Empowering persons with disabilities and securing their rights

Empowering persons with disabilities and securing their rights will advance society as a whole, United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson said as he urged strengthening global cooperation and partnership on the matter at the Eighth Conference of States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

On 11 June 2015, the Conference of State Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities closed its eighth session. Throughout the conference, three decisions were adopted that laid out goals for the next session. These goals are ways to explore pervasive discrimination towards peoples with disabilities in everything from health care to education to employment to disaster relief.

In this conference a record of over 98 speakers spoke of their commitment to improving rights of persons with disabilities all around the world. They voiced that more resources and support need to be given to persons with disabilities as was backed up by the Conference bringing in more than 1,000 participants.

11 June also featured a morning panel titled "addressing the vulnerability and exclusion of persons with disabilities:  situations of women and girls, children’s right to education, disasters and humanitarian crises” Disabled women are said to suffer double discrimination and disabled children are more likely to drop out of school than any other vulnerable group. Also disabled people who have been excluded from disaster planning are much less likely to survive a humanitarian crisis.

In the afternoon, an interactive dialogue was held with the heads of the United Nations to discuss ways in which to bring the perspectives of persons with disabilities into the Organization's work. Representatives from non-governmental organizations asked for persons with disabilities to be explicitly mentioned in the new global development agenda. More data is also needed to further the discussion of persons with disabilities and their needs.

The ninth session of the Conference is scheduled to be held in New York from 14 to 16 June 2016

To read more on the panel and the individual speakers involved in the event, please click here.

Source & Copyright: UNDPI