9th December 2016
It was an honor for the Office of the Equal Opportunities Ombudsperson to have the Commissioner for Human Rights Nils Muižnieks as a visitor.
The Commissioner received an overview of the Office’s expertise, the main issues and the key challenges. During the meeting, the ombudsperson Agneta Skardžiuvienė introduced the following: a new, amended version of the Law on Equal Treatment, a renewed structure of the Office, the statistics on received complaints and the future plans for strengthening the functions of the Office. She has also talked about the establishment of the scheme to provide the monitoring mechanism for of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities implementation.
The Commissioner is visiting Lithuania in order to find out how Lithuania’s government and the institutions fighting for human rights ensure the human rights of all the residents of the country. According to the Commissioner, the main goals of the visit is to assess the situation of the rights of women, children and disabled as well as to understand the means by which the security of human rights is achieved in the country. The Commissioner expressed his concerns about the situation of the disabled, the extent of the violence against women and the lack of the effective means in order to prevent and combat domestic violence. During the meeting, valuable information was exchanged and agreement on future collaboration was achieved.
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