As many as 653 children became victims of various offenses over the first half of this year, according to the Ministry of the Interior. The domestic violence against children was the most spread offense. The information was made public in a conference centering on the reforms concerning justice for children in Moldova, Info-Prim Neo reports. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child pointed to important accomplishments in the process of implementing reforms aimed at protecting the children in the legal system, but there are yet major concerns, which were also noted by Moldovan experts. ”There are many problems in this system that is not child-friendly. The methods of working with the children in the legal system do not meet the age, are not swift and adapted to the children’s needs and rights. The collection of statistical data is a serious problem as the statistics are often contradictory. Sometimes, the data provided by the Prosecutor General’s Office do not correspond to the data of the Ministry of the Interior,” said Cristina Melnic, the head of the Ministry of Justice’s General Legislation Division and deputy head of the working group for the reform of the justice for children. According to Cristina Melnic, there are no specialists who would work with and for children in the legal system, the detention conditions for children do not contribute to the development of attitudes that would help them to reintegrate into society, the delinquent minors are treated mainly as offenders not as children who need special support. Deputy Prime Minister Mihai Moldovanu, who heads the National Council for Child Rights Protection, said effort is made to make the families more responsible. The parents must communicate with the children. It is important that the minors in the legal system should realize that what they do is bad. The Deputy Prime Minister considers that the minors who commit the first, not very serious offense should work for society and be guided by specialists so as to prevent them from committing new offenses. The UN experts who monitor juvenile delinquency in Moldova recommended improving the legislation so as to ensure the observance of children’s rights who are victims and witnesses in trials, reviewing the system of disciplinarily punishing the minors, and training the mediators, psychologists, pedagogues and personnel of penitentiaries.