Committee on the rights of persons with disabilities opens twenty-third session online

17 August 2020

The Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities this afternoon opened its twenty-third session online, hearing statements by Ibrahim Salama, Chief of the Human Rights Treaties Branch of the Human Rights Council and Treaty Mechanisms Division of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Danlami Umaru Bashari, Committee Chairperson, and other stakeholders. The Committee also adopted its agenda for the session.

Ibrahim Salama, Chief of the Human Rights Treaties Branch of the Human Rights Council and Treaty Mechanisms Division of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, recognizing the Committee’s unyielding commitment to upholding human rights, said it demonstrated how treaty bodies could advance their crucial work through creative working methods despite the trials of the COVID-19 crisis. As reiterated in the Committee’s statements on persons with disabilities and COVID-19, the current situation had starkly exposed the heightened vulnerability and risks to persons with disabilities, underpinned by entrenched discrimination and inequality.

Danlami Umaru Basharu, Committee Chairperson, noted that the pandemic continued to have a devastating impact on the lives of persons with disabilities and their families across the globe. In March 2020, in his capacity as Chair, and on behalf of the Committee, he had issued a joint statement in this regard, highlighting the tremendous impact of COVID-19 on persons with disability, as well as the specific situation of persons with disabilities facing deprivation and hardship.

The Committee also heard statements by the Chair of the Human Rights Council Task Force for accessibility for persons for disabilities, the Chair of the Committee on Victim Assistance of the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, the Director of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, the Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities, the President of the International Disability Alliance, a representative of the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, the Head of Accessible Books Consortium at the World Intellectual Property Organization, the Executive Director of the Commission for the Rights of Persons with Disability Malta and Board member of the European Network of Equality Bodies, the Co-Executive Director of the Validity Foundation, speaking on behalf of the COVID-19 Disability Rights Monitor Coordinating Group, the President of the Centre for the Human Rights of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry, a representative of the International Labour Organization, and the Chief of the Geneva Office of the United Nations Mine Action Service.

At the end of the meeting, Harumi Fuentes of the Secretariat of the Committee said that there was no time left to show a video message by the Global Alliance for National Human Rights Institutions Working Group on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, but it would be available on the website of the session.

The online twenty-third session of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is being held from 17 August to 4 September. The next public meeting of the Committee will be on Friday, 4 September at 3:30 p.m. for the closing of the session.

Opening Statements

IBRAHIM SALAMA, Chief of the Human Rights Treaties Branch of the Human Rights Council and Treaty Mechanisms Division of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, recognizing the Committee’s unyielding commitment to upholding human rights, said it demonstrated how treaty bodies could advance their crucial work through creative working methods despite the trials of the COVID-19 crisis. As reiterated in the Committee’s statements on persons with disabilities and COVID-19, the current situation had starkly exposed the heightened vulnerability and risks to persons with disabilities, underpinned by entrenched discrimination and inequality. During its forty-fourth session, the Human Rights Council had adopted resolutions extending the mandates of the Special Rapporteurs on the rights of persons with disabilities and on the elimination of discrimination against persons affected by leprosy and their family members for three years each.

Noting that the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights was currently drafting its next report to the Human Rights Council on physical activity and sports, Mr. Salama encouraged the Committee to devote attention to this matter and the specific actions needed to break the structural discrimination against persons with disabilities. Turning to the review of the human rights treaty body system, he noted that the thirty-second meeting of Chairs had taken place virtually at the end of July this year, continuing the discussion on the 2020 review of the treaty body system. The Chairs had highlighted the need to uphold human rights and the work of treaty bodies in the face of the current United Nations budgetary crisis, calling on States to ensure the necessary resourcing of the system, also in the longer term through the 2020 treaty body review process.

As the pandemic continued to persist with a possibility of a second wave of COVID-19 during the second half of the year, and given that it could not be predicted how the situation would evolve, the treaty bodies had to be prepared for all possible scenarios, including the worst-case scenario that no more in-person meetings could be convened this year. Thanking Committee members for their genuine commitment to keep the treaty body system functioning in order to avoid a protection gap in the enjoyment of rights by all, Mr. Salama stated that the pandemic should not paralyze the treaty body system when it was needed most.

The Committee then adopted its agenda for the session.

DANLAMI UMARU BASHARU, Committee Chairperson, presenting the intersessional report, noted that the pandemic continued to have a devastating impact on the lives of persons with disabilities and their families across the globe. In March 2020, in his capacity as Chair, and on behalf of the Committee, he had issued a statement in this regard, jointly with the Special Envoy on Disability and Accessibility of the United Nations Secretary-General. It called on States to ensure the safety and integrity of persons with disabilities, and highlighted the tremendous impact of COVID-19 on persons with disability, as well as the specific situation of persons with disabilities facing deprivation and hardship.

The Chair said that the Committee members had, inter alia, participated in the seventh Africa Forum on Visual Impairment on "Achieving the SDGs through Innovation, Access and Lifelong Learning".

Statements

SOCORRO FLORES LIERA, Permanent Representative of Mexico and Chair of the Human Rights Council Task Force for accessibility for persons with disabilities, reiterated that accessibility was non-negotiable and the Task Force had worked to ensure that accessibility measures were safeguarded in all scenarios concerning the work of the Human Rights Council. The Task Force had been involved in every step of the process leading to the modalities that were finally adopted. The increased reliance on technology had opened up new avenues for accessibility, which still needed to be better explored. The use of video messages, for example, had allowed the Council to increase the number of statements with added captions. The Task Force continued to successfully advocate for the inclusion in the President’s opening speech of each session of the Human Rights Council a substantive paragraph on accessibility.

TANCREDI FRANCESE, Deputy Permanent Representative of Italy and Chair of the Committee on Victim Assistance of the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, said that, while understanding that the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities had not been in a position to prioritize the development of a General Comment on article 11, he hoped that it would be considered in the near future. The Committee on Victim Assistance of the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention had been encouraged by the adoption, last year, of Security Council resolution 2475 as well as the launch of the Guidelines on the Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Humanitarian Action. 2020 was another important year for the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, as it was the first year of implementation of the Oslo Action Plan.

RICARDO MENA, Director of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, said disability inclusive disaster risk reduction was essential to efforts to reduce disaster risk in general and most importantly, to reduce the number of people killed and affected by disasters. The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction was fully committed to implementing the United Nations Disability Inclusion Strategy and had nominated a focal point within the Organization for this important initiative. The Office, when organizing its own events, adhered to the Organization’s internal disability inclusive meeting guidelines and made accessibility and the participation of persons with disabilities key elements in the planning process.

CATALINA DEVANDAS, Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities, said that a letter she had shared with all Member States highlighted the need to include persons with disabilities in the responses to COVID-19. Her office had promoted the creation of a working group on COVID-19 to ensure that the United Nations adopted such an approach. Following discussions on how the Convention intersected with other international treaties, her office had started analysing the impact of the COVID-19 on nursing homes with an intersectional approach, looking at the situation of older people and people with disabilities.

ANA LUCIA ARELLANO, President of the International Disability Alliance, said this pandemic had revealed how, in the face of a real crisis, the most marginalized and excluded were being re-excluded and re-marginalized first and foremost. It was also demonstrating the harmful and collateral effects of institutionalization. She urged Member States to understand that depriving children with disabilities from inclusive quality education would perpetuate the segregation in their adulthood, diminish their quality of life, hinder their goals, and would negatively affect the whole society in the long term. She expressed concerns about the gap in the consideration of individual complaints by the Committee.

RICARDO PLA CORDERO, Protection Officer - Disability Inclusion at the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, said 2020 was witnessing a world transformed by a global pandemic, which was having a disproportionate impact on the lives and rights of persons with disabilities. The Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees had strengthened its work to respond to this reality, including creating a dedicated position to coordinate its global efforts to advance the rights of persons with disabilities across its programmes and promote disability inclusion in humanitarian contexts around the world. It had also developed dedicated guidance and programmatic measures to ensure equal access to COVID-19 prevention and response activities for persons with disabilities living in forced displacement.

MONICA HALIL, Head of Accessible Books Consortium at the World Intellectual Property Organization, said the World Intellectual Property Organization-administered Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who are Blind, Visually Impaired or Otherwise Print Disabled came into force in 2016. Once the provisions of the Treaty were transposed into national law, books in accessible formats may be produced and exchanged across borders for the benefit of people who were print-disabled without the need to request permission from the copyright owner. Launched in 2014 to implement the Treaty, the Accessible Books Consortium worked in three areas, namely capacity building, accessible publishing, and ABC Global Book Service, a global library catalogue of accessible formats.

RHODA GARLAND, Executive Director of the Commission for the Rights of Persons with Disability Malta and Board member of the European Network of Equality Bodies, said Equality Bodies were set up to combat discrimination, playing a distinct role from Governments and non-governmental organizations, and fostering a culture that promoted equality, diversity and non-discrimination. They acted as the first point of contact for victims of discrimination in Europe and engaged with various actors at the European level. In a context where social consensus on the value of equality was being challenged, Equality Bodies supported equality by promoting it as a European value. Many of the challenges they faced were similar to, or the same as, those that the Committee dealt with.

STEVEN ALLEN, Co-Executive Director of the Validity Foundation, speaking on behalf of the COVID-19 Disability Rights Monitor Coordinating Group, said that, in April, the COVID-19 Disability Rights Monitor had organized a global survey to try to gain a picture of what was really happening. It had received over 300 testimonies from 50 countries raising critical concerns about the failure to protect the lives, health and safety of persons with disabilities in residential facilities. Another theme that had emerged was a crisis in terms of accessing basic, specialist and emergency healthcare, both in respect of the virus as well as other health needs. Almost one third of respondents from 81 countries around the world had reported serious problems in accessing food and nutrition.

TINA MINKOWITZ, President of the Centre for the Human Rights of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry, urged the Committee to take a social and human rights approach to psychosocial disability and to avoid delegating the development of policy for persons with psychosocial disabilities to the narrow, medicalized framework of mental health. Even when the mental health framework aimed to take account of human rights, it was, in the sense used by Foucault, an exercise of discipline against persons experiencing distress or unusual states of consciousness, in contrast to modern norms that supported the full development and expression of the human personality.

STEFAN TROMMEL, International Labour Organization, addressing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, said the International Labour Organization had put out a policy brief and organized webinars with trade unions and the private sectors, aiming to convey that a disability-inclusive response was a better response. It was concerned that the plans that were being implemented as part of the socioeconomic response lacked efforts to address the needs of persons with disabilities. They must be considered a priority group.

BRUNO DONAT, Chief of the Geneva Office of the United Nations Mine Action Service, said an important pillar of mine action was victim assistance, which included emergency and continuing medical care. The Convention on Cluster Munition required States parties to provide age and gender sensitive assistance. The United Nations Mine Action Service would continue to advocate for a more inclusive society and the inclusion of victims’ assistance needs in broader humanitarian efforts.

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