SOCIAL PROTECTION, PENSION AND DISABILITY INSURANCE During 2019 citizens mostly contacted the Protector of Citizens because of the abuse at workplace, failure to pay or irregular payment of earnings and failure to pay contributions for social insurance and injury at workplace. Citizens indicated also to untimely actions of the labor inspection, whose efficiency and quality of operation is certainly influenced by the number of labor inspectors which is insufficient for efficient and quality performance of activities. In this reporting period, too, citizens continued to complain about untimely actions of the Republic Pension and Disability Insurance Fund, inability to exercise rights to pension at full scale due to lack of the data about years of service, earnings and compensations of earnings for certain periods, absence of cooperation of the PDI Fund and Tax Administration when it comes to obtaining of the evidence on the facts on which the volume of the exercise of the right to pension depends. In the field of social protection, the main problem continues to be the lack of employees at centers for social work in comparison to the needs of citizens, which reflects on the quality of provided services and aggravates the work of employees. THE ELDERLY The inexistence of services of support is still present, especially the service of assistance at home which are frequently necessary for this population, taking into account that frequently the elderly live alone and do not have relatives who would take care about them. These problems are especially prominent in rural areas where elderly women who live in the household alone. The elderly women who live in families most often depend on other family members in the realization of their needs, taking into account that they most often do not have property rights to movable or immovable property, income, and their access to services in the community is not adequately provided in villages without established traffic and public transportation infrastructure. Violence and neglect against the elderly is still “unnoticed” by the authorities, both because the elderly cannot, are not supported or do not want to report violence they suffer from the closest members of their family, most frequently children, and because of insufficient recognition of emotional, social and economic violence against the elderly. KOSOVO AND METOHIJA The Protector of Citizens is still not able to exercise his competences at the territory of the Autonomous Province Kosovo and Metohija, in the manner which is prescribed by the Constitution and law. According to the available information and based on the allegations from complaints, the citizens of Kosovo and Metohija, especially those of non-Albanian nationality, who live at enclaves, are still hostages of current political processes and face serious violation of human rights and freedom. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION In the field of the freedom of speech and expression, there was no progress recorded in Serbia in the previous year. In this sphere of social life, especially in the field of the freedom of media, we witnessed many violations of rights and endangerments of media freedom. The position and status of journalists and media workers is compromised not only by their poor material - 16 -