The protection of human rights and freedoms is one of the basic tasks of every state, and in recent years the government's inert attitude towards this area has been noticeable, it was announced at the panel discussion "How to fight discrimination?", organized by the Citizens' Initiative "21. May".
Member of the Coordination Board GI "21. May", Marijana Laković-Drašković, said that the protection of human rights and freedoms is one of the basic tasks of every state.
"The degree to which this task is achieved in the reality of life is a measure of the democracy of each country and the success of its development. It is a parameter that ensures the progressiveness of a system, the institutions of each state, and on the basis of which states are divided into democratic and non-democratic," Laković-Drašković pointed out, as reported by the PR Center.
She said that there is no democracy if differences are not respected.
"The protection and realization of human rights and freedoms, without discrimination on any basis, is expected by all our citizens, and so is the European Union, because we aspire to be a member of the EU. So we have thirty criteria that we need to fulfill in the area of human rights, which are one of the key areas from Chapter 23, which includes justice and human rights," said Laković-Drašković.
The director of the Montenegrin Women's Lobby, Aida Petrović, said that after two and a half decades of dealing with women's rights, she does not know how to achieve gender equality, and that women are discriminated against in the family, at work and in politics.
"In the XNUMXs, women started a story with women's human rights, the women's organization SOS telephone for domestic violence. Women were much stronger and we had more of them in the sense that they come to organizations, open new organizations. Now that has all died down. Everyone is fighting for their own existence," Petrović said.
He believes that more women should be involved when it comes to women's rights, stating that "only with united forces is it possible to move things from a deadlock, which has not moved for a year."
Petrović assessed that we are thirty years behind when it comes to women's human rights.
The President of the Board of Directors of the organization Queer Montenegro, Danijel Kalezić, assessed that the situation in the country is such that hatred is dominant.
"We all look for reasons to incite hatred towards someone else. In this context, hatred against us who are from the LGBT community increased in the online space and on the Internet, at the level of hate speech, when the Law on Life Partnerships of Persons of the Same Sex began to be implemented," said Kalezić.
Speaking about respect for the human rights of LGBTIQ persons, Kalezić pointed out that hate speech and hate crimes are still not adequately sanctioned.
"It is something that must be worked on in order to achieve even further progress," Kalezić assessed.
He reminded that the implementation of the Law on Life Partnership of Persons of the Same Sex entered into force on June 15, but that the Government still has not harmonized 26 laws, which is necessary for the realization of the specific rights guaranteed by that act.
"I think that as a society we have some potential in the future, considering everything that has been done and achieved in the last ten years, to take the next step and to accept people as they are, when we heal a little as a society in terms of the civic concept and realize that essential support and acceptance, not declarative," Kalezić said.
Master of Law, Anis Šljuka, assessed that PWDs are today in an unenviable socio-economic position in society, which, he believes, in addition to the conditions caused by this pandemic, "is the result of inaction and insufficient care of representatives of the executive power".
"When I say concerns, I'm not saying that the model of access to disability should be viewed through the lens of mercy, but of equality and the application of all adopted regulatory regulations," explained Šljuka.
Speaking about the employment of PWDs, Šljuka believes that in the last year there has been a lack of interest on the part of representatives of the executive authority to include PWDs in the employment process.
"For PWDs, work is not just a process of economic empowerment. For PWDs, work is a way of social integration and preservation of cognitive working abilities," said Šljuka.
He assessed that the current government's inert attitude towards PWDs has a negative impact on that population, "and it has set us back ten years, as it took us to fight for the application of observing disability through the prism of human rights and freedoms".
The national coordinator from the Center for Roma Initiatives, Šejla Pepić, said that there is double discrimination when it comes to Roma and Egyptian women - because they are women and because they are Roma and Egyptian.
"They face numerous problems. First of all within the RE population itself. Here I am referring to the stereotypes that we suffer from the RE population itself, and later these prejudices and discrimination manifest themselves in society itself. When we don't have help from our community, how will we find help from the majority population", stated Pepić.
Speaking about the most common problems of women from the RE community, Pepić said that they concern early marriage, early termination of primary education, as well as encountering discrimination during employment.
"Although we have strategies and action plans, programs and activities, we do not see that members of the RE community are involved. There are certain advances compared to previous years, but that is still not enough, there is still enough space to work on the inclusion of the RE population in society," concluded Pepić.
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