MONTREAL, Dec. 1, 2016 /CNW Telbec/ - Adopted ten years ago by the United Nations, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has been ratified by 168 States, including Canada. The text marked a major step forward in disability rights. However, people with disabilities still suffer serious and multiple discriminations. For the International Day of Persons with Disabilities on December 3rd, Handicap International is calling on States to meet their commitments in implementing measures to ensure all people with disabilities are included in society.
This Convention is a human rights treaty: it does not create new rights; it reaffirms human rights as universal and applicable to people with disabilities. This is the first convention on the rights of people with disabilities to be legally binding on States. Over these last years, there has been a growing recognition that society is responsible for obstacles to the inclusion of people with disabilities.
However, the rights of people with disabilities are regularly infringed and health, education, transport and employment services are often inaccessible to them. Many are also victims of recurrent violence due to their condition and suffer restrictions on their family life, forced sterilisation, segregation, forced medication or limitations on their legal capacity. Some groups remain more excluded than others, such as people with psychological disabilities or those victims of multiple discriminations as, for example, women with disabilities who are two to three times more likely to be victims of physical and sexual abuse than women without disabilities.
People with disabilities are inadequately taken into account in disasters. That's why, to ensure States and NGOs more effectively take into account millions of people with disabilities affected by disasters, Handicap International, with other partners, launched the Charter on the Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities at the World Humanitarian Summit in May 2016, gathering now 138 signatories.
"The notion of disability is changing over the years, and each of us will face one day a form of disability, temporary or permanent," says Jérôme Bobin, CEO of Handicap International Canada. "In 2016, we shouldn't ask ourselves how to support people with disabilities but how are we – collectively - ensuring the inclusion of all individuals, whatever could be their particularities, talents or limitations, in order to realize a more equal and participative society, in the poorest countries like here, in Canada."
Full communication here: www.bit.ly/dec32016
SOURCE Handicap International
For further information: Jérôme Bobin, CEO, firstname.lastname@example.org