May 23, CHISINAU – Council for preventing and eliminating discrimination and ensuring equality has presented during the international conference The Situation on Preventing and Combating Discrimination in the Republic of Moldova for 2018.

During the event, Council has brought up the most urgent issues of discrimination in diverse areas such as employment market, access to public goods and services, education, access to justice, etc. as well as it has proposed recommendations to eliminate all forms of discrimination.

There is an alarming tendency in the employment market to discriminate employed persons with the status of old-age pensioner. In this case, discrimination is determined by the unreasonable application by employers of the provisions of art. 86 lit. y1 ) Labor Code that allows firing employees who hold the status of old-age pensioner.

Access to public goods and services remains, as in 2018, the area, where are reported the majority of discriminatory manifestation. In this period Council has identified problems as: enduring discrimination through association on the basis of disability in the realization of the right to retirement, the lack of a differentiated calculation formula for different types of disability, which guarantees a minimum income for social assistance, absence of the mechanism for implementing reasonable accommodation in access to social assistance benefits, functional issues of social services, the lack of the mechanism of non-application of the preventive custody of seriously ill persons, discriminatory situations in accessing transport services, etc.

The Republic of Moldova has achieved some progress in reforming the educational system, especially inclusive education. However, Council’s jurisprudence emphasizes barriers as an inefficient allocation of financial resources for inclusive education, lack or absence of teaching stuff support and specialists (psychologists, psycho-pedagogues, speech therapists), a reluctant attitude of teachers towards children with special learning needs in the process of their integration into the educational system.

Last year in the field of justice the number of discriminatory cases has increased, whether one refers to inappropriate provisions of non-discrimination of Penal Code or to unequal protection in the investigation of criminal cases that targeted the person with intellectual disabilities, or racial profiling as well as lack of linguistic accessibility in the judicial system.

It is important to mention that during the conference, Council has launched ‘Summary of Jurisprudence’ – a publication that presents a summary of examined cases by the Council for the 2013-2015 period.

‘Through our endeavour to gather and publish the jurisprudence of the Council, we aim to help professionals and interested persons to deeply understand the transformations which this area is experiencing. I do not exclude that our reader may sometimes see him/herself in the cases described here, both in the role of a victim and a perpetrator of discrimination. Some situations, tacitly accepted as a normal, after more thorough analysis prove to be cases of discrimination. I am glad that our society is learning to generate less suffering and in this process of social transformation, I see the crucial role of the Council. Our task is not just to react to the reported cases, but also to actively prevent discrimination through education, information and public debates.  Elaboration of this publication has become possible only thanks to the support of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, to which I express my most sincere gratitude’, mentioned Ian Feldman, President of the Council.

‘Even though the general conditions were often difficult for the work of the Council, several important decisions were issued of which we collected a total of 113 decisions for this publication. We are convinced that the translation of decisions into the Russian language, in addition to the publication of the original decisions in the Romanian language, will enable all citizens of The Republic of Moldova to fully understand these decisions. At the same time, the English translation shall enable readers abroad to follow Moldovan cases and discussions. Furthermore, the current publication is meant to contribute to the promotion and protection of human rights, which has always been one of the core missions of KAS’,  highlighted Hartmut Rank, Director Rule of Law Programme South East Europe Konrad Adenauer Foundation.

Throughout 2018, Council has registered 247 complains, 64% of which were made by men and 36% by women. The highest number of complaints were applied personally, the distribution of complaints by the petitioners’ domicile shows that complaints from the urban environment are 82% higher than from the rural environment

The General Report on the Situation on Preventing and Combating Discrimination in the Republic of Moldova for 2018 was published on March 15, 2019, on www.egalitate.md.