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Ending
Poverty Means Empowering the Disabled
By
Isaac
Baker,
Inter
Press Service
February 3, 2005
The
draft text will now be up for review by the General Assembly, and would be
formalised at a future U.N. convention, for which no official date has
been set.
In what is considered a major breakthrough,
it addresses political and socioeconomic development as well as simply
greater access to the physical environment.
"What we do agree upon on in this committee
will have direct consequences for those who have to face their life and
personal development with disability," said the chairman of the drafting
committee, Luis Gallegos Chiriboga.
"We must attend to the needs of a segment
of the world population which, in spite of disability, gives us a lesson
for living and for overcoming adversities."
The U.N. estimates that 600 million people
worldwide -- about one-tenth of the world's population -- currently live
with some form of disability, ranging from blindness and deafness, to
immobility and various mental disabilities.
While disabled persons represent around 10
percent of the global populace, their rights have been largely disregarded
in the international arena, disability advocacy organisations and other
NGOs say.
"Disability is a natural part of human
diversity, and the problems that people with disabilities face in fully
enjoying their human rights stem from the failure of society to be
inclusive of people with disabilities," Venus Ilagan, the chairperson of
Disabled Peoples' International, told IPS Thursday.
"Societal barriers -- physical,
informational, legal, attitudinal and others -- are the things that need
to be 'treated,' not people with disabilities."
"It is our hope that the new Convention
will provide guidance to U.N. member states in how to address these
societal barriers, so that people with disabilities can fully enjoy their
human rights," Ilagan said.
All 191 U.N. member states were listed as
participants at the committee's negotiations, and over 100 have expressed
early support of a treaty.
However, others have already voiced
opposition to a binding document. U.S. President George W. Bush, for
example, argues that states should act individually to promote disabled
rights.
To ensure that disabled persons were heard at
the negotiations, the U.N. committee invited hundreds of speakers and
representatives from disability advocacy groups over the course of the
two-week session.
One of the major issues discussed was the
prevalence of poverty among the disabled.
The World Bank reports that one in five of
the of the world's 450 million poor are disabled, meaning that disabled
persons are twice as likely to be living in poverty. The disabled poor
also tend to be at the bottom end of the poverty level, making basic
necessities nearly unattainable.
Sue Stubbs, the coordinator of the
International Disability and Development Consortium (IDDC), said
addressing the convention's focus on the issue of poverty among the
disabled was vital.
"This convention can help ensure that
disabled children, women and men are included in all the international
efforts to reduce poverty and provide a basic standard of living for all
human beings," Stubbs said.
However, the U.N. has been criticised by
disabled rights groups for not including disabled persons enough in
directives aimed at reducing poverty.
Groups like Handicap International and the
IDDC say the U.N.'s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a series of
objectives that include halving poverty, do not adequately consider
disabled persons. And since the disabled represent around one in five of
those in poverty, this could undermine the U.N.'s ability to achieve the
goals, they say.
"Six out of eight MDGs have fundamental
links to disability and cannot be achieved without taking disability
issues into account," IDDC's report to the U.N. committee said.
Alexander Wood, executive director of the New
York-based Disability Network, said many disabled people are unable to
find decent jobs.
"It's a whole interlocking thing where in
order to have access to the workplace you need transportation, you need an
education system that.works on building the skills that people with
disabilities so that they can read and write and compete on a level
playing field with other applicants on the job market," Wood said.
Wood said 70 percent of working-age disabled
persons are unemployed in the
United States
-- one of the world's richest countries - due to a lack of services
relating to education, job training, housing and other factors.
The U.N. committee has included many issues
concerning the right to work in the draft treaty.
At the U.N. conferences, disability rights
groups also spoke of the need for inclusion into their societies, which
they say are largely inaccessible to disabled persons.
Disabled advocates expressed concern that
factors like prejudice and discrimination, insufficient health care
services and housing, transportation and mobility restraints, and other
barriers lead to inequality and disenfranchisement of the disabled.
Matthew Sapolin, the executive director of
the New York City Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities, also said
disabilities are not the problem, societal restraints on the disabled are.
"The problem is not my disability,"
Sapolin, who is blind, said Tuesday at a U.N. panel discussion on disabled
rights. "The problem is the environment in which we live, and how can we
tackle and break down those obstacles."
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