institution;

(c)Placed with foster families;

(d)Available for adoption;

(e)Adopted domestically or through intercountry adoptions, if any, including data on the receiving countries.

20.Please provide data, for the past three years, disaggregated by age, sex, type of disability, ethnic origin and geographical location, on the number of children with disabilities who are or who have been:

(a)Living with their families;

(b)Living in institutions;

(c)Attending regular primary schools;

(d)Attending regular secondary schools;

(e)Attending special schools;

(f)Out of school;

(g)Abandoned by their families.

21.Please provide updated statistical data, for the past three years, disaggregated by age, sex, type of offence, ethnic and national origin, geographical location and socioeconomic status, on children alleged as, accused of or recognized as having infringed criminal law who have been:

(a)Arrested;

(b)Referred to diversion programmes;

(c)Held in pretrial detention;

(d)Convicted and serving a sentence in detention, including information on the length of the sentence.

22.Please provide information on how a children’s rights-based approach is integrated into the planning, implementation and monitoring of measures for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, including with regard to the participation of children and data collection, and on how those measures promote the realization of children’s rights under the Convention and the Optional Protocols thereto.

23.Please provide the Committee with an update of any data in the report that may have become outdated by more recent data collected or other new developments.

24.In addition, the State Party may list areas affecting children that it considers to be of priority with regard to the implementation of the Convention.