Chairperson of the Gender Equality Committee Ms Nada Drobnjak spoke in the conference organised on presenting the results of the research “Prevention of child marriages in Montenegro: Challenges, lessons learnt and theory of change”. The research was made within the programme “Coordinated action to combat violence and child marriages in the Roma and Egyptian communities”, carried out by the NGO Centre for Roma Initiative in partnership with the UNICEF Office to Montenegro, and with financial support of the EU.

The guidelines on treating the cases of identification and dealing with child marriages and extramarital communities by the relevant institutions were also presented in the conference. The clearly operation procedures, defined by the Guidelines, specify the statutory duties of these institutions.

The following spoke in the introductory part: State Secretary in the Ministry of Internal Affairs Dragan Pejanović, Head of the UNICEF Office to Montenegro Mr Osama Makkawi Khogali, Head of Political, European Integration and Trade Section Ms Plamena Halacheva and executive coordinator of the NGO Centre for Roma Initiatives Mr Fan Delija.

Representatives of the relevant institutions, NGOs and international organisations took part in the conference of the 23rd February in Podgorica.