The responsible institutions and the owners of areas and buildings continue not to realize the importance of ensuring accessibility for an inclusive society. Those who were born with or have a health problem that affects their mobility are deprived of the possibility of reaching independently the place they need as the ramps are absent and are impracticable, being set up without taking into account the needs of those who should use them. The public authorities and the citizens forget that many positive changes cannot take place in society of conditions of physical and informational accessibility are not ensured, Vitalie Meşter, executive director of the Center for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CDPD), stated in news conference at IPN.
Members of the Alliance of Organizations for Persons with Disabilities pointed to the lack of a policy document concerning the ensuring of accessibility of persons with different types of disability, noting that the budgetary policy does not stipulate costs for ensuring accessibility.
“This conference can be regarded as a model for the public authorities. If you noticed, this news conference is accompanied by sign language interpretation, which is absent during the pandemic. The central public authorities, starting with the members of the commission for exceptional situations, make statements and hold briefings and news conferences live without ensuring sign language interpretation. This way, the persons with hearing impairments do not have access to the latest information about the prevention and fighting of COVID-19,” stated Vitalie Meşter.
Ludmila Iachim, executive director of the Association “MOTIVAȚIE” of Moldova, presented the results achieved by now in ensuring the ease of access of persons with disabilities. In Moldova, there are the policy framework and the legal framework that include provisions about the ensuring of conditions of accessibility, building norms that were modified and supplemented in order to ensure conditions of accessibility, sources of information that contribute to the initiation of the process of adjusting the material so that it becomes accessible to persons with disabilities and a Government decision of 2014 on the approval of the Regulations concerning the organization and running of the sing language interpretation service for persons with hearing impairments provided by the Association of the Deaf of Moldova, which is covered with state budget funds .
According to Ludmila Iachim, a plan that will define the stages of ensuring accessibility for persons with disabilities should be worked out and approved. Annual allocations should be planned for gradually adjusting the infrastructure. Representatives of persons with disabilities should be involved at all the states with expertise.
Statistics show that there are about 176,000 persons with disabilities in Moldova and approximately 10,600 of them are children under 17. This is 5.1% of the country’s population.
