Jul 03, 2007News: Gay NGO Joins With Others to Protect Rights in Moldova
By vanrozenheim
(Chisinau, Moldova) - GenderDoc-M, the gay and lesbian NGO in Moldova, has joined forces with other organisations for form an Antidiscrimination Consortium to protect the human rights of minorities. At present, the Consortium is working to protect the rights of ethnic minorities, youth, people with disabilities, the LGBT community and women. The project aims to set minimum standards for anti discrimination law which should be adopted by Government. In addition, The Consortium is organising training for those in the coalition as well as for journalists who will highlight the subject in local and national mass media.
The nine-month project is being financed with the support of the Swedish Helsinki Committee and open the Society Institute (Budapest), in conjunction with the OSCE mission to Moldova.
On issues about sexuality, Nicolai Esanu, the Deputy Minister of Justice, said recently that he had more important things to deal with.
In a meeting with Swedish MEP Maria Carlshamre in April during Rainbow Over the Nistru – Chisinau Pride, Mr. Esanau is said to have remarked to the MEP: “I have more important issues to solve than your gays and lesbians.
“For example, I have to think about where to find money to keep prisoners in jail. Maybe you will help us with this? The situation of sexual minorities in our country is not a priority issue for the government.”
Ms. Carlshamre is said to have been shocked at the remark – and was reported to have been very indignant. She also found during her visit that fundamental human rights outside of LGBT issues in Moldova are being totally ignored.
During the visit, Ms. Carlshamre gave a pledge to Maxim Anmeghichean, the programme director for Eastern Europe at the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA), that she would take a very close look at Moldova find out where it had been spending the sizeable resources allocated to it by Europe.
She said it was that the Moldovan authorities had done nothing to change the situation with regard to the observance of fundamental human rights.
“The European Union gives Moldova sufficient money, including for institutional reform in its penitentiaries,” she said.
“It is very important for us to see that these resources are spent on maintaining European values in the country.”
“It is very important – very important – to observe the rights of all citizens,” she said.
Speaking in Bucharest last month at an OSCE conference on combating discrimination, Ambassador Christian Strohal, director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, said that there were still worrying trends related to hate crime.
He listed anti-Semitism, racism and xenophobia and intolerance against Muslims, Christians and Roma, Sinti and Travellers before turning to other groups.
“The need for increased attention and efforts in addressing other groups who are with certain regularity attacked or discriminated against, including gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and trans-gendered persons and also persons with disabilities was also highlighted during the discussions,” he said.
“We also have to note that although some progress has been made, the commitments made by participating States to intensify their efforts to combat hate crime through strengthened legislation, data collection and law enforcement response are far from being implemented.”
