“What the Convention endeavours to do," said Don MacKay, Chairman of the committee that negotiated the treaty, "is to elaborate in detail the rights of persons with disabilities and set out a code of implementation”.

Countries that join the Convention engage themselves to develop and carry out policies, laws and administrative measures for securing the rights recognized in the Convention and abolish laws, regulations, customs and practices that constitute discrimination (Article 4).

As a change of perception is essential to improve the situation of persons with disabilities, ratifying countries are to combat stereotypes and prejudices and promote awareness of the capabilities of persons with disabilities (Article 8).

Countries are to guarantee that persons with disabilities enjoy their inherent right to life on an equal basis with others (Article 10), ensure the equal rights and advancement of women and girls with disabilities (Article 6) and protect children with disabilities (Article 9).

Children with disabilities shall have equal rights, shall not be separated from their parents against their will, except when the authorities determine that this is in the child’s best interests, and in no case shall be separated from their parents on the basis of a disability of either the child or the parents (Article 23).

Countries are to recognize that all persons are equal before the law, to prohibit discrimination on the basis of disability and guarantee equal legal protection (Article 5).

Countries are to ensure the equal right to own and inherit property, to control financial affairs and to have equal access to bank loans, credit and mortgages (Article 12). They are to ensure access to justice on an equal basis with others (Article 13), and make sure that persons with disabilities enjoy the right to liberty and security and are not deprived of their liberty unlawfully or arbitrarily (Article 14).

Countries must protect the physical and mental integrity of persons with disabilities, just as for everyone else (Article 19), guarantee freedom from torture and from cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and prohibit medical or scientific experiments without the consent of the person concerned (Article 15).

Laws and administrative measures must guarantee freedom from exploitation, violence and abuse. In case of abuse, States shall promote the recovery, rehabilitation and reintegration of the victim and investigate the abuse (Article 16).

Persons with disabilities are not to be subjected to arbitrary or illegal interference with their privacy, family, home, correspondence or communication. The privacy of their personal, health and rehabilitation information is to be protected like that of others (Article 22).

On the fundamental issue of accessibility (Article 9), the Convention requires countries to identify and eliminate obstacles and barriers and ensure that persons with disabilities can access their environment, transportation, public facilities and services, and information and communications technologies.

Persons with disabilities must be able to live independently, to be included in the community, to choose where and with whom to live and to have access to in-home, residential and community support services (Article 19). Personal mobility and independence are to be fostered by facilitating affordable personal mobility, training in mobility skills and access to mobility aids, devices, assistive technologies and live assistance (Article 20).

Countries recognize the right to an adequate standard of living and social protection; this includes public housing, services and assistance for disability-related needs, as well as assistance with disability-related expenses in case of poverty (Article 28).

Countries are to promote access to information by providing information intended for the general public in accessible formats and technologies, by facilitating the use of Braille, sign language and other forms of communication and by encouraging the media and Internet providers to make on-line information available in accessible formats (Article 21).

Discrimination relating to marriage, family and personal relations shall be eliminated. Persons with disabilities shall have the equal opportunity to experience parenthood, to marry and to found a family, to decide on the number and spacing of children, to have access to reproductive and family planning education and means, and to enjoy equal rights and responsibilities regarding guardianship, wardship, trusteeship and adoption of children (Article 23).

States are to ensure equal access to primary and secondary education, vocational training, adult education and life long learning. Education is to employ the appropriate materials, techniques and forms of communication. Pupils with support needs are to receive support measures, and pupils who are blind, deaf and deaf-blind are to receive their education in the most appropriate modes of communication from teachers who are fluent in sign language and Braille. Education of persons with disabilities must foster their participation in society, their sense of dignity and self worth and the development of their personality, abilities and creativity (Article 24).

Persons with disabilities have the right to the highest attainable standard of health without discrimination on the basis of disability. They are to receive the same range, quality and standard of free or affordable health services as provided other persons, receive those health services needed because of their disabilities, and not to be discriminated against in the provision of health insurance (Article 25).

To enable persons with disabilities to attain maximum independence and ability, countries are to provide comprehensive habilitation and rehabilitation services in the areas of health, employment and education (Article 26).

Persons with disabilities have equal rights to work and gain a living. Countries are to prohibit discrimination in job-related matters, promote self-employment, entrepreneurship and starting one’s own business, employ persons with disabilities in the public sector, promote their employment in the private sector, and ensure that they are provided with reasonable accommodation at work (Article 29).

Countries are to ensure equal participation in political and public life, including the right to vote, to stand for elections and to hold office (Article 29).

Countries are to promote participation in cultural life, recreation, leisure and sport by ensuring provision of television programmes, films, theatre and cultural material in accessible formats, by making theatres, museums, cinemas and libraries accessible, and by guaranteeing that persons with disabilities have the opportunity to develop and utilize their creative potential not only for their own benefit, but also for the enrichment of society. Countries are to ensure their participation in mainstream and disability-specific sports (Article 30).

Countries are to provide development assistance in efforts by developing countries to put into practice the Convention (Article 32).

To ensure implementation and monitoring of the Convention, countries are to designate a focal point in the government and create a national mechanism to promote and monitor implementation (Article 33).

A Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, made up of independent experts, will receive periodic reports from States parties on progress made in implementing the Convention (articles 34 to 39).

An 18-article Optional Protocol on Communications allows individuals and groups to petition that Committee once all national recourse procedures have been exhausted.

Some Facts about Persons with Disabilities

Overview

• Around 10 per cent of the world’s population, or 650 million people, live with a disability. They are the world’s largest minority.
• This figure is increasing through population growth, medical advances and the ageing process, says the World Health Organization (WHO).
• In countries with life expectancies over 90 years, individuals spend on average about eight years, or 11.5 per cent of their life span, living with disabilities.
• Eighty per cent of persons with disabilities live in developing countries, according to the UN Development Programme (UNDP).
• Disability rates are significantly higher among groups with lower educational attainment in the countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), says the OECD Secretariat. On average, 19 per cent of less educated people have disabilities, compared to 11 per cent among the better educated.
• In most OECD countries, women report higher incidents of disability than men.
• The World Bank estimates that 20 per cent of the world’s poorest people are disabled, and tend to be regarded in their own communities as the most disadvantaged.
• Women with disabilities are recognized to be multiply disadvantaged, experiencing exclusion on account of their gender and their disability.
• Women and girls with disabilities are particularly vulnerable to abuse. A small 2004 survey in Orissa, India, found that virtually all of the women and girls with disabilities were beaten at home, 25 per cent of women with intellectual disabilities had been raped and 6 per cent of disabled women had been forcibly sterilized.
• According to UNICEF, 30 per cent of street youths are disabled.
• Mortality for children with disabilities may be as high as 80 per cent in countries where under-five mortality as a whole has decreased below 20 per cent, says the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development, adding that in some cases it seems as if children are being “weeded out”.
• Comparative studies on disability legislation shows that only 45 countries have anti-discrimination and other disability-specific laws.
• In the United Kingdom, 95 per cent of the companies of the FTSE 100 Index on the London Stock Exchange do not meet basic levels of web accessibility, thus missing out on more than $149 million in revenue.

Education

• Ninety per cent of children with disabilities in developing countries do not attend school, says UNESCO.
• The global literacy rate for adults with disabilities is as low as 3 per cent, and 1 per cent for women with disabilities, according to a 1998 UNDP study.
• In the OECD countries, students with disabilities in higher education remain under-represented, although their numbers are on the increase, says the OECD.

Employment

• An estimated 386 million of the world’s working-age people are disabled, says the International Labour Organization (ILO). Unemployment among the disabled is as high as 80 per cent in some countries. Often employers assume that persons with disabilities are unable to work.
• Even though persons with disabilities constitute a significant 5 to 6 per cent of India’s population, their employment needs remain unmet, says a study by India’s National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People, in spite of the “People with Disabilities” Act, which reserves for them 3 per cent of government jobs. Of the some 90 million people with disabilities in India, only about 100,000 have succeeded in obtaining employment in industry.
• A 2004 United States survey found that only 35 per cent of working-age people with disabilities are in fact working, compared to 98 per cent of those without disabilities. Two-thirds of the unemployed, disabled respondents said they would like to work but could not find jobs.
• A 2003 study by Rutgers University found that people with physical and mental disabilities continue to be vastly underrepresented in the U.S. workplace. One-third of the employers surveyed said that people with disabilities cannot effectively perform the required job tasks. The second most common reason given for not hiring the disabled was the fear of costly special facilities.
• A U.S. survey of employers conducted in 2003 found that the cost of accommodations was only $500 or less; 93 per cent of employers reported that their employees did not require special facilities at all.
• Companies report that employees with disabilities have better retention rates, reducing the high cost of turnover, says a 2002 U.S. study. Other American surveys reveal that after one year of employment, the retention rate of persons with disabilities is 85 per cent.
• Thousands of people with disabilities have been successful as small business owners, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The 1990 national census revealed that people with disabilities have a higher rate of self-employment and small business experience (12.2 per cent) than people without disabilities (9.8 per cent).

Violence

• For every child killed in warfare, three are injured and permanently disabled.
• In some countries, up to a quarter of disabilities result from injuries and violence, says WHO.
• Persons with disabilities are more likely to be victims of violence or rape, according to a 2004 British study, and less likely to obtain police intervention, legal protection or preventive care.
• Research indicates that violence against children with disabilities occurs at annual rates at least 1.9 times greater than for their non-disabled peers.