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Disabled People in China Continue to Face Discrimination
By Andrea Shettle, MSW | January 24, 2009
China has made progress in confronting discrimination toward people with disabilities–but significant problems remain, Human Rights Watch recently told the media. Human Rights Watch is a major international organization that monitors the status of human rights around the world.
Sophie Richardson, a representative of Human Rights Watch, praised China for creating laws that protect people with disabilities and for ratifying the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). But the Human Rights Watch website reports her as saying, “So far these protections have meant little to persons with disabilities and their advocates in China who struggle to promote their rights and, in particular, to fairly compete for employment.”
Also according to the Human Rights Watch website, their organization has called upon the Chinese government to ratify the Optional Protocol that accompanies the CRPD. The Optional Protocol can help strengthen the CRPD by giving citizens the option of pursuing justice at the international level if they are unable to address human rights abuses domestically. The Human Rights Watch also has called on China to remove restrictions that make it harder for grassroots organizations to help people with disabilities.
Read the full story on what Human Rights Watch says about the human rights situation for people with disabilities in China at:
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/09/04/china19751.htm
Learn more about the CRPD by reading the RatifyNow FAQ; or learn more about the Optional Protocol.
Learn how you can become involved with the global campaign to promote the ratification and implementation of both the CRPD and the Optional Protocol in your country and elsewhere.
A slightly modified version of this article also has been posted at the We Can Do blog.
Topics: Disability Rights -- General |
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