BRATISLAVA, July 30, (SITA) — The LGBTI community in Slovakia will see to its dream come true of having a committee at the Government Council for Human Rights, Minorities, and Gender Equality. Members of the council voted to establish the committee for the LGBTI community at their first meeting, presided over by the new head of this government consulting body, Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak. None of the members voted against the proposal while nobody refrained from voting, either.
Upon his appointment as head of the Council on June 20, Lajcak said he considers the proposal of NGOs to establish such committee relevant. “I have received the proposal to establish this committee and I will look at it maximally openly and favorably,“ Lajcak said in June when the proposal arrived, at the last moment before revamping the council’s status.
Four council members proposed to set up the committee at today’s session. “We know that the situation in protecting LGBTI people is very poor; the Slovak Republic has no laws that would protect them and we do not have any committee either that would start dealing with their matters,” said a member of the council Adriana Mesochoritisova. Nine organizations originally called for the establishment of the committee. ”Unequal weight of banned reasons of discrimination in the structure of the council lis indefensible,” they said in the call.
Already next year Slovakia will have to prepare a monitoring report on the implementation of recommendations of the Ministerial Committee of the Council of Europe, in which it urged member states to examine the existing legislative and other measures, regularly update them and gather and analyze relevant data for the purpose of monitoring and reimbursement for any direct or indirect discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
SITA