UMHCG: Is Montenegro afraid of statistical indicators on PWDs

The Association of Disabled Youth of Montenegro (UMHCG) called on the Government and all state institutions in charge of drafting the Draft Law on the Census to include in it issues concerning information and statistics on persons with disabilities (PWD) and to conduct a mandatory public hearing, i.e. include all interested parties without exception and unequal treatment.

UMHCG announced that they are extremely concerned about yesterday's media reports, which point out that the new Census Law, the adoption of which was mentioned last month, does not plan to collect data on disability, that is, disability. They also asked whether Montenegro is "afraid of statistical indicators on PWDs".

"Persons with disabilities must not be collateral damage of political turmoil and interests, and delaying the collection of quality and comprehensive data on persons with disabilities until the next census (in about 10 years) may have unforeseeable consequences for their future position in Montenegro, that is, affect the quality of planning, defining, implementing policies and assessing their impact, that is, monitoring the implementation of those policies. This is especially so since, even during the 2011 census, due to the inadequate elaboration of the Washington Group's issues, the collected data on persons with disabilities were not comprehensive and precise, nor were they by others bodies and institutions were used as a basis for adequate policy planning, but only as a statement of percentages, without taking any measures to systematically and systematically identify obstacles and provide support. Thus, state bodies continue to be called out at a percentage of 11%, even though world trends have already for years indicate that PWDs make up between 15% and 20% of the total population," the UMHCG states.

They said that they do not accept that the greater national interest is "the use of the census to deepen further 'divisions' between Montenegrins and Serbs", so that certain structures would continue to survive and profit from those divisions, in relation to the census and policies that will lead to the improvement of the position of persons with disabilities, who are largely neglected and neglected.

They remind that in December 2020 they sent an initiative to the competent state institutions to take serious and systematic steps in coordination and a joint approach in order to collect data on persons with disabilities and to comply with Article 31 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which obligates the signatory states to collect appropriate information, including statistical and research data, in order to be able to formulate and implement policies aimed at the realization of this Convention.

"After that, we also held a meeting with the Directorate of Statistics, which expressed an absolute interest in cooperation, with the proposal that the UMHCG, through a public discussion, be involved in the drafting of the Draft Law on the Census, after which we could work on adapting the questionnaire (List of questions) in to the segment concerning disabilities, as well as to the training for enumerators, which indicates that the basis for the realization of the agreed conclusions is an adequate legal solution", according to the UMHCG.

The representatives of that association, as it was announced, at the meeting emphasized the importance of conceiving questions about PWD, that is, about disability in accordance with the questions of the Washington Group, with the inclusion of questions that will not only refer to "functional ability", but also to social, economic and social status of persons with disabilities. It was also proposed that during the census of households, the part of the accessibility of housing facilities for PWDs should be included, which was also omitted from the Draft Law.

"The above was pointed out to the state in August 2017 during a constructive dialogue with the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which was interested in the so-called Washington Group issues and their inclusion in the list of issues prepared by the Statistics Authority, which Montenegro did in 2011, but the data due to the translation and the overall discourse towards PWDs at the time, were exclusively based on the functional model of approach to disability".

"Furthermore, these data should be classified as necessary and used to facilitate the evaluation of the implementation of the obligations undertaken by the Convention by the signatory states, as well as to identify the obstacles faced by persons with disabilities in exercising their rights. Finally, in addition to data protection, their distribution should be accessible to people with disabilities," added the UMHCG.

As they point out, Montenegro is one of the few countries that does not have a single register of persons with disabilities, and due to its non-existence and inadequate statistics, as a basis for further analysis and research, it does not have a single and universal approach to the guarantees of the human rights of PWDs, but they are often discriminated on different grounds, such as the cause and time of damage, percentage and type of damage, and age.

This, as they explained, means that the rights of people with disabilities are guaranteed from a medical and functional model of approach to disability, and not in accordance with a model based on human rights that defines disability as a developmental social phenomenon, and clarifies that it arises from the contribution of a person who has certain impairments (psychosocial, intellectual, sensory and physical) with different barriers in practice, which hinder the equal participation of people with disabilities in society on the basis of equality with others. "Therefore, the problem is represented by obstacles for which the state and society are responsible, and they must be systematically and continuously recognized and removed," said the UMHCG.

They once again called on the Government not to carry out the process in an accelerated manner, but to include interested representatives of representative organizations of persons with disabilities in the process of preparing the Census Law, including organizations that bring together children with disabilities, and to conduct a mandatory public hearing, and instead of particular interests respects its international and European obligations and really shows that instead of "trade" practices, it starts practices of systemic and long-term sustainable changes.

"The position of people with disabilities, no matter how they declare themselves nationally and ethnically, will not be improved in that way, but they will also serve as numbers and percentages for someone else's particular and partitocratic interests. We must not agree to that," the announcement concludes.