High-level Meeting of the General Assembly on the realization of the Millennium Development Goals and other internationally agreed development goals for persons with disabilities

Does this mean charity and goodness of heart or does it mean that it’s actually the state fulfilling its purpose and obligation. And as long as the right of people with disabilities was treated as a result of goodness of heart I don’t think much progress can be made.

I think it is the essential purpose of the existence of the state is to create equal starting position, to create an equal level, level playing field on which people with different characteristics can have the same opportunities, same rights and fulfill that rights.

I think the healthiest approach to this issue is being a politician and toking in front of politicians is to say that people with disabilities also vote. I never believed in sort of condescending attitude in which certain groups within the society are condoned or given certain rights.

I always believed in groups in society asserting themselves and claiming their rights and in this particular case we also have the situation in which people with disabilities who are the citizens have the rights and are a lakmus test for any state weather it actually meet its obligation and its purpose and can vote for different programs, for different parties, for different groups that will understand this particular task that any Government should meet.

Croatian Government hasn’t been ideal in that sense and I think we have a lot of space for improvement but we have made certain steps forward including introducing an ombudsperson for people with disabilities and ombudsperson that makes it as important as any other human right that Croatian politics is dealing with. It also looks at people with disabilities from a point of view of social exclusion but not only exclusion of people with disabilities.

A recent research has shown that close to 40% of the population feels in some way socially excluded, or ostracized, or discriminated. People with disabilities in that sense probably are well positioned to lead this type of fight for social equality not only for themselves and social inclusion not only for themselves but for also other groups within the society.

Thank you very much.