Persons with disabilities (PWDs) were completely neglected during the election campaign for the president of Montenegro and none of the candidates has so far dealt with PWDs and their rights, said the executive director of the Association of Disabled Youth of Montenegro (UMHCG), Marina Vujačić.
"The campaign for the President of Montenegro is not sufficiently accessible to people with disabilities and we have 'new moments', in which we try to create a new environment or image that we are not used to," said Vujacic for the PR Center.
As she pointed out, the only progress that could be noticed was that some video campaigns and videos were subtitled, but even that, it is believed, would not have happened if UMHCG had not sent initiatives for years.
Vujačić mentioned that the Public Service is obliged by law to provide a translation in sign language during the part of the interview and presentation of candidates, but that she is afraid that this will not be implemented because this practice no longer exists.
Also, as she added, none of the authorities called to provide citizens with equal conditions for voting, PR Center reports.
Asked about the accessibility of polling stations to persons with disabilities, Vujacic said that after the 2020 elections, they received comments that some of the PWDs could not exercise their right to vote unhindered.
"All verdicts were in favor of PWDs and it was ordered to remove all obstacles, but this was not done to the end, except in the capital city at a few polling stations," said Vujacic.
As she said, based on monitoring the accessibility of polling stations that worked last year, it was determined that over 50 polling stations in the urban part of Podgorica were not accessible to PWDs.
"In other municipalities too, this progress is very slow. We have a promise from the municipality of Tuzi that they will create all the necessary conditions so that PWDs can vote without hindrance, but we will see how it will all turn out after the elections," said Vujačić.
She said that hate speech towards PWDs can be heard during any election, especially presidential and parliamentary elections.
"We could also hear hate speech during this campaign, but we don't have institutions that sanction it. It just appears in the media, someone condemns it on social networks and that's the end of it," said Vujacic.
In anticipation of International Women's Day, Vujacic said that now women with disabilities are much more encouraged to speak about their rights and the position they have.
This, as she pointed out, was not the case before, because in general all women, in Montenegrin traditional society, did not have support for exercising their rights and position in society.
"In the fight for better rights of women with disabilities and their greater visibility in society, the support of the system was missing. There was a lack of support in the area of public policies, which should be more adequate, but also in the area of implementation of practices, financial support and social and child protection services", stated Vujačić and added that women with disabilities are still not encouraged to live independently.
She emphasized that the environment in which women with disabilities live is not supportive enough for them to give themselves the right to be equal with men.
"I very often say that it is very important for women with disabilities to be educated, because somehow in Montenegro, men always do better than women. If women with disabilities do not have an adequate education, then they do not have employment, income and economic independence, which is crucial for most women," said Vujacic.
He also sees the problem in the fact that state institutions "do not take women with disabilities who are victims of violence seriously."
"Women with disabilities do not often report violence, but even in the case of reports, their experiences are not positive and the results of those reports were not in their favor," Vujačić said.
She also pointed out that it often happens that documents and strategies are documents that are prepared and adopted, but there is no responsibility for their implementation.
"The situation is a little better in the area of allocation of funds, but the level of implementation is still low, whether it is policies in the field of gender equality or the rights of persons with disabilities," said Vujacic.
She assessed as positive that the Ministry of Human and Minority Rights, after many years since the ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, in the Strategy for the Protection of Persons with Disabilities and the Promotion of Equality, defined the area related to women with disabilities, but concluded with a small , insufficient number of measures for the five-year period.
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