Mongolia Country Report 2014

Country Report, Mongolia

 

 

Hereby the following two things are described as the recent highlights (over the past 2 years).

As the result of an advocacy activity, organized by the MNFB towards the development of blind medical massage, which has taken place during the white cane day of 2013, the Health Minister accepted our demand and has agreed the following points.

  1. To recognize massage training provided by the rehabilitation training center of the MNFB as an official training.
  2. To make an amendment to the health law about giving a state exam to blind masseurs and issuing a medical license to blind masseurs based on the result.

In order to fulfill the above mentioned undertakings, the Ministry of Health formed a working group which consists of representatives from the MNFB and the Ministry of Health with the purpose of developing a medical training curriculum for approval of the health minister.

One of outcome of the agreement with the ministry of health is that Nyamkhuu who graduated from the massage school of Tsukuba technology University successfully passed the state exam and has been issued a medical license as a doctor who can engage medical massage, Acupuncture and cautery.

 

In 2015 the CRPD committee and the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) will be reviewing the country report of Mongolia on implementation of the respected treaties.

By the initiation of the MNFB, Mongolian DPOs have prepared written submissions and submitted them respectively to the CRPD committee and the CESCR. MNFB played a leading role in the preparation process with a guidance of the International Disability Alliance.

 

Based on our experiences, it can be stated that at the present the following challenges are being faced at country level.

  1. Existing laws and regulations do not cover all the issues and human rights of the persons with disabilities; they only cover the rights of persons with disabilities on receiving the necessary social welfare, because they are based on the medical model and are not providing an environment to exercise their other human rights in society as stated in the CRPD as well as lacks of law enforcement and accountability mechanisms.
  2. The participation by PWDs is not enough in the policy development and decision making process as well as the implementing, monitoring and evaluation process of programs and activities on all levels to enable PWDs to address disability issues and specific needs. This is because of the following two reasons:

Firstly, the decision makers could not realize up till now that in order to fully address the rights of PWD they must work together with all the sectors. They are treating PWDs as the   concern of the Ministry of Population Development and Social Welfare and are always putting the disability issues in second place.

Secondly, PWDs themselves are not sufficiently empowered, do not have enough information and resources which enable them to actively participate on a level where they can influence policy development and the decision making process concerning disability issues.

 

At the organizational level:

In order to bring positive changes in society towards visually impaired person’s well-being, many things are needed to be initiated and done by the organization for and of the blind. In one word blind people do play an important role in that process.  One of challenges we are facing is not having sufficient qualified human resources which are needed to make the organization’s activities more sustainable and functional.

Today the MNFB has 72 paid employees who work at the rehabilitation training center, Braille and audio production center, FM radio station and the massage centers of the MNFB. One of challenges MNFB often faces is not having sustainable financial resources.

 

The following are examples of progress towards implementation and monitoring of the UNCRPD

  1. In 2012, at the demand of PWDs, a department in charge of PWD issues was established at the Ministry of Population Development and Social Protection (MoPDSP). However, the department has insufficient authority to make inter-sector coordination between ministries and suffers from a shortage of funds. According to resolution No.281, the government has for the first time adopted a “Plan of Actions to Implement the CRPD in 2013-2016.” However, in the state budget of 2014 there is no budget allocation for the implementation of this plan and the benefits of the action plan haven’t been felt by PWDs yet, we believe that it will produce results in the future.
  2. The Government officially accepted the Incheon strategy to “Make the Right Real” for PWDs in Asia and the Pacific region. This strategy calls for a 10-year implementation period to strengthen the rights of PWDs, which consists of 2 stages lasting five years each. However, the plan for the initial 5 years has not been yet developed.
  3. With the participation of PWDs, a process for making a amendment into the Law on the Social Protection of PWDs that is written in compliance with the CRPD is being undertaking. We believe that this law will come to reflect the real needs of PWDs.

 

MNFB has not given any support other neighboring or developing countries in terms of the wellbeing and capacity building or empowerment of blind and vision impaired persons.

Contrary to this, MNFB  closely cooperated with Thailand association of the blind, Korean Blind Union, Japanese blind association and Danish association of the Blind and got support from these organizations for wellbeing of Mongolian blind people  on the following activities:

train blind people as a masseurs in Thailand, conduct brail training,   for development blind’s sport and implementation the project on     capacity building of the MNFB.

 

Thank you for your kind attention.

 

Gerel Dondovdorj

President of the Mongolian National Federation of the Blind

 

 

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