Mohammed Al-Tarawneh

To the China Disabled Persons Movement on the Occasion of the Chinese National 19th People with Disabilities -Aid Day

17 May 2009

I have the honor to write to you on behalf of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. I wish to congratulate you on the occasion of the Chinese National People with Disabilities -Aid Day which is celebrated every year on the 3rd Sunday of May. This good and noble initiative that started 19 years ago which is also traditionally preceded by a week -long program of activities in support of the cause of people with disabilities represents a powerful awareness- raising opportunity not only about the need to assist people with disabilities but about the need to ensure their rights of full citizenship.

While we welcome the government for this useful initiative, it is important to have in mind that with the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of Peoples with Disabilities, Aid to people with disabilities is no longer a matter of charity to celebrate once a year, it has become a legal obligation on the government, private sector and the entire society to provide such an accommodation in everyday life. Indeed under the Convention, people with disabilities are entitled to enjoy the same rights as those without disabilities, and to ensure this both public and private sectors are obliged to provide accessibility and accommodation to the demands of disabled persons. The Convention’s key concept is that there is not something wrong with disabled persons, but with the society that does not eliminate societal and environmental barriers to the full enjoyment of the rights of persons with disabilities. Society is called upon to accept disability as part of human diversity and humanity and to accept and respect difference on the basis of disability. It needs to ensure dignity, autonomy and non-discrimination of disabled persons. It is for the society to ensure, for example, that public transportation is adapted for people with disabilities, that employement is not denied on the basis of disabilities but instead that the working environment is changed to enable disabled people to work in the same circumstances as those without disabilities. It is important to ensure that disabled people are granted access to the general system of education, and not special education which does not allow their integration in the general labour market at the end of the education cycle. Today we are no longer talking about the right of persons with disability to charity and pitty, but about their rights of full citizenship.

Let’s then transform the People with Disabilities -Aid Day into the People with Disabilities –Freedom Day, the day in which Chinese people will be reminded of the need to strive for a society that is not only condescending to the needs of disabled people but is inclusive of disabled people.

 

Mohammed Al-Tarawneh,

Chairperson,

Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

Un Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights

Palais Wilson

2102 Geneva