A person with disabilities is first of all a person with abilities and the creation of a favorable environment for this to develop the personality is the guarantee of personal success and of the success of the community of which such persons form part. Alongside other series that look at 2018 in retrospect, IPN comes with a series of articles about people who live with a disability and about organizations that promote the rights of these people..
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The participation in community life offers the persons with disabilities bigger integration chances. Vitalie Meșter, executive director of the Center for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, said at the local level a mechanism for ensuring the effective participation of persons with disabilities in the consultation and decision-making process is required so as to comply with the principle stipulated in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: “Nothing about us without us”.
Vitalie Meșter said 2018 was a year with many accomplishments. As from this year, all the students with special educational needs, including those from auxiliary schools, have the right to mandatory secondary education guaranteed. In another development, the Center for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, together with other organizations that are members of the platform “Chisinau accessible to everyone”, managed to introduce the necessity of ensuring accessibility conditions for persons with disabilities in public areas in the agenda of the municipal authorities.
As a result of approaches and periodic meetings, the local authorities undertook to make the sidewalks of the streets repaired in the capital city accessible to all the persons with disabilities. This way, tactile paving will be placed on the sidewalks of Ștefan cel Mare și Sfânt Blvd, Vasile Alecsandri St and Constantin Negruzzi St in accordance with the standards. In seven intersections on Ștefan cel Mare și Sfânt Blvd, sonorous stoplights intended for persons with visual impairments will be installed.
“The ensuring of the right to pension for persons with severe disabilities was also one of the important subjects for us this year. The obligation to have a minimum insurance period was annulled for the persons with severe disabilities. This was possible as a result of the Moldovan Constitutional Court’s judgment of 22.11.2018, which was passed after our Center filed a suit at the request of a person with severe disabilities,” stated Vitalie Meșter.
He noted that the mechanism for creating jobs for persons with disabilities wasn’t guaranteed by law and this is a shortcoming this year. They also didn’t manage to obtain the inclusion of the period during which a person looked after a person with severe disabilities in 1999-2016 in the insurance period of this person.
Among the objectives of the Center for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities for next year is to make sure that the persons with disabilities are more actively engaged in the initiatives of civil society. The civil society’s efforts to promote human rights by different initiatives should be strengthened. Their participation in all the levels of planning, implementation and monitoring should be ensured. The Center also aims to promote and ensure the right to inclusive education of the persons with hearing impairments so that these students have their right to lyceum, college and university studies guaranteed.
Ion Ciobanu, IPN
