States that oppose antidiscrimination laws promoted slavery in the past, expert

UN consultant for human rights Claude Cahn said the adoption of the Antidiscrimination Law is important for guaranteeing equality between persons. The countries that are against such provisions promoted slavery and oppressed the women in the past, the expert has told Info-Prim Neo. “The adoption of the Antidiscrimination Law is important because each of us - a woman, an elderly person or a person of another religion or nationality - faces cases of discrimination in life. We must understand that we will all grow older and this law is a protection mechanism for those who are discriminated most frequently,” stated the expert. Claude Cahn said this law applies to everyone and will bring benefits to the entire society, not only to certain groups of people. “The justice minister said recently that a large part of the provisions of this law are contained in other national laws and international agreements ratified by Moldova. This law contains nothing new for the Moldovans. The LGBT community and the Muslims, to whom the most conservative persons refer, are de facto already protected by law,” said the human rights consultant. He also said that society developed based on equality. “Equality is a norm and the Moldovans feel its necessity. 100 years ago the people were slaves and the women did not have the right to vote and to own property. Equality offered them chances and opportunities. Today, there is a European consensus as regards equality between people. We will see what category Moldova forms part of: will support the initiative to ensure equality or will oppose these rights,” said Claude Cahn, stressing the UN hopes Moldova will choose the correct path and will take steps to pass this law. As to the requests of groups of people to remove the phrase ‘sexual orientation’ from the bill, the expert said that nondiscrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation is provided by other laws and it’s no use excluding it from this bill. “This subject has been extremely politicized. This law is only a mechanism. If this provision is omitted, there will appear a discrepancy between the national legal framework and the international one,” said Claude Cahn. According to the expert, some of the political groups mobilized against this law and it is wrong that the rest of the political class does not have a clear message to society. He also said that some of the aspects of the law must be reviewed. For example, the point about the provision of dwellings was removed from the final bill, but it is necessary. Recently, the Head of the EU Delegation to Moldova Dirk Schuebel said that Moldova lags behind in adopting the Antidiscrimination Law and this can hinder the signing of the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement. Now that the President was elected, there aren’t excuses for not passing this law, he added.