COMMITTEE ON THE RIGHTS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES OPENS SEVENTH SESSION

The Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities this morning opened its seventh session, hearing a statement from Kyung-wha Kang, the Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, and adopting its agenda and provisional programme of work for the session.

The Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights said that the treaty bodies system had reached its limits in terms of coherence and capacity and that the strengthening process was now shifting from reflection to implementation. In that respect the Dublin II Outcome Document was on the agenda of the Committee and would be reviewed under its current session. The General Assembly had granted in its resolution an additional week of work per year to the Committee. A Multi-donor Trust Fund had been launched to support the full implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, while the rights of persons with disabilities were on the agenda of the Human Rights Council which had held a panel discussion on the participation of persons with disabilities in political and public life and had adopted a resolution to that effect in its nineteenth session in March 2012.

Ronald Mc Callum, Chairperson of the Committee, welcomed that the Committee’s session was being webcast for the first time. He said that he had made a video address to the first meeting of the United Nations Partnership on the Multi-donor Trust Fund, and said that discussions on the composition of the Management Board were still ongoing. The next meeting would take place in September 2012 in New York and the Chairperson was looking forward to further discussions with the Trust Fund. The whole treaty bodies system was being strengthened and Mr. Mc Callum expressed hope that the General Assembly would allocate more resources to the treaty bodies.

As for the status of the ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Optional Protocol, seven States had ratified the Convention, while five had ratified the Optional Protocol since September 2011. The number of States parties to the Convention was now 112. Since September 2011, reports had been received from 10 countries, bringing the number of received reports to 27 and creating a backlog of seven years. A total of 49 countries were overdue in presenting their reports.

Also this morning, the Committee heard statements by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations Department for Social and Public Affairs, World Intellectual Property Organization, World Health Organization, United Nations Children Fund, International Disability Association, International Disability and Development Consortium and Human Rights Watch.


The Committee will reconvene in a public meeting at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, 17 April 2012 to consider the initial report of Peru.


Opening Statements

KYUNG-WHA KANG, Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, in opening remarks said that since September 2011, 9 countries had acceded to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, bringing to 112 the number of States parties to the Convention, while 67 were States parties to the Optional Protocol. The treaty bodies strengthening system had reached a decisive stage, Ms. Kang said, adding that the Dublin II Outcome Document was on the agenda of the Committee and would be reviewed during its current session. The treaty bodies system had reached its limits in terms of consistency and capacity, while the shortfall in funding created additional difficulties. The treaty bodies strengthening process was now shifting from reflection to implementation. The General Assembly had authorised in its resolution a high-level meeting on the theme of the Millennium Development Goals and persons with disabilities to be held in September 2013 and the outcome document would be precise and result oriented to strengthening the rights of persons with disabilities. A Multi-donor Trust Fund had been launched to support the full implementation of the Convention on a country level and the first meeting had taken place recently which had set the strategic orientation and management structures of the Trust Fund. The rights of persons with disabilities were on the agenda of the Human Rights Council which had held a panel discussion on the participation of persons with disabilities in political and public life and had adopted a resolution to that effect in its nineteenth session in March 2012. The Human Rights Council had also heard the report and recommendations of the task force.

Answering questions by the Committee Experts, the Deputy High Commissioner said that it was unlikely that the General Assembly would adopt the Dublin II Outcome Document, adding that its ideas would be channelled and reflected through the report of the High Commissioner which would be soon presented to the General Assembly. As for the Trust Fund, Ms. Kang said that the Multi-donor Trust Fund was on the agenda of the Committee and it was up to the Committee to discuss its management structures and mechanisms. She added that there would most likely be no limits to donations.

RONALD MC CALLUM, Chairperson of the Committee, welcomed that the session of the Committee was being webcast for the first time. He said that he had made a video address to the first meeting of the United Nations Partnership on the Multi-donor Trust Fund, and said that discussions on the composition of the Management Board were still ongoing. The next meeting would take place in September 2012 in New York and the Chairperson was looking forward to further discussions with the Trust Fund. Mr. Mc Callum thanked the General Assembly which had granted in its resolution an additional week of work per year to the Committee. So the Committee might have two annual sessions and the task would be a formidable one. The whole treaty bodies system was being strengthened and Mr. Mc Callum said he hoped that the General Assembly would allocate more resources to the treaty bodies.

JORGE ARAYA, Secretary of the Committee, said that 10 States had submitted their reports since September 2011, namely Ecuador, Germany, Croatia, Czech Republic, United Kingdom, Dominican Republic, Turkmenistan, Mongolia, Cook Islands and Kenya. The number of received reports was now 27, while 25 countries were pending consideration by the Committee, presenting a seven-year backlog, to 2018. A total of 49 countries were overdue in presenting their reports. Since September 2011, seven countries had ratified the Convention, namely Luxembourg, Uruguay, Myanmar, Macedonia, Mozambique, Bulgaria and Mauritania, while five ratified the Optional Protocol, including Luxembourg, Uruguay, Macedonia, Mozambique and Mauritania. There were now 112 States parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Experts asked what actions were planned to ensure that States parties submitted their reports and if there a timetable for the submission of reports. This Committee was not unique in having countries being late in submitting their reports, said Mr. Mc Callum and added that this issue would be fully discussed in the meeting of the Bureau tomorrow.

Statements by United Nations Agencies and Bodies

United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights touched upon the study of the High Commissioner on the participation of persons with disabilities in political and public life and said that this study had highlighted good practices in the field of the participation of persons with disabilities and had identified challenges that remained. This study had been made available in an accessible format on the web pages of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. The study concluded that any restriction to the right to vote on the basis of perceived disabilities constituted discrimination and noted that persons with disabilities continued to encounter a number of barriers to their full participation in public and political life. The interactive dialogue on this topic had taken place during the nineteenth session of Human Rights Council in March 2012 and had highlighted good practices in strengthening the participation of persons with disabilities in public life and identified outstanding challenges. At the end of its session, the Human Rights Council had adopted the resolution on the rights of persons with disabilities and decided that the next interactive dialogue would focus on work and employment of persons with disabilities, for which the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights was mandated to prepare a thematic study. The Multi-donor Trust Fund was a collective effort that aimed to promote the life and dignity of persons with disabilities in all walks of life. The Partnership had been launched in December 2012 in New York, where the Government of Australia had announced a contribution of $2 million. Other countries were pledging resources to the fund as well.

A Committee Expert said that the right to political participation and the right to vote were the most basic of all rights and must be guaranteed to all. Persons with disabilities were among the most vulnerable in this regard and the Committee needed to find the way to ensure that the understanding of this right was modernized, particularly in relation to the International Covenant on Political and Civil Rights. Another Expert said that the fact that this session was being webcast would encourage Governments in the Middle East and North Africa region that were going through the Arab Spring to hold deliberations that he hoped would be streamlined into new constitutions. Another Expert asked for more information on the report of the High Commissioner concerning violence against women with disabilities.

The representative of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said that the General Comment No 25 had been adopted in 1996 and many commentators of the process noted that majority of voting restrictions were no longer compatible with other provisions of the Convention and the modern understanding of democracy. The restrictions of the right to vote on the basis of disability were not consistent with modern human rights standards. It was important that the Committee discussed ways to approach the correction of this article.

Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said that the High Commissioner had sent a questionnaire to countries in preparation for the study on violence against women with disabilities and had received more than 70 replies from States and non-governmental organizations. The study recognized that both men and women with disabilities were vulnerable to violence, but focused on the situation of women and girls. The study further included the finding of this Committee and other treaty bodies and Special Procedures that presented a framework on the basis of which the assessment of the situation was made. Little data was available on the prevalence of violence against women with disabilities. The main factors of vulnerability were related to prejudices, communication barriers, and isolation from society in special institutions. Exposure to violence was directly linked to disempowerment of persons with disabilities. In many cases impunity was an issue and had contributed to the extension of violence over a long period of time. Women with disabilities were more likely to experience poverty, isolation and unemployment, while women from minorities faced even greater risks. Disability-specific forms of violence and neglect included withholding of medications, refusal to assist with daily living, withholding of food and water, etc. Children with disabilities were almost twice as vulnerable to violence and neglect, including sexual violence, on the basis of disability. The study had also reviewed the measures including legal ones that States had put in place to protect persons with disabilities. There were often no specific legal frameworks to protect women and girls with disability against violence and the attention accorded to them in practice was not sufficient to address the specific situation of those groups. There seemed to be little effort to address the underlying causes of violence against women and girls with disability, while general programmes on gender-based violence were often not accessible to them.

An Expert asked, given the continuing demand by activists working on the issue of violence against women with disabilities, how was coercive abortion treated in the study. Further, had the study taken into account legal responses to the denunciation of violence against women and the proliferation of the use of prostitution services where women with disabilities were facing a new situation. The study did address the three questions, said the representative of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and dedicated sections to enforced sterilization and responses of the judicial system to cases of violence against women with disabilities.

United Nations Department for Social and Public Affairs reiterated its commitment to the work of this Committee and said that, in relation to the mainstreaming of disability into development, it had organized three panel discussions at headquarters, on including disability in development cooperation, economic empowerment and data and statistics. Within the United Nations, it continued to cooperate with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and other United Nations agencies and continued its work on making the United Nations more accessible. The conference of the States parties would be held in New York in September 2012 and the Department for Social and Public Affairs was working with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to provide secretarial services. Further, the Department had been advocating on including disability in the agenda of the Rio +20, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. In terms of reports and research, it was preparing two reports of the United Nations Secretary-General, on mainstreaming of disability into development and another on the status of the Convention.

A Committee Expert expressed concern over the overlap in dates of the high-level meeting in September 2013 with the session of the Committee.

World Intellectual Property Organization said that the organization had launched in 2009 an initiative on the protection of works by persons with print disability. Two major issues would be tackled during the July 2012 meeting, namely the role of identities in the exchange of accessible files and the nature of the instrument to be adopted. Copyright should not be a barrier to education and information for visually impaired persons. The World Intellectual Property Organization was leading a platform with key stakeholders which coordinated two major projects, including TIGER to deliver publications in accessible formats across borders. It was also working closely with the Daisy Consortium to develop technical standards to increase access to e-publications. The support of the Committee was crucial in overcoming political issues and barriers and in making stakeholders understand that initiatives of the World Intellectual Property Organization were complementary in nature.

World Health Organization said that the world report on disability had been launched globally in 2011. The aim of the launch was to get policy makers together with persons with disabilities to discuss priority issues and reach agreement on the way forward. Further, the World Health Organization was developing guidelines to help States to improve the quality of rehabilitation services within health systems. A model disability survey was under development to support the collection of data at the national level and assist countries to construct a complete picture of disability. The international perspectives on spinal cord injury was an upcoming report by the World Health Organization. It would cover the global situation with this injury and provide recommendations for improving services and participation of people with spinal cord injuries.

United Nations Children Fund said that a forum would take place in September 2012 with a focus on the situation of children with disabilities and would allow a space for the exchange of information on the work done at the national level, establish common principles and strategies and agree on coordination models.

International Disability Association applauded the willingness of the Committee to engage with associations and organizations of persons with disabilities and appreciated the regular time allotted to persons with disabilities and hearing their perspectives. The session today was being webcast which would enable all people to follow its proceedings and to bolster national advocacy efforts. The International Disability Association said that the accessibility of the Committee’s sessions was being reviewed and it had made a number of suggestions to further improve it, including on the webcast. The Dublin II Outcome Document was an important document and the Committee should dedicate time to reviewing it, and consider integrating recommendations concerning communication and harmonization of treaty bodies procedures. There were representatives of 30 organizations of persons with disabilities present in the Committee session today, who were here to observe the working of the Committee and would later participate in the training of the trainers’ session organized by the International Disability Association.

International Disability and Development Consortium said that the Consortium was made up of 23 international non-governmental organizations working on the international development and disability issues. The Consortium had contributed to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights study on political participation of persons with disabilities and was working with others on the Millennium Development Goals and the post-2015 process to ensure that persons with disabilities were part of the consultation process in countries and thematic areas were announced.

Human Rights Watch said that the work of the Committee was critical in guiding interpretation and implement of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This was an opportunity to justify to the General Assembly the request for more time for its sessions. Human Rights Watch commended the Committee for its openness to the members of civil society and appreciated allowing of their input in both public and private sessions. Human Rights Watch had three priority areas which included access to justice and issue of consent; access to health and access to sexual and reproductive health; and violence against women with disabilities. Next month, the new report on the right to political participation of persons with disabilities in Peru would be launched, together with the report on prayer camps in Ghana.


For use of the information media; not an official record

CRPD12/002E