Meira Kumar Asks India Union Ministers to Implement International Disability Rights Treaty

Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Meira Kumar has requested all Union Ministers in India to implement the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), General Health News has reported (see article entitled "Meira Kumar Requests Union Ministers to Ensure ‘Due Rights to Persons With Disabilities’")

India ratified the CRPD in October 2007.  Kumar recently circulated a letter to Union Ministers in India asking that each of them and their subordinate offices take responsibility for ensuring that the CRPD is implemented in India’s laws and regulations. 

The CRPD is the first legally binding, international human rights accord to protect people with disabilities.  The 29 countries that have ratified the treaty are obligated to create laws that are consistent with the CRPD and to abolish laws that voliate it.  A few examples of the many rights protected in the CRPD include: the right to marry, divorce, and share equally in child custody; the right to habilitation and rehabilitation services; the right to work and an adequate standard of living; the right to privacy; the right to receive information in accessible formats; the right to access education and health care services; and many more.

In addition to the CRPD, 18 countries also have ratified the Optional Protocol.  The Optional Protocol gives people with disabilities an additional avenue for pursuing redress of human rights violations by allowing them to petition the international Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.  India has not yet ratified the Optional Protocol.

Read more about Kumar’s letter to Union Ministers in India at:

http://www.medindia.net/news/Meira-Kumar-Requests-Union-Ministers-to-Ensure-Due-Rights-to-Persons-With-Disabilities-38044-1.htm

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