Zenka: Next year the Ministry will allocate 1.5 million euros to improve the work of the civil sector

The Ministry for Human and Minority Rights allocated a million and 23 thousand euros to non-governmental organizations, and next year, to improve the work of the civil sector, they will allocate 1.5 million euros. In joint cooperation we can achieve better results, Minister Zenka said.

At a press conference on the occasion of the two-year work of the department, Minister for Human and Minority Rights, Mehmed Zenka, said that the Ministry proposed several laws, stating that the Law on the Prohibition of Discrimination adopted in June 2017, and the Law on Minority Rights and freedom in April 2017.

"In November 2017, a proposal for the Law on the Selection, Use and Public Expression of National Symbols was established. Also a very important law has also been prepared, the Law on the Life Partnership of the same sex persons. The work on the text of the Draft Law that regulates the relations between the state and religious communities is also very intense ", Zenka said.

He announced that the this ministry has prepared new strategic documents for the following period, namely the Minority Policy Strategy and the Strategy for Improving the life Quality of LGBTI People in Montenegro.

"The state report on human rights in Montenegro was successfully presented in January 2018 and adopted in June. A report to the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination was also successfully presented in August this year, " said Zenka.

He pointed out that one of the important segments of the work of the Ministry for Human and Minority Rights is education.

"In order to respect human and minority rights at all levels, education is especially important in order to train all those who are obliged to implement human and minority rights protection policies. We also conduct campaigns to raise awareness of respect for human and minority rights in Montenegrin society, "Zenka said.

In this regard, he said, the eighth cycle of education of civil servants and clerks is in progress.

Zenka pointed out that the multinationality and multiconfessionalism of Montenegro is one of its greatest values.

"We are rich enough in nations, religions, cultures and our greatest obligation is to preserve and nourish these values. Montenegro has remained an island where every reluctant, every religion found its escape. That is why we are trying to correct our mistakes and improve our positive results so that our children inherit as much as possible from us, "Zenka said.

By improving the Law on Minority Rights and Freedoms, they have achieved better solutions for the functioning of the Fund for the Protection and Realization of Minority Rights.

"The Government of Montenegro, through our Ministry, provides significant financial resources, and the total budget, committed to affirmation of the value of minorities, is close to two million euros," Zenka said.

It is a very sensitive issue, he said, the question of the Roma and Egyptian population and their high quality involvement in everyday life.

"In this regard, the Strategy for Social Inclusion of Roma and Egyptians is extremely important. The quality of life of the Roma and Egyptian population is constantly improving. We are not satisfied with the results achieved so far, but the positive results are visible. We are far from our goal,, but we are much better than ten or fifteen years ago. In order to achieve their full inclusion in society, the Ministry gives special support to this population, " Zenka said.
He believes that early and forced marriages can be suppressed only through education and the greater involvement of Roma in everyday life in Montenegro.

According to him, the goal is to, by adopting a law that will regulate relations between the state and religious communities, achieve the highest possible agreement among the religious communities.

"Our activities for 2019 will focus on knowing each other better, getting closer to each other through these acquaintances," Zenka said.

The implementation of gender equality and equal opportunities policy is, as he said, a special challenge and one of the priorities of the Ministry for Human and Minority Rights.

"The first significant dimension is the economic empowerment of women. I have to note that 140 women, in one year, have been trained for women entrepreneurship. Over 50 business plans have been made, and up to now seven women registered a business, "explained Zanka.
Another important segment on which gender equality policies are based is, as he said, the greater the political participation of women.

"In this regard, we have good cooperation with the Women's Political Network, UNDP, the European Union Delegation to Montenegro. It should be noted that six municipalities, in the budgets for 2018, envisaged funds in the amount of 120 thousand euros to support female entrepreneurship. In the area of greater political participation of women in Montenegro, numerous educations were conducted, in which 251 politicians from 20 municipalities participated, "said Zenka.

As he said, the Women's political network is consisted of representatives of 16 parties, which, as he explained, initiated changes in the electoral legislation, in comparison with the current norm of 30 percent, will be 40 percent of women in the legislative power.

Zenka emphasized that the this Ministry is conducting continuous campaigns, education and research with the aim to point out the extremely negative phenomenon of violence against women and domestic violence.

"We are particularly interested in the campaign" 16 days of activism in the fight against violence against women ", during which we organize forums for students of secondary and elementary schools," Zenka said.

This year, he said, through the Ministry for Human and Minority Rights, more than one million and 23 thousand euros were allocated to non-governmental organizations for five sectoral analyzes, which, as he explained, accounted for more than half of the budget allocated by the Government to the civil sector in 2018. year.

"For 2019, our plan to allocate 1.5 million euro to improve the work of the civil sector. This is a serious proof that we see civil sector as a partner and with the synchronizing some of our common values and activities we can achieve better and better results, " Zenka said.