851st Meeting, 35th Session, Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)

Good morning, distinguished members of the committee, distinguished representative of the Republic of Lithuania, colleagues and all participants.
I now call to order 805th first meeting of the Committee on the rights of Persons with Disabilities.
This morning, the committee will continue its consideration of the periodic reports of Lithuania under agenda item five, consideration of reports submitted by state party under Article 35 of the convention.
I would once again like to welcome the delegations of Lithuania headed by miss headed by miss Lita Grigri A, Vice Minister of Social Security and Labor of the Republic of Lithuania.
We will now continue the cluster two with 20 minutes for back to back questions and answers.
I give the floor to our task force member responsible for this cluster, miss Alfredo Kasi to continue the questions.
Mr.
Cuisi, you have the floor.
Madam President.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair and thank you to the delegation for their answers yesterday.
We will be talking about Article 17 on the protection of the person's physical integrity.
According to the information at our disposal, Lithuanian legislation in some cases, still authorizes medical interventions on women with disabilities without their free and informed consent.
Article 2 0.25 paragraph two of the Civil Code of Lithuania allows a guardian upon legal authorization to consent to procedures such as sterilization, abortion, or castration on behalf of a person who has been declared to not have legal capacity.
The draft reform on legal capacity of 2026 does not, it would appear, address this provision, nor does it allow for any effective legal remedy for the victim.
Could you please tell us what has been done to prevent and prohibit Forced treatment such as forced sterilization, for instance, on persons with disabilities and if they are intersex, what is done to prevent them from undergoing medical and surgical operations that they have not consented to.
Second question, could you provide figures regarding the legal authorization, the number of legal authorizations for these sterilizations.
Thank you.
Good morning.
Miss Chair, Committee members.
Thank you for the question.
The question is, what could prevent ill treatment against women with disabilities against such things like forced sterilization and other coercive measures.
Romania Andrés the representative of the Ministry of Social Security and Labor will respond to the question.
Thank you for the question.
Please note that at the moment in Lithuania, In all cases, in order to carry out such interventions, a court order is needed.
It's not sufficient to have just the request of the guardian.
Lithuania is heading towards Lithuania.
Is heading towards the abandonment of such forced interventions.
In all cases, they should be carried out only with the consent of the individual.
We are heading towards that step by step.
That is towards the abandonment of the Institute of Incapacity.
That is, such interventions should be carried out only with the consent of the person in question.
In the opportunity from the Ministry of Justice will supplement the response.
Good morning.
Thank you for the floor.
Very briefly, I will supplement the response.
As we said yesterday, we have drafted amendments to the Civil Code and the related legislation providing for the abandonment of the Incapacity Institute.
We are working on these drafts and we are prioritizing this question so that it comes into effect as soon as possible.
Thank you.
A de la G.
Thank you for your answer.
We have received information according to which the Regional Court of Cos found in 2019 that a woman had been sterilized during a Caesarean section without her knowledge and without her consent.
This was at the request of her relatives and that testifies to the persistent risk of forced sterilization.
We received that information and we hope that your approach and the procedures that are currently underway to try and address the situation will succeed.
I'll now move on to Article 19, living independently and being included in the community.
According to our information, despite political commitments, Lithuania does still not have a comprehensive roadmap with measurable outcomes for the transition of all persons with disabilities from institutions and collective institutions towards more adapted living conditions.
Apparently, there is a lack of financial and legal mechanism to ensure autonomy within the communities.
This means that the burden of responsibility lies on families.
Could you please provide information about action plans that have been rolled out at the national, provincial and municipal levels to ensure that persons with disabilities have their right to independent living and inclusion within the community.
Could you also provide information about measures taken to ensure that all persons with disabilities, including those with greater need for support, have the right to freely choose their place of residence on an equal footing with others and to have access to a broad range of services at home and within the community to ensure that their quality of life is maintained, such as personal assistance, for instance.
Thank you.
As Guts Klaus.
Thank you for the questions.
The question is, Lithuania doesn't have a thorough action plan or roadmap and what are the specific municipal and national roadmaps for people with disability to have the right to independent living and be included into the community? What are the measures that all individuals, especially with more severe needs to be able to have an independent living and have access to all necessary services.
The Ministry of Social Security and Labor Villa Talkiene please.
Thank you for the floor.
I will be speaking on behalf of the Lithuanian delegation.
In order to implement Article 19 of the Convention, we are carrying out the institutional care reform and This is focused primarily on people with severe disabilities and the planning was carried out via the ministry and the municipalities were not included actively in the planning.
We assessed this experience critically and currently, the institutional care reform is being carried out in all municipalities via the regions and the regional Development Council.
Municipalities are drafting plans themselves on how a to ensure that people with disabilities have the right to independent living in communities.
We have two directions.
One is for those individuals living in the community to remain there and not to drop out from the community.
Another direction is for the individuals living in the nursing institutions so that they can come back to the community and get the necessary assistance.
Planning is very intensive.
One of the most important issues to be mentioned is that the municipalities very clearly recognize the individuals with Disabilities.
They know their number by type of disability and age groups.
They haven't planned their investments into the development of accessible living and community living homes.
What we are yet missing is the homes the community living homes for people where four to five people live with very severe disabilities.
The municipalities, together with NGOs have planned the monitoring of the reforms of all the regions.
We have noted this happened to the municipalities and we have agreed that in the autumn we are coming back to this and municipalities will present their decisions.
Assistance that is necessary is the infrastructure, the ensuring of infrastructure.
However, the infrastructure alone will not solve the problems to ensure that people can live independently because we need competencies of our staff.
Nationally, we are carrying out training for the staff so that they get the necessary competencies to provide individualized assistance to people with disabilities.
Thank you.
The Social Security and Labor representative will supplement the question.
I would like to mention that we have action plans of ensuring that people with disabilities are able to live in the community.
One of the one of the main measures ensuring the participation of such people is the funding for that has increased and the beneficiaries number has grown 500-1800 and the funding has grown 100000-11000 million million.
Now we have legalized the dog assistant dogs.
The municipality funds the preparation of such dogs, as well as the We provide technical assistance measures for independent living in the community and the number of beneficiaries has been growing recently.
We carry out the coordination function at the municipality, which is new, which was established in 2024 so that at the municipality, we have specific people assigned who are aware of the measures and are able to provide assistance to people with disabilities so that they can live independently.
As of 2024, we have had a new measure that is The compensation of the vehicles for people with disabilities who have a specific need to acquire such a vehicle, they can apply for an additional compensation to adapt the vehicle based on their type of disability.
This measure can be used by not only adults but also the families raising children with disabilities.
Another important measure allowing people to live independently is the adaptation of housing.
As of 2021, the use of such measure has doubled.
In 2021, we had only 407 housings like that.
Now we are able to adapt at least 1,000 housings to make them accessible per year.
However, the need has been satisfied only to up to 63% because the need is growing and there are new measures appearing to receive the compensations.
There are queues for the housing accommodation to be adapted through the funding of the municipality.
There are also compensations given to satisfy individual needs.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for your answer.
We have spoken of deinstitutionalization, I believe, and in order to ensure or rather prevent a transition from large institutions to small institutions and remain in the model, we need to understand that this is about moving towards the families and the communities and providing support to the families and communities in order to ensure they can help the disabled relative.
You spoke about ensuring accessible vehicles are available.
We will now move on to Article 20.
Which covers personal mobility.
This is a really important measure that you have taken and that is commendable.
That being said, according to information we have received, despite that important step, the rules pursuant to which persons living in long term healthcare institutions lose the right to certain assistive devices or residents or housing rights are deemed to be incompatible with the convention, the Constitution.
It also appears that there is no voice synthesis technologies that are available in Lithuania similar available technologies, despite the importance of such technologies for certain persons with disabilities.
The question is, what measures are you taking in order to address this situation? Thank you.
Au Ga Clausa, thank you for the question.
The question is about people living in long term health care establishments losing rights to certain technologies, and then there's a lack of voice synthesis technologies and what are the measures to solve that? The Ministry of Social Security and Labor, Disask will respond.
Thank you for the floor.
I will note that individuals living in long term healthcare institutions are provided with technical assistance measures.
There are certain exceptions.
For instance, they do not receive nursing beds because an establishment in order to get a license has to provide these conditions to the individuals themselves.
Speaking about voice synthesis devices, we compensate sensory devices, including software helping to communicate to people with hearing or visual disabilities or intellectual disabilities.
These measures are partially reimbursed by state funds and people use them very actively.
Thank you for the floor.
Thank you.
Well, given what you've said, what you offer, is it in Lithuanian? Because according to information we have received, Lithuania does not guarantee the development of voice synthesis technologies in Lithuanian or speech synthesis in Lithuanian.
Do you provide these services in the Lithuanian language? Thank you.
As Klaus, thank you for your question.
This question will be replied, namely whether measures are available in Lithuanian.
Dav Zebrask from the Social Protection Ministry will reply.
Yes.
Some of the measures today are already offered in Lithuanian.
But yes, we have a challenge that all of the means necessary for communication, that they should all be provided in Lithuanian, but we are working on it and we expect that in the near future we will solve this problem.
Okay.
Thank you.
Now, we have just finished our questions on cluster two, so we will give you the floor.
Please don't.
Madam Chair, we'll give you back the floor.
Thank you so much.
Now, I would like to invite the other member of the committee to raise the question.
Miss Rvranjo, you have the floor.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I have some additional questions on Article 19 and I would start by saying that we have received extensive concerns about the ability of persons with disabilities to live independently and in the community.
The concerns deal with lack of support for persons with disabilities.
This lack of support results in either those with disabilities receiving no personal assistance or with the personal assistance that they receive coming from the family instead of from the state.
Article 19 guarantees that the rights of persons with disabilities include the right to live independently and in the community.
It's supplemented by a general comment which focuses on persons with disabilities and specifies that they should be able to choose where they wish to live with whom they'd like to live, and that they should have funding and other means of personal assistance.
Yet, based on the information that we have received, it seems that persons with disabilities are not receiving sufficient personal assistance, and that this is having an impact on several other connected rights.
For example, the right to participate in activities in the community, the right to leisure and recreational activities, the ability to attend school, work, things like that.
So my question to you have four questions and comments a mixture.
The first is a question, what measures have been put in place to ensure that there is accessible reasonable amounts of personal support that satisfy the individual needs of persons with disabilities? My second question is, can you please describe how assessments are done for personal support? We've heard that the assessments vary across municipalities.
How will they be streamlined so that they are consistent? A person should not have to have different supports depending on which municipality they live in.
My third point is a comment.
It seems that extensive discretion is given to the municipalities in terms of the assessments and determinations of personal support.
This extensive discretion seems that it would be helpful if it were guided by some normative guidance to ensure that this discretion is exercised in a principled, fair, rights based, and consistent way.
For that, I would suggest using the general comment on living independently and in the community developed by our committee.
My fourth and final point is actually a question and I'll stop after this.
We've heard that individuals may be determined to have a duplication of services, but they um, generally don't find this duplication is sufficient.
It seems like a duplication, perhaps on the state party side.
It doesn't necessarily on the side of those who have disabilities.
What measures are being taken to ensure that duplications when duplications actually do exist, they are eradicated, but when they don't, that is identified.
Thank you very much.
Thank you so much.
Mr.
Pros, you have the floor.
So questions for Article 20, which deals with personal mobility.
In paragraph 167 of your report, you indicated that persons with disabilities have the right to purchase technical aids in any foreign country.
This is most commendable.
However, recognizing the economic challenges confronting persons with disabilities, why is it that you require them to purchase the equipment and then seek reimbursement? What is the turnaround time for this reimbursement.
Can you please give us some data as to how many persons with disabilities have benefited from this initiative since 2017? Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Excellency, you have the floor to Lisbon, Mr.
Jacob and Mr.
Morris.
As Guts Klaus, thank you for your questions.
The first question, what measures are applied to ensure accessible and reasonable personal support which would satisfy the needs of persons with disabilities? Second question, how assessment for personal assistance are carried out and how equal practice is ensured in all municipalities.
That that there is broad discretion given to municipalities and Whether assessment of personal assistance should be based on guidelines and tools in order to create a uniform system.
Question number four, sometimes people receive duplicated services.
How is this identified? These questions will be responded by Diva Zabasky from Minister of Social Protection.
Thank you for the questions.
Personal assistance service is quite new to our country.
We started with it in 2021.
We have tested it with the NGOs.
And we were looking for solutions in order to make it available for as broad a group of people as possible.
Today, we have a new project on the provision of personal assistance.
We've been working on it for half a year together with NGOs.
We were looking for solutions related to the conducting of assessment in order to avoid making life too difficult for people and to avoid duplicating assessments.
And we have found solutions that during the process of disability assessment, we fill out the questionnaire on individual needs, individual support, where we ask what individual means and support people need in order to be able to live in the community with dignity.
Based on this, we decide on personal assistance.
Also, we have specified the number of hours of support financed from the state budget.
Municipalities also have the possibility to contribute from their own budgets if they want to finance additional hours.
Concerning the duplication of services, we have a possibility an alternative when people get three services, so they get lower payments for those three services in comparison if they were only receiving one service.
But this is an incentive to use various services and receive personal assistance in order to be assisted in carrying out certain activities together.
Now, the discretion of municipalities.
There is no more discretion for municipalities because now we have very clear criteria and very clear rules and procedures as to how, when, and based on what support should be determined, how it should be provided, et cetera.
Thank you.
Question number five, why there is a requirement that people should buy the equipment and only then get reimbursed? How many people have used this since 2017 and how long does it last? It will be responded by Dav Zabrovsk from the Ministry of Social Protection.
Well, I will reply right away and about how many people have purchased the equipment now and how many got reimbursed.
I don't have this information.
I will provide it in writing, but we have this possibility in order to enable people to choose the most suitable piece of equipment, and then they would be able to receive compensation.
We also have an early payment mechanism when people select what they want to buy and then they get an advance payment document from the seller.
And based on this document, our center that pays out the compensation can pay the compensation, can reimburse the person, and they can use this amount to pay for the equipment.
And I will provide this information in writing, namely about how many people have used this possibility.
Thank you so much.
Miss Amalia Camil, you have the floor.
Thank you, Madam Chair and many thanks to the distinguished delegation for the answers provided thus far.
I would like to say that the office of the parliamentary office of the ombudsperson has found that residents in certain were frequently locked into their rooms or they were taken to the rooms of the so called intensive supervision facility.
In 2011, the investigation was shelved For having not found any criminal activity, I would like to know why the investigation was closed, which did indeed show gross violations of the rights of the persons who were resident there.
Another comment once again about transstitutionalization.
I'd like to underscore that it is contrary to the guidelines on deinstitutionalization because although you have told us that the environment is better, they continue to have the same characteristics as an institution with a board with regulations, they live with people whom they haven't chosen to live with.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Mr.
Christopher Nord, you have the floor.
Good morning, Madam Chair.
Good morning, the delegation from Lithamia.
I know my question has been asked by Mr.
Floyd Morris, but I still have some areas that I want to find out from Lithia whether they are safe or concern Article 20.
About technology or devices used by people with disabilities.
Since I've been confirmed that you don't manufacture or produce distance, mechanisms or steps taken by your country to ensure that effort will be made in future for the production of this technology to make it affordable and they are accessible for people with disabilities in your country.
And if that is the case, what effort are you making to provide this technology for people with disability in leukemia? Thank you very much.
Thank you so much.
Excellency, you have the floor to respond.
A.
Thank you for the questions.
Question number one.
People in care homes are locked in the rooms or intensive supervision rooms.
There was an investigation on criminal liability.
It was suspended and what are the reasons for this? Next question.
How do institutions maintain the same management principle? How is this in line with destilization? If nothing has changed, but the institution has become smaller only and the representative of the Ministry of Social Protection and Labor will reply to that.
Thank you.
I will provide information on these questions.
I wouldn't agree that most frequently people who have challenged behavior are isolated in care institutions.
Yes, there have been cases like this in Lithuania.
I don't want to name publicly the name of the institution, but there was this shameful event and we resorted to all possible measures to stop this behavior in respect of that person and to prevent any such cases in the future.
The staff and the management of the institution have been subjected to sanctions, whereas the pretrial investigation was suspended.
I do not have details as to why it was so, but as a result, the state, took urgent and active actions and steps to improve the competence of staff.
Because this case, when the person was isolated and kept in inhuman conditions was related to the lack of competence of staff.
Also, The WHO methodology was implemented.
The quality rights methodology, there was an investigation and recommendations were prepared.
Lithuania also have national quality requirements based on human rights.
We do everything we can to avoid similar cases in the future.
Thank you.
Claus Map, the question will be supplemented by the Ministry of Social Protection Representative.
Thank you.
As concerns children in care and desciralization, I can ensure you most sincerely that we see decitrazation not only as breaking down of big institutions into smaller ones.
I do agree that this doesn't change anything and we have adequate measures for this.
We work based on community approach, the improvement of qualifications of staff.
Now we are launching a new project in accordance with the European Child's guarantee and it's meant to change the content in care institutions.
We will implement evidence based programs, for example, relational interventions, for example, that all staff working with children in care homes would work with a trauma sensitive approach.
Currently, we're also reviewing algorithms concerning response in cases of violence against children in institutions.
We are creating an algorithm to ensure the safety of children and to provide them with tools to report possible violence.
We see all the elements of deinstitutionalization.
It's not only about breaking down them into smaller institutions.
Thank you.
There was a question about that certain products are not manufactured in Lithuania.
How does Lithuania make sure that the necessary products are accessible and affordable for people with disability in Lithuania.
Thank you for the question.
I'd like to stress that in Lithuania, technical assistance measures are procured by way of public procurement.
It's an international procurement and there are strict requirements for compliance, both in terms of technology and the needs of people with disabilities.
These Products also received from other progressive countries and we have meetings of the specialized Commission, which includes also the representatives of people with disabilities.
We include in our procurement list also innovative devices.
In Lithuania, we also have a national conference and Show of affordability for existing technologies.
We have people in the ministry responsible for the placing on the market of these devices.
They take part in various exhibitions.
They bring back new innovative devices that are then included in our procurement lists and people are supplied with the set devices as a result.
Yes, there is room for improvement, of course, and these devices evolve much faster than our actions, but we do put in every effort we can and together with companies that manufacture or sell similar devices, together with these companies, we look for ways of placing these devices on the Lithuanian market.
Thank you so much.
Marino Ono, you have the floor.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
And a very good morning to the delegation of Lithuania and to all colleagues from the committee as well as all participants in this meeting.
I think.
On the matter of indicators, particularly thinking about poverty and social exclusion of persons with disabilities in Lithuania, I'm particularly interested in certain groups such as older persons, women, and children.
I wonder whether we can have more information about this and I would also ask you whether you have any figures on invisible disability.
Whether there is any public discussion of invisible disability and on illiteracy and persons that have no formal links with the state, in other words, persons without any civil registration papers.
Do you have any indicators in these areas? Finally, I'm also interested in local authorities and persons with disabilities.
I wonder whether there is any information on communication rehabilitation as well in connection with this.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Miss Glendorf, you have the floor.
Thank you, Chair and I have a question under Article 20.
You just mentioned that recently started to implement guide dog service to persons with disabilities.
Regarding that, I have one question.
We received information that persons with disabilities who are accompanying with the guide dog in some cases, face some challenges.
For example, is being refused to access some places that is open for public such as restaurant, et cetera.
My question is, please provide information on the measures in place to ensure that persons with disabilities who use Skydck is have an equal opportunity to access some places open for public, such as restaurant on an equal basis with others.
What kind of law enforcement mechanism are existing to correct such kind of violation? Thank you very much.
Thank you so much, Excellency, you have the f.
Mas.
Thank you.
The first question is related to the indicators about social exclusion and poverty among older people, women, and children.
Then the invisible disability and illiteracy, the figures and individuals without civil registration documents.
How many of them we have? This question will be responded by Divas Avars the Ministry of Social Security and Labor.
Thank you.
Will see at once that speaking about individuals without civil registration documents, we will provide that information in writing.
We don't have it at hand.
Speaking about invisible disability, we have a wide statistics and we can look at it through various sections at the type of disability at one municipality or another based on its disability, gravity, severity, and type.
This information is public and accessible both at the state data agency website and the Minister of Social Security and Labor.
Speaking about poverty, the state makes lots of effort to reduce poverty.
We have provided for certain measures, increasing the benefits received.
Every year, the basic amounts of benefits are recalculated and they are increased.
Another important aspect is that the employment of people who are of the employment age within the labor market.
At the moment, we are reviewing the labor law and the amendments should reach the Parliament in the spring.
We hope that there will be new measures adopted that will allow to respond properly to the standard of living of individuals.
The EU average shows that the poverty risk of women with disabilities accounts for 21 22% among males, among men is approximately 20%.
In Lithuania, the gender gap is higher.
Based on our recent data, the situation in 2024 and 2025 show that the poverty risk gap among men and women with disabilities has decreased.
However, the the risk of poverty has increased for people with disabilities in general and people with disabilities and children's poverty are exposed to a higher level of risk of poverty.
The question will be supplemented by Christina Sta Panova.
Thank you for the question.
I will give you some data regarding children's poverty.
As of 2025, children's poverty has dropped from 27.2 to 16.9%.
In 2025, children's poverty risk level accounted for 16.9%, which has been the lowest indicator during the last two decades.
If we take a shorter period of time and compare it with 2015, the children's risk of poverty is 29%.
That is, in ten years, the children's poverty risk indicator has dropped by over 40%, which is a huge change.
And in Lithuania, we are trying to reduce the poverty through various combined measures, and this gives the result.
Now, the question about assistant dogs and the inaccessibility of certain public areas, that was As I will respond to the question.
Yes, we did have a situation when an individual with a guide dog was not allowed to enter the public transport.
As a result of that, we have reviewed our laws on the rights of people with disability and we have a new version as of May 2026, including a new article about guide dogs.
This says that an individual assisted by such a dog can access all public areas and buildings irrespectively of their purpose and make use of all types of transport, including taxi services and private cars.
And it has also been noted that a guide dog that is a steady dog can also access all public areas, public transport and buildings.
There are certain exceptions if a guide dog threatens becomes a threat to the surrounding people or the animals, for instance, if this is a zoo, the law obliges the guide or assistant dog to be left in a specific premise in the specific room where they should be kept safely and the person with disability has to be assisted by a human person.
Thank you.
Speaking about the information about the rehabilitation in municipalities, the director of the people with Disability Agency gli Chaplin will reply.
Thank you.
As of 2016 to 2022, social rehabilitation projects in the community were funded in all 60 municipalities.
We supported such services as the day care of people with disabilities and assistance provided when visiting authorities and assistance to family members having people with disabilities.
Now social services are accredited and provided as an accredited social service.
NGOs provide the largest number of such services.
They are local and funded by the municipality and this has increased the accessibility of services and the equal quality standards and long term funding.
Every year, we spend approximately 5 million euros on this service.
10,000 people are beneficiaries of the service.
And we have another important measure, that is the service of ensuring social participation for people with visual impairments, every individual receives an individual assistance on, for instance, finding ways to participate in the community when they get a visual impairment.
Every year, we train approximately 32 people when funding the service and usually NGOs provide such services.
These are people who know best how to provide it.
Thank you.
Quasi of the task force for C two.
The other members of the committee and the distinguished delegation for their questions and response and for the information provided committee concerning C two.
Now, we will take a 15 minutes break.
The meeting will start 1115.
Thank you so much.
Distinguished delegates and colleagues, may I ask you take a seat? Now, we will resume the 851st meeting.
We will move to close the three covering Article 21 to 30 of the convention.
I give the floor to our task force member responsible for this cluster, Mr.
Floyd Morris, to begin the questions.
Mr.
Morris, you have the floor.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Madam Chair.
I just want to take this opportunity, Madam Chair, to welcome the distinguished delegates of Lithuania and to say that I'm very appreciative of their presence because this constitute their second and third periodic report and the It shows a significant appreciation and respect for the work of the committee and they have been honoring their obligation.
And based on comparing the work that has been done from the concluding observation that was last made to the report submitted now, I realize that progress has been made.
And so I am very appreciative of their effort, and I want to commend them and to say that at this committee, our work is not about persecuting countries, states parties for not implementing the treaty.
We are about assessing the work that they have done and to assist in guiding the way forward.
And with that in mind, Madam Chair, I have a number of questions that I will be asking in this cluster, and then later, my committee members and task force members would ask other questions and also follow ups.
I start with Article 21, which deal with freedom of expression and access to information.
In paragraph 169 of your report, you indicated that methodological assessments were done and adopted for websites.
These standards were mandatory for the public sector but served as guidance for the private sector.
Why is this so for the private sector when accessibility is an ex ante duty and services? Once open to the public must be accessible to persons with disabilities.
In paragraph 170, you indicated commendably that some 103 sign language interpreters provided 56,079 sign language interpretations for 3,990 persons who are deaf annually.
What proportion of the deaf population does this represent? What measures are in place to ensure that persons who are deaf blind have access to information on an equal basis with others? Those are the three questions for cluster four Article 21.
Excellency, you have the floor.
Adré.
Thank you.
Question number one, the report says that the methodological evaluation regarding the website's adaptability and the guidelines for the private sector are only as a recommendation? The second question regarding sign language interpreters 103 interpreters providing interpretation to people with hearing disabilities.
What is the proportion of the population? Question number three, the accessibility to information of people with hearing disabilities on equal grounds with everybody else.
A Chapl can you please? Thank you for the question.
Question number one, speaking about the responsibility of the business sector.
This has been provided for and as of 2025, the 28th of June, a new law on accessibility has come into effect and it says that all producers and distributors and service providers have to ensure that electronic products and digital services comply with accessibility requirements.
That also covers part of the accessibility of websites.
This is being monitored by the state Digital data agency, and they check whether the requirements are complied with.
There are lots of methodological consultations provided on the compliance with accessibility requirements for websites.
The Consumer rights Protection Agency is also responsible for controlling the accessibility of websites.
So all these questions of accessibility are regulated and monitored.
The second question is about sign language accessibility.
Not all people with hearing disabilities or deaf people, not all of them know sign language.
Some people lose their hearing at older age and don't learn sign language.
That's why not everybody needs the service.
That's why our Sign Language Interpretation Center that covers the needs up to 98% satisfy the needs of the community with hearing disabilities.
It has also been regulated that all public information has to be provided by sign language interpreters and the unchangeable information is provided in sign language, other information is provided in plain language so that it is accessible to people with visual impairments as well.
Question number three.
What measures exist? To ensure that people with hearing disabilities have the same access to information as everybody else.
Recently, we have installed a new information system.
People with hearing disabilities by way of that software or app has the possibility to communicate by their phone through people who have no hearing disability and also to the people who have the hearing disability.
This is a free app, which is called.
Remote sign interpretation is very popular in Lithuania.
This uses the sign language interpreter.
If a person has a mobile phone which is compensated or a tablet, they may when visiting various establishments and authorities, can get connected remotely with a sign language interpreter.
And this opportunity exists 247 and they can talk to anybody by way of this app.
I believe that these measures are being implemented.
Thank you.
Objection.
The question was specific to deaf blind individuals wanting to know what measures are in place to ensure that deaf blind persons have access to information on equal basis with others.
Yes, you provide access to information for persons who are deaf and out of hearing, but this is a specific grouping of persons with disabilities, those who are deaf blind, who have to use a lot of tactile measures.
And so we want to find out what measures are in place to provide access to information for those individuals.
I Gaut Slausmus Claus asmusri.
Thank you for the questions.
What measures exist for people who have both hearing and visual impairment, that is deaf and blind? How can they communicate with everybody else? What measures exist for that? Adlai Chaplin from the Agency of the Protection of people with disabilities.
She will respond to the question.
Thank you.
I understand that we're speaking about individuals with complex impairments and disabilities.
This is the journey we are just starting.
We are starting to design those services.
We have the possibility and we cooperate with the Lithuanian Deaf People's Association.
And we are funding their project to start creating a mechanism on information accessibility and assistance to such people with complex and composite disabilities.
But this is just the start of our journey.
Move on to Article 23, respect for the home and the family.
In the concluding observation in 2016, the committee called upon your government to repeal provisions restricting persons with disabilities to have a family and own a home.
Can you please explain or clarify what steps have been made to address this situation? In paragraph 177, you indicated that legal amendments were made allowing for the declaration of persons as legally incapable in specific areas.
Can you please clarify what this means in the context of persons with disabilities in your country? So those are two questions there, and then I'm going to go into Article 24.
I thank you for your questions.
Question is that the committee suggested the government to give up the prohibition restriction to have family and house and home.
What steps have been made to implement this recommendation and Irauna from the Ministry of Social Protection and Labor will reply.
Thank you for the question.
As I understand this question, it is again about our reform, about the abolishment of the Institute of Incapacity and limited capacity.
As we said already, we have projects on this.
Project and we see it as a priority.
We are working to agree on these projects with the stakeholders and NGOs and we do hope that next year we will adopt these draft proposals.
Thank you, and this answer is going to be supplemented by Alas applicant from the agency.
Person can be found incapable in various areas, for example, the financial area and in the area of a family and the right to have a family is the most sensitive issue.
We are actively working on this question.
We provide people with support while taking decisions also while fighting and preventing the establishment of incapacity in these areas.
We initiate court proceedings as well.
So that people can preserve their legal capacity or to have it restricted as little as possible.
We have 20 success stories when procedures were terminated because it was found that with support people can live in a family and can establish a family.
We do hope that this reform will finally abolish this legal Incapacity Institute.
I think, Madam Chair, that it is fair to say that this declaration or this capacity to declare persons with disabilities incapable is a violation of the fundamental rights of persons with disabilities.
I'm going to come back to this at a later stage of this cluster in Article 29 on this matter.
Article 24, Education.
In paragraph 179 of your report, you indicated that in 2019, there were 44 special purpose general education schools catering to 3,800 students with disabilities.
This was seven years ago.
Can you please indicate to this committee if there has been any reduction in these schools and The students with disabilities transitioned into the general education system.
In paragraph 180 of your report, you indicated that 89% of students with disabilities are attending general education institutions.
Can you please indicate what is the situation with the other 11% and what are the plans to have these individuals included in the general education institutions as recommended by the committee's last concluding observations? In the last sentence of paragraph 182 of your report, you stated, the network of autism special Spectrum school is being built.
Can you please clarify this statement for members of this committee? Are you building schools exclusively for students who are autistic? In paragraph 185 of your report, you pointed to shortfalls in a number of professionals that are needed to the general education system for persons with disabilities.
This goes against the recommendations made in the 2016 concluding observation of the committee.
What plans and strategies are being put in place to correct these deficits? I'm going to break here and allow you to answer those questions, and then I come back to another set of questions relating to Article 24.
Ap, thank you for your questions.
First question, in 2019, there were 44 special needs schools.
Whether this number of schools has been reduced and the number of students with a disability was reduced, whether these children were moved to general education system.
89% of students with a disability go to general education schools.
What's the situation with the remaining 11% and number three.
There is a network being developed for students with autism spectrum disability.
Does this mean that Lithuania establishes these schools exclusively for students with autism spectrum disability? What are the plans and strategies to remove the shortcoming, the lack of professionals and the Ministry of Education will respond.
Concerning the first question, I'd like to clarify the information.
Currently, in 25, 26, we had 33 specialized schools.
And it's a sharp reduction as compared with the data presented in the last report.
The number of specialized schools is on the decrease.
Now turning to the number of students in these schools, there have been no changes in the number of students in the past three years.
It remains stable, slightly over 3,600 students.
In these specialized schools, we have students who have very serious special needs.
The stable figures could be explained by the fact that the overall trend of people with special disabilities is increasing in Lithuania.
In 2023, there were more than 17,000 children with a disability.
In 2025, we have more than 19,000.
This explains the um unchanged number of students in specialized schools.
Now, turning to question number two.
Currently, students with disabilities that go to general education establishment amount to 59%.
The 89% mentioned in the report would correspond with the figure of students with special educational needs who go to general education establishments.
Now, if we talk about students with a disability and a the 59% in 2025.
So The speaker says in 2029, the number of these children was 49% and we don't have any specialized schools exclusively for children with autism spectrum disorders.
Maybe the report mentioned specialized consultation centers in the regions.
Today we have nine centers like this, but they are not educational establishments.
They simply provide advice to schools concerning various disorders.
Now, the shortage of specialists of professionals in the educational area.
Yes, their role is very important in inclusive education and let me stress that in the past three years in different categories, their number increased by more than 40%.
I'm talking here about specialized educational specialists, speech therapists, also assistants of teachers, and the financing has been increased three fold since 2020 2-25 million.
Mr.
Morris, you have the.
Just two follow ups here because you indicated that in 2025, there are 33 special education institution and that this is a sharp reduction from the 44 that was reported in your early report.
Um, I want to find out if you have a strategic plan to reduce these special education institutions over time and to make sure that you have an inclusive education system where persons with students with disabilities are in the mainstream education system.
The second thing is that in the report that I saw, I saw this information about this network of, um, schools or network for students with special needs who are autistic.
So that's why I asked the question, is it a school that is being established, a specific institution for students who are on the autism spectrum.
So I would like to get some clarity where those two issues are concerned before I go on to the next question.
Thank you.
Please, the representative of the Ministry of Education.
Could you please elaborate on strategic plans about how to reduce the number of these schools and whether the system is inclusive? I would like to clarify that in our national progress report and our strategic Lithuanian document, we have foreseen that in 2030, we should achieve 90% Of students with disability being educated inclusively in general education establishments.
We have foreseen a number of measures to achieve this.
In fact, we have five strategic directions, for example, the establishment of special needs, strengthened educational support, better organization of education, while adapting our general education schools to students with disabilities.
Also by strengthening our regional centers.
Of which we have nine newly established ones and we have four national support centers specializing in consulting and providing support.
Also, we have financial measures.
We have a project, a support project, which will help us ensure that 99% of all students with special needs should have special assistance devices and equipment.
We have foreseen a number of tools and actions that we believe will help us achieve this indicator.
Now, turning to the autism spectrum, let me clarify again that we do not have and we are not establishing any specialized schools.
Or special classes in general education establishments for this group of students.
In fact, all children depending on their individual needs, they are being integrated in general education establishments and the network of general education schools include Children with special needs in all municipalities.
Currently, 85 of children with special educational needs, including autism spectrum disorders, go to general education schools.
I 42 out of 60 municipalities, there is an increase of such children, so the situation is changing throughout the country.
The report that I read indicated that 89% of students with disabilities are in the general education system.
If your strategic framework is pointing to a target of 90% by 2030, it means that in 2026, you are one percentage point away.
And I am certain that you would want to make sure that the figure is much more than 90% when you reach 2030 so that it's synchronized with the provisions of the CRPD, and also the 2030 development agenda of our target four.
So there needs to be some relook at that particular strategic framework.
But I will move on, Madam Chair, to the rest of questions under Article 24.
In paragraph 187 of your report, you indicated that a code of ethics for Education was adopted in 2018.
Can you please indicate if this is a legally binding document and is specific to students with disabilities? The CRPD Committee in its concluding observation of 2016, recommended specifically that measures must be put in place to facilitate reasonable accommodations, amongst other things.
Where is your country with this recommendation for the education of students with disabilities? The concluding observation of 2016 also stipulated that you should set clear timelines, targets, baselines, and indicators to secure time bound and measurable progress.
Can you please indicate where are you with this? In paragraph 196 of your report, you highlighted different financial support that is given to students with disabilities at various higher level education institutions.
However, these seems inadequate in light of the needs of persons with disabilities.
Can you indicate to this committee the adequacy of these funding support, and what can be done to increase these for students with disabilities? Those are the questions that I have for Article 24.
A Gautusklaus, thank you for the questions.
Question one, code of ethics for education, whether it's legally binding.
Question two, adequate reasonable accommodation in education should be ensured for students with disabilities, what's the situation in Lithuania? Question three, inclusive education.
What's the situation in Lithuania with this? There has to be clear timelines and indicators.
Question four, financial assistance to students with disabilities at higher level education establishments.
What are Lithuania's plan for increasing financing for students with disability? This will be replied by the Minister of Ministry of Education Reative.
Let me begin by indicators.
We have strategic documents, as I said, the National Progress Plan and Education progress plan, where we have the key indicators that our country is trying to achieve in the area of inclusive education.
These indicators are related not only with the education support provision, but also with the inclusion of students with disabilities into general education establishments and general classes, also infrastructure adaptation in general education establishments.
We have interim reports.
We are monitoring the indicators.
The indicators are set until 2030 and we regularly review them.
As I said, we have These indicators in all main strategic areas.
Concerning the code of ethics, it's a legally binding document.
It's stipulated also in the law on education.
Its provisions are being integrated into various qualification improvement programs.
Also, our qualification improvement program Programs are prepared taking into account this code and they adapt these programs to inclusive education topics.
Now, concerning Concerning higher education schools, we have currently incentives for students studying in higher educational establishments.
I'm talking about universities and similar schools.
Currently, we provide assistance to students with disabilities and we have a targeted benefit that can be claimed by students with disabilities.
So This benefit is indexed every year and currently, this benefit may amount to 800 euros.
We see that the number of students with disabilities is on the increase.
In the past years, the increase has been rather sharp.
We now have more than 1,500 of such students.
And the third question concerning indicators will be replied by the Ministry of Education.
Thank you.
Let me clarify about the indicators.
I have merged two questions into one because strategic indicators are related with the provision of educational support and the availability of services and also with the number of students.
You who have a disability or special educational needs.
All of this is stipulated in our strategic documents and action plans and we regularly review our progress and in 2030, The majority of national indicators are related with 2030 and in 2030, we will have the final evaluation.
Currently, we are reviewing national plans and if there is a need, we will consider including additional indicators in order to achieve desirable progress.
Madam Chair, I have some follow ups here.
I want to know if in this review of the strategic framework, if persons with disabilities are included and consulted on a regular basis where these indicators are concerned because, you know, we The treaty requires that persons with disabilities be regularly consulted on matters relating to them.
I haven't heard an answer to the question about reasonable accommodation, and I think that I would want to hear what are the measures in place to provide reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities.
The question about the funding support was more about the adequacy of the funding because we know that persons with disabilities have a lot of peculiar challenges that they have to deal with.
It costs more for a person with disability to function on a daily basis, and that is establishing a number of research across the world.
And so I want to know if the funds that are allocated are adequate for these students and what can be done to provide additional support where this is concerned.
Those are the follow ups that I have.
I choose Slausus Thank you for the questions.
The first question is whether during the reviewed strategy, people with disabilities have been included into decision making.
The second question specify the adaptation of educational conditions to people with disabilities and then whether the funding is adequate and sufficient.
The Ministry of Education and Science Regno Lucia will respond to the questions.
Thank you.
Question number one, the involvement of NGOs.
I would like to emphasize that in 2024, there was the ministerial order establishing an advisory group regarding the inclusive education and it meets four to six times per year and if need be more.
And within this group, we have some NGO representatives that represent people with various disabilities and we regularly meet NGOs within the format of educational agency to discuss various strategic and informational questions.
I would like to note that the review of strategic indicators is the exercise coordinated by the government and other ministries have been involved in this process.
Of course, we will also involve NGO representatives because they review both the strategic directions of the state and the strategic indicators.
Speaking about the Accessibility of premises for people with disabilities or various other infrastructure.
I will note that we have very clear five indicators that general educational schools have to comply with.
This year, They have to comply with at least two of compulsory indicators and as of 2026, the 1st of September, the number of indicators will be higher, that is three and today, 3% of schools comply with all the indicators and according to the ministerial Statistics, 93% of schools are partially compliant.
We also have statistical data based on separate criteria and we will be able to separately provide it to the committee.
Now, the students.
Time.
This is a new financial incentive, which is related to the basic standard of living.
Respectively, this financial incentive is indexed every year, which means that the increase of benefits is over 50%.
The state assesses various financial indicators and tries to ensure that this financial incentive through a social benefits complies with the needs of students with disabilities.
Without those financial incentives, these students also receive general incentives which are allocated to people with disabilities.
In other words, the mentioned financial assistance is only the assistance meant for studies adaptation.
Thank you.
The Ministry of Social Security and David Ava Zbosky will supplement the response.
Thank you.
I will mention that without the mentioned benefits, people with disabilities have the right to the compensation of individual costs 131-159 euros per month.
The objective of this assistance is to compensate the costs related to disability.
That is the cost that the state doesn't cover.
Moreover, when studying certain technical assistance measures are applicable helping people with disabilities to study, for instance, sign language interpretation and other measures.
Thank you.
Madam Chair, I want to just follow up on the issue of reasonable accommodation and just to assist you a little because reasonable accommodation is specific to individual students with disabilities who are in the education system and they need these measures in order to perform on an equal basis with others.
We talk about things like extra time for students to do their exams, the provision of sign language interpretation, the provision of braille, provision of assistive technology, et cetera, and that is what we want to find out if these measures are in place in the education system to ensure that students with disabilities are able to perform on an equal basis with others.
Thank you for the question.
The question is about the reasonable accommodation and how this is ensured for students with disabilities so that they can study and perform on equal terms with others.
This is also related to Ral and sign language interpretation, whether these measures exist in our educational system.
Regnia please.
Yes.
Thank you for the question.
Individual adaptation is applied both in the general education and high educational and vocational educational schools, speaking about the general educational system.
The individual plan is usually proposed by the educational and psychological services.
They identify special needs and through their educational assistance specialists and various centers.
They set specific measures and methods.
They adapt the curriculum and every person with special educational needs is granted such individualized assistance.
Speaking about higher education schools, an individual has to fill out a specific form where they identify their needs and they meet a coordinating in person and become entitled to all mentioned measures, including the individually adapted measures.
This is provided not only during the regular learning time, but also during various exams, for instance, graduation exams both at general education and higher educational schools.
Thank you.
Here, I'm going to expedite my questions now because I see that I'm restricted by time and I don't want to get a problem with my chair.
I'm going to be asking these questions in doubling the article.
I'll take Article 25 and 27.
Together and then 28 and 29 and those will be the final sets of questions that are asked.
Here we go.
Article 25, In your report, you cited a number of training and education measures that have been implemented for health professionals.
Are these training sessions anchored in the human rights model of disability and designed to eradicate ableism amongst health professionals? The CRPD committee of 2016 expressed concerns about sexual and reproductive health care for persons with disabilities.
Yet there is no mention of this in your current report.
Can you please indicate what measures have been put in place to provide universal access to sexual and reproductive health care, including family planning and information sharing, as well as public education.
Article 27, work and employment.
You have indicated that the total population of employed persons with disabilities of working age is 29%.
At the same time, the committee in its 2016 concluding observations, recommended that measures be put in place to abolish the concept of working incapacity and special workshops for persons with disabilities.
Can you please indicate what strategic framework has been develop to achieve this recommendation and to indicate where are you with special workshop elimination for persons with disabilities.
In Paragraph 211 of your report, you indicated the extent of support to be provided by employers to accommodate persons with disabilities with employment.
However, you have given an oath to employers when you state that unless such measures would impose a disproportionate burden on the employer.
What safeguards have been put in place to ensure that employers do not abuse this situation and use it as an excuse not to employ persons with disabilities? So those are the questions that I have there for Articles 25 and 27, and then I'm going to wrap up with some questions for 28 and 29 of Mr.
Morris, because it's close to two and the ten minute only, so you can have ten more minutes until 12 15, please ask the necessary questions.
Questions? Yes.
Article 28, adequate standard of living and social Protection.
In paragraph 223 of your report, you indicated that absolute poverty was projected to be higher than the period before the COVID 19 crisis, and then double if the crisis continues.
Can you please outline to us what is the situation with poverty and persons with disabilities in your country? In the committee's recommendation of 2016, your country was required to deal with the stereotyping, dealing with the discounts and vouchers for persons with disabilities.
Can you please indicate what measures have been put in place to deal with this problem? And Article 29, participation in politics and public life.
You have indicated, and this is a question that I indicated that I would come back to in terms of legal capacity.
You have indicated in paragraph 236 that in 2019, legislation was established banning the exclusion of participation in the election on the basis of disability.
But you also indicated in paragraph 234 that the courts have the capacity to declare individuals legally incapable in the area of elections.
What are the criteria used by the courts in making such declarations? Do you have persons with disabilities in your current parliament? If yes, how many? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Natus Gas, thank you for the questions.
Question number one, the training to health care specialists, have they been based on the human rights model to adapt them to people with disabilities? Two, how do we ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health covering educational activities as well.
The Ministry of Health Representative Romy Araidin will respond to those questions.
Thank you.
I will respond about the training to health care specialists.
Please note that the training was meant to the specialists so that they better provide the services to people with disabilities, especially those who have a mental disability.
That's why mental health experts, psychiatrists, nurses, and psychiatric hospital representatives participated in the training as well as other individuals.
Thank you.
Yes, the training was organized in order to ensure people with disability the receipt of health care services by people with disability.
I will also mention that the training was on also finding alternatives to isolation or other restrictive measures.
This is to respond to the first question.
Now, speaking about the reproductive health for women and girls with disabilities.
Please note that these services are provided on an equal basis and they are integrated into the general health care system.
However, when talking about the provision of such services to women and girls with disabilities, we should be speaking about their accessibility.
Here, I will mention that when providing the services, especially at the primary level, In case of consulting doctor specialists, we are expanding doctoral teams, especially at the primary level.
We have a case manager that helps people with disabilities to get a better orientation within the services of health care.
We also offer transportation services in order to receive health care services.
In the electronic health records, we will introduce a column where an individual when registering for the health care services will be able to indicate what specific assistance they need in order to receive health care services.
Now, speaking about reproductive health, women and girls, receive the funding from the state of various reproductive health related services like keeping the pregnancy and so on and expectant women with disabilities receive the service of family attendance when an obstetrician with the team comes to their homes during the pregnancy and and help with the child up until the age of two.
Please note that we also compensate contraceptive measures for men and women and artificial fertilization procedures.
Number three, what strategic structures do we have in order to I Avoid in order to abandon the legal incapacity concept in order to have no longer have the workshops for people with disabilities.
The ministerial attache Dauzinsky will reply to the question.
Thank you.
On behalf of the Lithuanian delegation, I will respond to the following.
Lithuania has taken all measures to facilitate people with disability.
I do not believe to protect people with disability in the open labor market and we have abandoned segregated workplaces and we have made null and void the social enterprise law.
All employers are entitled to a subsidy when they need to adapt their workplace.
Participation the subsidy may account for 75% of the salary.
In order to avoid such cases, When a company used to have a social enterprise status, we have made certain amendments to the law, and the subsidy period has been adapted to the 12th month of cooling down period.
The Labor Code very clearly notes that every workplace has to be safe and contain no health hazards.
The law provides that the workplace has to take into account the physical capacities of an individual and subsidies are paid to adapt to the workplace, as well as for acquiring technical assistance measures and the amount is up to 31 monthly salary.
Speaking about the abuse cases by employers, a person with disability may address the labor authority or equal opportunities agency.
Thank you.
Da Zbaras respond to the next question.
Thank you.
Speaking about poverty among people with disabilities.
In Lithuania, we observe higher poverty levels among people with disabilities.
Okay.
The poverty risk among those people is double than among those who have no health disabilities.
2016-2025, we have observed the poverty risk up to 50%.
Now it accounts for 53.3% and the government is going to review the labor law and will increase the benefits and will exempt people from various taxes like social taxes.
They will pay targeted compensations, will also provide a personal assistant and this assistance is paid through the compensation of individual services.
Discount cards have been introduced in Lithuania and a There are family cards also given to family members who have people with disability in the family and these cards offer various discounts in shopping centers, various events, and so on.
Isa Clausima Question number seven on the criteria used in courts and establishment of capacity will be replied by the Ministry of Justice.
Thank you.
To respond to this question, Our Cassation court has decided that incapacity status is a very serious measure applied only in exceptional cases.
Therefore, when the court decides on incapacity in the area of elections, medical and juridical criteria have to be thoroughly assessed.
The mental illness and the ability to assess their own actions.
It is analyzed how a person is able to evaluate their actions and this is one of the key criteria.
Question number eight about the number of people with disability in the Parliament currently will be responded by Andre Gj who is a member of parliament.
Good afternoon.
Thank you for the floor.
In this parliamentary term of the duration 2024-2028, out of 141 MPs, we do not have any parliamentary members with the visible or physical disability.
In terms of an invisible disability, we do not have such data.
The parliament doesn't publish this type of data.
In the previous term of 2022, 2024, There were there was one member of parliament with a physical disability and she chaired the Parliamentary committee on people with disabilities.
Actually, let me clarify.
In the previous term, there were two people with physical disability.
One of them chaired the committee on people with disabilities.
There was also another person with the disability of sight.
And in the current term, we do not have any members of parliament with a physical disability and we do not have data about an invisible disability.
Thank you.
Chair, just two quick follow up questions.
One, I asked specifically about the training and if the health professionals were trained in the human rights model of disability because we have found that globally, In the health profession, this is where the issue of ableism is most pervasive in terms of how health professionals view and treat persons with disabilities and wanted to find out if the human rights model featured in the training.
Also, as it relates to the question on Article 28 that deals with The stereotyping relating to the discounts on vouchers, that was a concern coming from the previous committee and concluding observation because persons with disabilities who had these vouchers were being seen and perceived in a particular way based on the reports that were received and wanted to find out what measures have been put in place to ensure that persons with disabilities are not seen in a negative light, those who are using those vouchers.
Those two follow up questions there, Madam Chair.
At Ugas Thank you for these follow up questions.
The first question is about health professionals and whether they thought about the human rights model and Ronsia Druze from the Ministry of Health will reply to this and second question about vouchers for people with disability and possible negative approach because of that.
This will be responded by David Zabsky from the Ministry of Social Protection.
Thank you.
Yes, there are training courses and they're based on the human rights aspect and this training course is organized for all health care professionals so that they better understand human rights and follow these principles while providing services to people with disabilities.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I would like to clarify my response about family cards.
Family cards are not meant exclusively for people with disabilities.
It's meant for a family and it is widely used.
It includes accommodation, catering, beauty, education, sports, et cetera and yes, we do agree that individual vouchers or individual discounts, specifically for people with disabilities would increase their discrimination and would shape a certain stereotype.
Even meals for children are separate from the social status, which means that all primary school students receive school meals without any regard to their parents social status, disability, et cetera We do not have any special vouchers for people with disabilities in Lithuania.
Mr.
Floyd Morris and respected delegations.
Now we will shortly move to the follow round until 12 45.
I invite member of the committee wishing to raise a follow question to indicate please leave your name log if you have questions.
Miss Sbron Jacob, you have the floor.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you to the delegation for your answers throughout this dialogue so far.
I wanted to pick up on a question that deals with healthcare professionals and to some extent with the sexual and reproductive rights that we've been talking about.
But I want to focus on Article 23.
We've received information that despite the guarantee of the respect for home and family, which is part of Article 23, and which indicates itself in part that children should not be separated from parents because of disability on either the part of the child or the parent, we understand that children and parents are still being separated sometimes most alarmingly at birth.
My questions are, what steps are being taken to ensure that this practice ceases? Alternatives such as parenting support would be helpful.
I'm curious about whether it's being considered in a concrete way.
I know you've mentioned parenting support just now through maternal health and also for a year or two after the birth, but is there extensive parenting support? And as well, you've mentioned a bit about health care professionals being trained through the human rights model.
I just wanted to confirm that this is also the case when it comes to this type of separation of parent and child and whether social work professionals are included within the group of healthcare professionals that are trained in the human rights model.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Mr.
Hirostamon, you have the floor.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
My question is for Article number 24.
We've received information that there are about 100 sign language interpreters in your country.
I'm curious about when deaf children enter mainstream schools, whether or not sign language interpreters are utilized or not? Do you have enough of them? Is there a sufficient amount? The same question applies to higher education.
Are there enough sign language interpreters there as well? How do you measure that? What systems are put in place for you to know how many there are? Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Excellency, you have the floor.
Thank you for your questions.
Question number one, what are steps to make sure that parents are not separated from children and vice versa, and whether social workers also receive training based on human rights in terms of disability and the representative of the Ministry of Social Protection and Labor will reply to those questions.
Question number three concerns sign language interpreters.
And what about them when children with hearing impairment go to mainstream schools and how it's measured.
And Rega Volita from the Ministry of Education who replied to that.
Thank you for the floor.
I would like to provide information as follows.
Lithuania does everything it can to make sure that each child would grow in their biological family despite disability or absence of it.
We work to make sure that children remain in their biological family.
If parents find out during pregnancy that they are going to have a child with disability, they can ask for complex services.
They are provided to all in Lithuania.
They can get individual consultations, group consultations and after the child is born, it's possible to receive help and consultation at home.
As I mentioned yesterday, social supervision of families is also assigned to those families which raise children with disabilities.
In 2025, there were The number of families using these social care service were 1017 in total.
Let me also mention that the main quality criterion is qualified workforce, qualified professionals, and social workers, individual care workers, employment specialists receive appropriate training.
Regular competence improvement is their duty, and it is stipulated in the law on social services.
Moreover, the social service quality requirements are based on human rights and their efficiency is evaluated through the change of life of the recipient of the service.
Human rights are a continuous topic in the area of social work because social workers are among those who help people enforce their human rights.
And this question will be supplemented by Christina Sanova from the Ministry of Social Protection and Labor.
Thank you for the floor.
Let me add something about assistance to children with disability because in general, Lithuanian system of children's rights is heading towards the goal of making sure that a In that in every case, children are able to stay with their biological family from 3,218 children in 2022 who were removed from their families.
Now this figure has been reduced to 1708 children in 2025, so it's almost half only 46.9%.
The cases of removing children from the families are decreasing.
I'd like to mention one specific example.
Through the European Child guarantee, We allocate about 76 million euros to fight social exclusion and removal children and 56 million have been allocated to develop services to families raising children with severe or average disability and 54 municipalities out of 60 will implement this initiative.
We have a project and one portion of the activities is meant to provide services for children with severe and medium disability in order to reduce the impact of disability to the child's daily life.
Another important aspect We will develop the coordination process.
We'll have professionals helping the child and his or her family to better understand the system and how it works.
Thank you.
The third question will be answered by the representative of the Ministry of Education.
In the general education sector, when we establish a need for sign language interpreter, the school cooperates with one of the national centers, namely the Center of the Lithuanian This is a center specializing in this area, and then the school is able to receive the service of sign language interpreting.
But it must be admitted that this service is not frequent.
We do not have many of such children.
We will be able to provide you exact statistics later on.
In the case of higher education establishments, once the institution establishes such a need, then they also contact the agency of people with disability and they provide the service accordingly.
Lorenzo, you have the floor.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
There is a link between empathy and law.
And I'd like to know whether you have any information about The behavior of parents who don't have sons and daughters with disabilities in regular mainstream schools.
How do parents who do not have children with disabilities in inclusive schools relate to them? Maybe I can reword my question.
I suppose it's meant to be a win win situation when you've got a person with a disability in a classroom, society gains from that.
However, there are parents who resist that view.
There are children who are able, who bully children with disabilities.
These are important indicators because the convention seeks to bring about change and humanize society.
The convention covers rights which are designed to serve also as a form of training for parents.
These rights are supposed to be taught to children and teenagers without and with disabilities and the teachers and the system because it's about building a culture and we're talking about opening the door wide to change in the education system and its culture.
Either we change or we don't change it.
If we are going to change it, then we need to do a lot to promote knowledge of these rights.
In this win win view of trying to humanize it all.
Therefore, with regard to the deaf community, how many sign language interpreters does the Ministry of Education have? Is the Lithuanian Sign Language Dictionary properly up to date and is it included as material in educational planning and the curriculum? You really need this to be viewed as content when planning the curriculum.
That would be very important.
Finally, do the interprets abide by a code of ethics? Is there some kind of guarantee regarding the ethical commitment of the interpreter vis-à-vis the deaf persons who, after all, have to be at the heart of the matter.
Sometimes what happens is that the interpreter takes center stage, and that should not be allowed to happen.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Excellent.
See you.
We have the flow.
Thank you.
The first question was about the behavior of parents who don't have children with disability in the educational system.
What's their attitude towards children with a disability? What about the bullying problem? And this will be replied by the representative of the Ministry of Education.
Another question is also for the Ministry of Education, namely, how many sign language interpreters does the Ministry of Education have and updates of the sign language dictionary, whether it's included in the curricula and education campaigns.
This will be replied by the agency's representative, Angla Chaplk.
Thank you.
For the question.
We as a state, understand that the changing of the attitude in the society is a big thing.
We do understand all the members of the society, both parents raising children with a disability and those who don't raise such children.
It's a daily challenge at school while preparing for the changes in the law in 2024, The law stipulated the full inclusion objective, and we focused a lot on educating the society.
We had special action for that.
In 2023, we had the first national awareness raising campaigns with the help of the agency for the Rights of people with Disability.
In 2025, we had a national campaign.
It included a number of activities, including regional communication events, international conferences, and public events, as well as broader communication campaigns, including the TV, radio, et cetera And in 2022, before the launch of the campaign, the National Education Agency carried out a broad survey involving more than 14,000 respondents including the group of parents.
In 2027, as we see, after a number of actions that were undertaken, we will conduct a repeated study and this study will reveal the overall change in the society.
We really focus a lot on changing the attitudes and the attitudes have to change also in the cohort of teachers.
Our average age of a teacher is 50, 51 years currently and we do understand that Teachers competencies are very important in order to change the attitudes at school because teachers communicate not only with students, but also with parents.
Now, turning to the second question about sign language interpreters.
These interpreters work in the in the nine regional centers.
As I said, we have one specialized center which specializes in providing support to Deaf persons and they have the majority of sign language interpreters, but we will clarify the exact figure later on.
It's quite natural that interpreters who work there specialize in working with children and they do abide by the interpreter's code of ethics and they understand the specificities of working with children with disabilities and they also have training courses available.
Thank you.
Could you please clarify about anti bullying programs at schools? Thank you.
Bullying at schools whatever type of bullying that would be, well, we have special algorithms to respond to bullying, whatever their form, be it a verbal abuse or any other type of bullying.
We always involve a social worker and a psychologist.
If we establish a systematic case of bullying, then parents are also involved.
There are consultations with parents and the broader academic community at school.
Thank you.
Now, the agency director will supplement about sign language interpreters and bullying.
Yes, thank you.
Yes, we do agree that the society has to be educated about respect for children with disabilities and this is not only the duty of the Ministry of Education, our agency also engaged in two important campaigns in 2024 and 2025.
The first one was about the changing of a of attitudes and we provided recommendations to more than 1,000 institutions.
In 2025, we have another campaign respect.
It's called respect for your language, and it was targeted to youth.
It reached more than 130 schools and more than 800,000 residents.
It was a broad campaign about how we can show respect to people through respectful language.
Another question was about sign language interpreters and the code of ethics.
Thank you.
And Under our agency, we have a Center for Sign Language interpretation.
It has about 100 of sign language interpreters and they really work according to their code of ethics and they have rules to never try and dominate in the conversation.
On the contrary, they know how they have to look, how they have to act, and how they have to respond.
Let me add about the education campaign.
Our country doesn't organize one day campaigns.
We plan them year after year.
We devote these campaigns about tolerance and about persons with disabilities.
It's not just like those campaigns were in 2024 and 2025.
Every ministry, the Ministry of Social Protection, Labor, the Ministry of Education in their plans have regular awareness raising campaigns in order to develop a tolerant society.
We are now approaching the end of our constructive dialogue about the clause three.
If there is any question that delegation has not been able to fully address because of the time constraint, we would appreciate receiving the main response in writing within 24 hours.
Thank you so much for your cooperations.
Now, we come to the closing a part of our constructive dialogue today.
I first to give the floor to the representative of the monitoring Commission on the rights of persons with disability, the independent monitoring mechanism of Lithuania for closing remark up to 3 minutes.
You have the floor.
Distinguished members of the committee.
My name is Andrés Sans Keita.
I am the Deputy Chair of the Monitoring Commission on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Lithuanian independent monitoring mechanism under Article 33 of the Convention.
On behalf of the Commission, I would like to sincerely thank the committee for this constructive dialogue and for the thoughtful questions raised throughout these two days.
We would also like to express our sincere appreciation to the state party and the delegation of Lithuania for its openness and engagement and willingness to engage throughout this review.
We recognize the considerable efforts that have been made At the same time, this review has clearly confirmed that significant challenges remain.
While legislation and policies have progressed, implementation continues to lag behind.
The discussions over the past two days have highlighted a number of issues that require continued attention, including independent living and inclusion in the community, particularly for persons with intensive support needs, also the issue of legal capacity, accessibility, inclusive education, equality and non discrimination, particularly the right to a reasonable accommodation, emergency preparedness and the availability of reliable disability disregarded disaggregated data.
We also welcome the committee's attention to involuntary hospitalization and the continued use of coercive measures in the mental health settings, which remain among the most serious human rights concerns raised during this review.
We also look forward to continuing our constructive cooperation with the government after this review.
We believe that lasting progress can only be achieved through ongoing dialogue and partnership.
As the independent monitoring mechanism and as representatives of Organizations of persons with disabilities, we remain committed to contributing to our expertise, implementation and supporting reforms that fully reflect the convention.
We believe that the committee's concluding observations will provide an important roadmap for future reforms in Lithuania.
They will also strengthen our own monitoring and follow up work and help ensure that progress is measured not only by legislative changes, but by tangible improvements in the daily lives of persons with disabilities.
Finally, we would like to thank the committee for its dedication to advancing the rights of persons with disabilities.
Thank you very much.
Thank you so much.
Now I have the pleasure to giving the floor to the head of the delegation of Lithuania, miss Lita Grgane, Vice Minister of Social Security and Labor, for her closing remark.
Excellency, you have the floor.
Thank you very much.
Bam.
Madam Chair, distinguished members of the committee, representatives of the Civil Society.
Thank you for giving the Lithuanian delegation the opportunity to participate in this constructive dialogue here in Geneva.
We are convinced that the achievements we have shared with you during this session demonstrate Lithuania's steady progress in the field of disability rights.
Building on this progress, we are committed to further strengthening our efforts to advance the rights of persons with disabilities.
Lithuania therefore supports the objective endorsed at the Second World Summit for Social Development in Doha last year to build more inclusive, just, and resilient societies and to consistently implement the principles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities across all areas of public policy.
The world is increasingly affected by fires, floods, wars, and other crises.
These crises test not only infrastructure and institutions, but also our ability to protect people.
The way persons with disabilities live in such circumstances says much about the resilience, solidarity, and preparedness of our societies in facing future challenges.
It is becoming increasingly clear that we cannot speak of sustainable development without including persons with disabilities.
Only a society in which every individual can fully participate in decision making, education, employment, and independent living can truly be considered sustainable, just, and resilient.
Such a society is also safer because none of its members are left behind.
We will continue to regard the promotion and protection of the rights of persons with disabilities as an important part of our national agenda, requiring sustained attention, political commitment, and close cooperation with civil society.
We couldn't answer all questions and remarks posed by the committee members.
But I would like to assure you that we have carefully taken note of your observations, recommendations, and suggestions.
We would like to thank the committee members for your time for the preparation and constructive involvement into the dialogue and also for taking into account the context or Lithuanian context within which we are implementing the convention.
Lithuania appreciates and welcomes the contribution of the independent monetary mechanism and civil society organizations, particularly organizations representing persons with disabilities to the work of the committee.
The information and recommendations they provide are an important part of this dialogue and help us better understand the challenges that remain.
From this dialogue, we take away not only recommendations, but also valuable insights for our future work.
I would like to personally thank the committee chair, the committee Secretariat, for the professional organization of this process and for assistance throughout.
Of course, I would like to sincerely thank the interpreters for their excellent work and the interpreters are sincerely thanking the listeners.
Thank you so much, Your Excellency.
Now I have give the floor to the Reverend Jacob, on behalf of the tasks for the congreging remark of the taskpos.
Miss Jako, you have the floor.
My colleague, Mr.
Quasi who will be delivering these remarks.
Thank you.
President.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Your Excellency, Madam Minister, distinguished committee.
The distinguished delegation of Lithuania committee members and representatives of civil society.
At the end of this interactive dialogue with the state party, on the occasion of the review of the second and third combined reports of Lithuania under the Convention, on behalf of the members of the task force, Jacobs and Mr.
Fs and on my own personal behalf, I wish to thank the members of the delegation and the independent follow up mechanism for their rich contribution to this dialogue.
I thank civil society for their cooperation and all committee members for their participation in the dialogue.
My thanks also go to the Secretariat and to all interpreters.
We have been able to take stock of the efforts made by the state party in recent years to improve implementation of the convention, both in terms of legislation and practice.
We have heard about amendments to national legislation, and affecting areas such as inclusive education, reasonable accommodation conduct during emergencies, assessment of disabilities, and other areas too.
These are just examples.
Despite these efforts, we see that there are various challenges that remain at different levels.
There continues to be problems with decision making and institutional care, access to certain services, persistent barriers to the employment market, to health care services, to transport, et cetera, and these once again are examples.
During this dialogue, the committee has been able to hear the delegation state their commitment to implement all provisions of the convention, and so the committee very much trusts that there will be good implementation of the concluding observations that will be addressed to the delegation at the end of this dialogue, which will touch on all articles of the convention.
We expect active participation of persons with disabilities through the organization representing them.
There will be specific articles that we will mention for enhanced follow up in the short term.
Thank you very much once again for your participation.
Thank you, Mr.
Alfredo Gassy.
I would like to express my sincere appreciation to all members of the Task Ps for their preparation and working through this dialogue.
Excellencies, distinguished delegates, dear colleagues.
On behalf of the committee, I would like to sincerely thanks the distinguished delegation of Lithuania headed by Vice Minister, Mr.
Lia Grigarani for your participation and leadership in this constructive dialogue and for the information and responses you have provided to the committee.
I would like to also to express our appreciation to the independent monitoring mechanism, as well as to organization of persons with disabilities and civil society actors whose contribution have informed the committee's consideration of Lithuania.
My particular thanks to go to once again Task Force team members.
I also thanks to all members of the committee for their active participation, as well as the secretarial interpreters, captioners, and the sign language interpreters and all those who have separate this dialogue.
The information provided during these two meetings, together with any additional written list points, will assist the committee in preparing its conclusion observation.
The conclusion observation will be formally communicated to the state parties through its permanent admission.
This concludes the committee's constructive dialogue with Lithuania.
I now declare 851st meeting of the committee with Rights of Persons with Disabilities is closed.
The next meeting will be held at 3:00 P.M.
This meeting is adjourned.
Thank you so much.