World Humanitarian SummitSpecial SessionSpeech of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Behazit Hall, Istanbul Congress Center, Istanbul, Turkey – 16:00 to 17:00 hours

Inclusion of persons with disabilities in humanitarian action

It is an honour for me to deliver the commitments of my Office at this Special Session focusing on a largely excluded population in situations of risk and humanitarian emergencies.

My Office and I are committed to advancing the inclusion of persons with disabilities in every context of humanitarian action and to contributing to the adoption of a human rights-based approach to disability in all stages of emergency management.

We fully endorse the Charter on inclusion of persons with disabilities in humanitarian action, which is a multi-stakeholder effort that has been developed with our support. I commit my Office to actively engaging in the follow-up, including the development of an action plan for its implementation, while highlighting the need to have internationally agreed guidelines for persons with disabilities in situations of risk and humanitarian emergency.

OHCHR monitors and reports on violations of human rights during situations of conflict and disaster. We commit to also including in our reports the situation of persons with disabilities and to contributing, in collaboration with other partners, to the development of unified tools for measuring the impact of these situations on this particular population, including women and children with disabilities.

I call for States, UN agencies, civil society organizations and generally all humanitarian actors to give due consideration to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities throughout the planning and execution of their operations, in accordance with their specific obligations, in all stages of the emergency management cycle, and in all contexts of disaster or armed conflict.

I also support the call to bridge the humanitarian-development divide, making full use of the 2030 Agenda, and for the full application of international human rights law and international humanitarian law in all such situations, in order to leave no one behind and to ensure that we reach to the most vulnerable, and the most marginalized.