Moldova made some progress as regards human rights in 2012, but there are a number of departments where there is still unfinished business, including gender equality, the reform of the national institution of protection of human rights, fighting torture and others. The conclusions were presented on Wednesday, December 26, during a forum organized by the Human Rights Information Center and by the Antidiscrimination Coalition, Info-Prim Neo reports. The Center’s deputy leader Iulia Marcinschi said that gender equality wasn’t ensured enough. Women aren’t promoted to important positions and their wages are 20% than the men’s salaries. Another problem concerns the reform of the national institution for protection of human rights, which is stagnating. According to the authors of the monitoring report, authorities must strengthen the Center for Human Rights by increasing funding and the number of staff, and by ensuring conformity to European principles. Another recommendation is to increase the transparency of the election of the Ombudsman Bureau members. Gheorghe Zugravu, campaign coordinator at Amnesty International Moldova, said that another field in which insufficient progress was made is the fight against torture. So far, the number of prosecutions initiated as a result of reported cases of torture is low. Another issue is the too lenient penalties for torture. Zugravu added that even in 2012 the people still don’t have an answer from the Prosecutor General’s Office about who was responsible for the events that happened on in April 2009. The report was prepared with the support of UNDP.