The Association of Youth with Handicap (UMHCG), which today celebrates 23 years of its existence, indicated that no law directly regulating the rights of persons with disabilities has been adopted for almost a decade, and they also say that the rights of persons with disabilities are not adequately regulated in most system laws.
On the other hand, as they said, on a daily basis, people with disabilities and their families turn to that association and report various forms of rights violations and discrimination in numerous areas of life, especially in the areas of education, social protection and independent living, employment and health.
"On this day, exactly 23 years ago, the UMHCG was founded with the basic idea of changing Montenegrin society and promoting, representing and advocating a change in approach towards people with disabilities. However, although it would be expected that today, after more than two decades, we will sustainable, stable organization with resolved basic issues, such as the space for work, regular financing of the employees, more precisely, it is currently non-existent activities and work, while some institutions and individuals with their actions directly harm the smooth functioning and affect the survival of the organization," the announcement reads.
They say that this should be of particular concern, bearing in mind the fact of the state's obligation to systematically regulate and finance the regular work of representative organizations of persons with disabilities, in accordance with the ratified UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
"However, contrary to what was stated, this very year and this very month we were left without premises for work, which we used for the previous five years, based on the Agreement on the use of business premises, signed with the then Administration for Property. Although the Agreement is valid until the end this month, we had to leave the premises at Kralja Nikola Street 76 early and without any alternative support. On the contrary, the current State Property Administration addressed us in a letter, in which they asked us to clear the premises of things and persons as soon as possible and to pay the costs related to the consumed electricity, water and other costs as of 25.4.2024/43/2023, even though in the previous five years we have never been invoiced for the mentioned bills, neither on our own initiative, nor at our request, and bearing in mind our numerous appeals in the past four-year period In addition, they did not offer us an alternative, at least until the end of the validity of the Agreement, and we have approached every Prime Minister so far and, as far as we know, only the President of the XNUMXrd Government has tried to mediate in solving the above-mentioned issue. . The other Prime Ministers, including the current one, never even responded to the address, even though it was repeated to them several times. Everything that we went through in the entire past period, especially since January XNUMX, greatly affected the organization, but also the health of the employees, due to continuous exposure to stress, inconvenience, uncertainty and difficult working conditions," the UMHCG announced.
Such a relationship between institutions at the national level, they add, was joined by the capital city of Podgorica, i.e. its current administration, now in a technical mandate, "disregarding the decision of its own Assembly, which passed an opinion on the allocation of space for the needs of the Social Center for people with disabilities".
"Just like years ago on the occasion of this date, today we will not list our results and highlight our own work. We leave it to the Montenegrin society to evaluate and judge how important the active work of the UMHCG is, not only for people with disabilities and their families, but for society as a whole However, we cannot miss this opportunity to point out and warn about the worrying trend of regression and stagnation of human rights, especially the rights of people with disabilities, of all ages last year stated that there is no progress in the field of rights of persons with disabilities"
Other international institutions and bodies, such as the US State Department, the European Parliament, as well as the Committee for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the Grevio Committee, have given similar assessments in their reports.
"For almost a decade, no law has been adopted that directly regulates the rights of persons with disabilities (the last lex specialis is the Law on Prohibition of Discrimination against Persons with Disabilities), nor are the rights of persons with disabilities adequately regulated in most systemic laws. This was also pointed out by the UN in August 2017 The Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, making recommendations for harmonization, has not approached the matter seriously and thoroughly. On the contrary, the statistics should be of concern to the Government and the Parliament, on the other hand with disabilities and their families turn to the UMHCG and report various forms of rights violations and discrimination in numerous areas of life, especially in the field of education, social protection and independent living, employment and health propaganda about the alleged misuse of funds from the Professional Rehabilitation Fund, apparently with the intention of further silencing us, suppressing and denying our right to work and a dignified life," said the association.
They say that, despite everything, they will not give up the fight for survival and more adequate working and operating conditions, with thanks to "all those who contribute to this, primarily the collective of UMHCG, but also to all those who have confidence in us and who deeply believe in the importance and contribution of our organization to the entire civil sector and society as a whole."
"We will continue to stand out with our work, diligence, unbiased and critical review of things and phenomena, no matter how much it 'costs' us in this and such a system," the announcement reads.
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