Strategy for Human Rights to be discussed by Government

The State-wide Strategy for Protection and Support of Human Rights has been approved by the Government Council for Human Rights, Ethnic Minorities and Gender Equality, with the document slated to be discussed by the Government. It aims at introducing mechanisms to analyse and improve the way human rights are respected in Slovakia, covering a wide range of categories of people from children and those with disabilities to migrants and sexual minorities. It took three years to draft the Strategy. "Never in the course of Slovakia's history was a document approved that had been subjected to such extensive public discussion, which required so many sessions and had seen such an intensive effort to arrive at a compromise solution. Slovakia doesn't have a framework document of a human rights character; this Strategy is the first of its kind", claimed Council chair and Foreign and European Affairs Minister Miroslav Lajčák after the talks.

No council member voted against the Strategy, with three members abstaining. Some voices during the discussion criticised the document for not being the product of society-wide consensus. Civil activist Kálmán Petőcz believes that it puts too little responsibility on the state for implementing it. An NGO representative Šarlota Pufflerová worries that there were too many compromises done in order to have the document ready and she has many question marks about how it works in practice. Council members have asked to state their objections or suggestions by December 5, if they had any. They'll be attached to the material but won't be part of the Strategy.