The Chairman of the Committee on Human and Minority Rights and Gender Equality Meho Omerovic said that persons with mental disabilities are the most discriminated category in Serbia and the committee members’ meeting with the representatives of the Initiative is a step toward finding the most adequate systemic solutions to include this social group in all the spheres of social life in Serbia. Omerovic said that the problem of rights of persons with mental disabilities is exceptionally complex and requires a broad approach and multi-sector cooperation, adding that the National Assembly committees stand ready to tackle the issue.

The Director of the Mental Disability Rights Initiative Dragana Ciric Milovanovic briefed the Committee members on the organization’s scope of work stressing that it is especially focused on the rights of persons with mental and intellectual disabilities housed in residential institutions. As some of the most common problems Ciric Milovanovic listed the need to end the isolation of persons housed in these institutions, the rising numbers of children in these institution, lack of support for their biological families and the inefficient fostering system, and as the most important, the complete lack employment capacity among this social category.

Speaking of the position of disabled women and girls housed in the abovementioned facilities, Kosana Beker of the Initiative said that the most prevailing problems, in addition to discrimination, are sexual and domestic abuse.

Committee member Ljupka Mihajlovska added that another issue requiring attention is the education of children with mental and intellectual disabilities.

Committee member Tatjana Macura said she was very pleased by the constructive approach to the problem and efforts to find the much needed solutions as soon as possible.

Finally, the Chairman of the Committee on Human and Minority Rights and Gender Equality Meho Omerovic also thanked the foreign guests, participants of the partnership meeting PODIUM at the margins of which the meeting with MDRI-S was taking place, stressing the need to apply good practice models, especially from the EU member states, to resolve the problematic status of persons with disabilities in Serbia.