November 21^st, 2018, Council for preventing and eliminating discrimination and ensuring equality (Equality Council) has launched “Equal Rights in Rural Communities” and reached Slobozia Mare village, Cahul region, inhabited by 5800 people.

According to the Council’s data, it has been receiving annually 160 complaints and only 30% of complaints are received from the rural area. The main problem is not linked to the fact that discrimination doesn’t exist in the rural area, the main issue is that people are poorly informed about protection mechanisms against discrimination.

To overcome this barrier, the Equality Council’s team organized an awareness lecture for students of XII grade, teachers, educators, doctors, policemen, social workers, the city hall employees and Mrs Mayor Valentina Carastan, who had supported actively our campaign.

The Head of the Department of protection from discrimination Carolina Bagrin stressed: “It’s very useful for our students to participate in such kind of lessons because they will become the future generation of the Republic of Moldova. To fight effectively against discrimination we need not only to create positive concepts in minds of young people but also we should educate tolerance, value diversity and without any doubt, we should not commit discriminatory deeds”.

During the lecture participants were watching the video “Protect your rights, don’t accept to be discriminated!”, which presented various methods of addressing a complaint as well as different stages of complaint analyzation.

Mrs Mayor Valentina Carastan underlined: “Today’s young people should become different from our generation. Besides, they should keep in mind that all we are unique and special. It’s essential to be ourselves and to accept ourselves in the way, which we have been created! As well, our society has to claim to respect its rights because all we have rights. Our rights ought to be respected as well as we have to respect the rights of others if we desire to live in a free and democratic society”!

To encourage reporting of discriminatory cases, Council left free envelopes for local people from Slobozia Mare, which can be used by victims or witnesses of discrimination. Free envelopes can be found at the local post office.

Moreover, Council donated materials for the local library, such as books and brochures, Guide for petitioners and many others to the local post office.

Equal Rights in Rural Communities awareness campaign is run from November 6^th to 30^th, 2018 in the following regions Congaz (Gaguazia region), Tvardiţa (Taraclia region), Corlăteni (Raschani region), Sipoteni (Calarasi region), Slobozia Mare (Cahul region) and Vărzăreşti (Nisporeni region).

This campaign is launched by the Council for Preventing and Eliminating Discrimination and Ensuring Equality in partnership with the Institute Penal Reform with the support of the Program for the Financing of Human Rights Initiative / Change Projects. This program is carried out with the participation of the Institute for Penal Reform within the project “Strengthening the technical capacities of national institutions for the promotion and protection of human rights” financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark and implemented by the United Nations Development Program.