Bosnia and Herzegovina

The Bosnia and Herzegovina exist as a State, according to the International law principles, since 1995, when the Dayton accords were signed in order to put an end to the dramatical war begun in the early 90's. It is composed by two different sub-national entities: The Bosnia and Herzegovina Federation and the Republic of Srpska. Each one of them has its own representation and its own representative bodies. On the top, there is the 'Government of Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina', institutionalized in a Parliament whose representatives are elected by the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republic of Srpska. Each entity detains the responsibility of the educational system on its own territory. The war, burst between the 1992 and 1995 in Bosnia and Herzegovina, caused several damages to the population, to the infrastructure, and to the economy, worsening the accessibility to the social services. As a consequence, the life conditions of people in need, such as minors with disabilities and their families, dramatically worsened. The conflict left behind it several problems: the destruction of social services and healthcare archives, the lack of structures for the healthcare, the chronic shortage of financial resources, and an inadequate sensitivity to all those problems. Moreover, the cultural tradition is based on an emergency culture, which tends to isolate children with any kind of difficulties (such as children with disability or with post-traumatic stress disorder), sharpening the social marginalization.