'Children with disabilities are children too. This Convention demands that finally, their right to childhood is equally respected and valued’ - Gerison Lansdown (International child rights advocate) The UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (UNCRPD) is the first human rights treaty of the 21st Century which marks a paradigm shift in attitudes and approaches to persons with disabilities. It reaffirms that human rights extend to all people, irrespective of disability or age. The significance of the treaty, therefore, is not in establishing new human rights standards for people with disabilities; rather, it is to ensure their realisation. The treaty introduces new obligations to overcome cultural, legal, economic and physical barriers and introduces measures which ensure that people with disabilities are acknowledged as subjects of rights, entitled to respect on an equal footing with all other people. The UNCRPD was adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 2006 and opened for signature on 30 March 2007. At present 95 countries have signed, including Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka, with one ratification, Jamaica. This is the highest number of signatories in history to a UN Convention on such short time span. Children with disabilities experience widespread violations of their rights, many of which are common to those faced by adults – poverty, social exclusion, lack of accessible environments, violence. However, they also face additional abuses – abandonment as babies, institutionalisation, exclusion from education, lack of birth registration, lack of respect for their evolving capacities, inappropriate child protection systems and so forth. And despite obligations to address the rights of children with disabilities under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, too little progress has been made to date. Save the Children in collaboration with ActionAid Bangladesh and the National Forum of Organizations Working with the Disabled (NFOWD) would like to announce the upcoming Regional Consultation on Children’s Rights and the UNCRPD being held from the 26th – 28th June in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The Consultation will address how to use the new Convention to promote and strengthen the rights of children with disabilities. It will look at governments’ obligations to fulfil, protect and respect these rights. The Consultation will contribute towards the development of an Implementation Handbook, through a participatory approach with the disability movement from the South and Central Asian region and with children from Bangladesh. Participants from Bangladesh, Afghanistan, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Pakistan will be attending the Consultation. Participants’ profiles include government officials, local NGOs, and INGO’s like Action Aid, Handicap International and Save the Children offices. For further information regarding the Consultation, please contact: Tina Hyder, Non Discrimination Advisor, Save the Children UK, London Head Office, Email: t.hyder@savethechildren.org.uk Bandana Shrestha, Regional Programme Coordinator Non Discrimination & Inclusion Save the Children Sweden, Regional Office for South & Central Asia, Email: bandanas@sca.savethechildren.se
Gerison Landsdown, International Child Rights Advocate, Email: gerison@blueyonder.co.uk
DISABILITIES: Regional consultation on children's rights and the Disability Convention
Countries
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