Six years after the ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities by Moldova, all the rights of persons with disabilities continue to be violated even if there is the necessary legal framework, given the absence of implementation mechanisms. In this regard, 35 nongovernmental organizations protecting the rights of disabled persons decided to join forces within a project in a move to offer support in the process of implementing the Convention. The project was presented by members of the Alliance of Organizations for Persons with Disabilities of the Republic of Moldova in a news conference at IPN on July 8.
Coordinator of the Alliance’s secretariat Galina Climov said that Moldova ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in July 2010 and pledged thus at international level to ensure the rights of the persons with special needs are observed. It has been six years since then, but the national legislation still contains enough shortcomings that allow discriminating against the persons with disabilities. The NGOs are ready to provide assistance in working out policies for supporting and ensuring the rights of persons with disabilities.
Within the project, the organizations will provide consultancy in three areas, namely ensuring of conditions of accessibility at public institutions, employment of persons with disabilities, and deinstitutionalization given that the mentally disabled persons’ right to live in community is violated. About 2,300 persons are now institutionalized, being deprived of the rights to work, to education and to take part in the public life.
Vitalie Mester, executive director of the Center for Legal Assistance for Persons with Disabilities, said that by ratifying this Convention, the state assumed a number of commitments and the employment is one of them. Functional mechanisms are needed to facilitate the employment process and to ensure all the conditions needed for the persons with disabilities to be able to work.
The project “Partnerships for the Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities” is implemented within the Common Initiative for Promoting Equal Opportunities Program that is carried out by East Europe Foundation and the Partnership for Development Center with the resources provided by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, the Government of Sweden and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark.
