Submitted by crinadmin on
Summary: Millions of children with disabilities are in danger of being written out of a new UN Convention, Save the Children warns this week. The charity fears that the UK Government is about to endorse a draft Convention which could leave millions of disabled children around the world at risk by ignoring their needs.
Ā Jasmine Whitbread, Save the Children Chief Executive, said: "The UK Government cannot allow the UN to treat these children as if they donāt exist. The stigma attached to a disabled child means that in many countries they arenāt even registered at birth, they become invisible and face abandonment while others are committed to institutions, neglected or hidden away. This Convention as it stands will give governments a tacit agreement to allow that to continue." Save the Children wants the draft text of the Convention to be amended to address child protection, birth registration, access to justice, forced sterilisation, institutionalisation and support for families to prevent abandonment and neglect. On Wednesday 7th of December, Save the Children will host a meeting for MPsĀ to call upon parliamentarians to challenge the government to ensure that the UNās first ever Convention on the rights of disabled people addresses the needs of children with disabilities. It's estimated that there are up to 250 million children with disabilities in the world - the majority in developing countries - but they are largely absent from the text of the draft Convention. In China where the stigma and cost of caring for a disabled child are great some will be abandoned at birth. In other parts of the world such as India having a disabled child is sometimes perceived as a result of having committed a sin in a past life, so children with disabilities can be rejected by their families and their communities. Death rates for children with disabilities may be as high as 80Ā per centĀ in countries where under-five mortality rates as a whole have decreased to below 20 per cent. A report highlighted the cause for concern, stating that in some cases āthere seemed to be a āweeding outā of children with disabilitiesā. Whitbread, continued: "Only five per cent of disabled children in developing countries have access to support of any kind and less than five per cent go to school. Children with disabilities face intense discrimination and stigma and donāt have the same opportunities as non-disabled children. "Itās crucial that the UK Government takes this opportunity to ensure that disabled children are recognised and protected. Without securing these changes we will have failed millions of vulnerable children throughout the world." Ā Notes: On 16 January 2006 at the United Nations the 7th Ad Hoc Committee meeting to formulate a draft Comprehensive and Integral International Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities will commence business. One child in 10 is born with, or acquires, a physical, mental, sensory, intellectual or physiological disability because of preventable diseases, congenital diseases, malnutrition, micro-nutrient deficiencies, accidents and injuries, armed conflict, or land mines (CIDA). Save the Children works to improve the quality of life for disabled children and their families throughout the world and to combat the stigma and discrimination they face. Our work has brought improvements in the accessibility and quality of formal and informal education available to children with disabilities. In Montenegro for instance we have opened and equipped toy libraries, creating new spaces and opportunities for disabled children to interact with other children and play and learn together. Each year more than 1,400 children benefit from these toy libraries. In China we have supported a group of children who have established a campaign to lobby for the realisation of disabled childrenās rights. We have also supported the establishment of clubs of parents of children with disabilities. Case studies: In Russia, parents are routinely pressured into abandoning a ādefectiveā new born baby medical staff who warn them about the childās future as a āsocial pariahā, thus depriving those children of the right to family life and in all probability, condemning them to a life in large, soulless, loveless institutions (Human Rights Watch 1998). In Pakistan infertile women in Gujerat pray for babies and promise to give their first born to the Sufi (form of Islam) temple. They are told that their first child will be deformed anyway and that if they do not give it up all further children will be disabled. There is a strong possibility that these children are then bought up by people who deliberately deform their heads with iron rings. These so called ārat childrenā are also facially scarred and have no speech. They become beggars, earning more money per day for their masters than a civil servant receives. (DAA, 2000). Ā Ā