OSCE-supported training course improves capacity and co-operation of actors promoting and protecting rights of national minorities in Moldova

More than 25 representatives of the Agency for Interethnic Relations, the Ombudsman’s office and the Council for Preventing and Eliminating Discrimination and Ensuring Equality completed a two-day training course on national minority issues on 2 October 2018 in Chisinau. Organized by the OSCE Mission to Moldova, the course aimed at enhancing the capacity and co-operation among the state actors involved in implementing the National Strategy for Consolidation of Interethnic Relations for 2017‒2027.

Under the guidance of the international expert, Professor Frederick John Packer, Director of the Human Rights Research and Education Centre at the University of Ottawa, the participants discussed international conventions and treaties in the area of national minorities. They also learned about best practices of national minorities’ rights protection employed by international human rights bodies and worked on case studies. During the training course, the representatives of state bodies jointly identified ways to boost co-operation in the field of minority rights protection and elaborated upon a mechanism jointly to identify and address drawbacks in the state policies on national minorities.

“Promotion of interethnic harmony is a way forward to promoting inclusivity and tolerance in societies. Both are important preconditions for achieving the end state of the Transdniestrian settlement process,” the Head of the OSCE Mission to Moldova Claus Neukirch said.

Ian Feldman, President of the Council for Prevention and Elimination of Discrimination and Ensuring Equality, said: “This training is of utmost importance for the Equality Council and other state institutions dealing with the protection of the rights of national and linguistic minorities. It highlights state-of-the-art international standards presented by a well-known international expert and serves as an effective team building exercise.”

Moldova is a home to different ethnic and linguistic groups. According to the 2014 census, out of all people interviewed more than 75 per cent identified themselves as Moldovans, with the rest identifying themselves as Romanians (seven per cent), Ukrainian (6.6 per cent), Gagauz (4.6 per cent), Russians (4.1 per cent), Bulgarian (1.9 per cent), and other ethnic groups (less than one per cent). To promote intercultural dialogue and interethnic harmony in the country, in 2016 the Government adopted the National Strategy for Consolidation of Interethnic Relations, which was developed with the support of the OSCE High Commissioner for National Minorities.

The training course is the first in a series of events planned by the OSCE Mission to Moldova for 2018 to establish a coalition of government actors promoting and protecting the rights of national minorities in Moldova. To this extent, the OSCE Mission to Moldova is facilitating the signing of a Memorandum of Co-operation among the Agency for Interethnic Relations, the Ombudsman’s office and the Council for Preventing and Eliminating Discrimination and Ensuring Equality.