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Promoting the Rights of Children with Disabilities
By Andrea Shettle, MSW | March 4, 2008
The Innocenti Research Center at UNICEF has released an Innocenti Digest on Promoting the Rights of Children with Disabilities (PDF format, 875 Kb). The 80-page publication examines the situation of 200 million children with disabilities around the world and identifies ways to promote their human rights.
The digest particularly focuses on two relevant international human rights treaties: the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). It is written from the social model perspective, which acknowledges that many of the barriers that prevent disabled people from participating in society are in the environment and not inherent to the impairment.
Promoting the Rights of Children with Disabilities (PDF format, 875 Kb) gives an overview of the difference between “inclusion” and “integration”; the social model of disability; the numbers of children with disabilities; disability and poverty.
A section on International Standards and Mechanisms explains the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC); UN Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities; and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). The digest examines the specific implications of each of these instruments for protecting the rights of children with disabilities. It also briefly discusses the Millennium Development Goals.
The chapter on The Human Rights of Children with Disabilities Today describes the different ways that both direct and indirect discrimination and exclusion push children with disabilities away from health, rehabilitation, and educational services and into poverty and institutions. This chapter explains how the CRC and the CRPD can be used to improve access to the services children with disabilities need to stay out of poverty and stay with their own family in the community where they live. Special attention is given to violence, abuse, and exploitation, and to children with disabilities in conflict (war) and emergency situations.
The chapter on Foundations for Inclusion makes recommendations for how to promote the inclusion of children with disabilities within families, within communities, and at school.
The chapter, Ensuring a Supportive Environment, makes recommendations for relevant policy and legislation, budget allocation, monitoring, and international and regional partnerhsips. It emphasizes the need for working with people with disabilities, for raising public awareness, and changing attitudes toward people with disabilities.
The appendix lists international organizations involved with disability issues, either as their main focus or as one sub-specializalization. The full text of the CRPD is also provided.
The full report can be downloaded in PDF format (875 Kb) at:
http://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/digest13-disability.pdf
This blog article is cross-posted at both We Can Do and RatifyNow with permission of author.
Topics: Disability Rights -- General |
One Response to “Promoting the Rights of Children with Disabilities”
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March 4th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
[…] blog article is cross-posted at both We Can Do and RatifyNow with permission of […]