JEDDAH, 1 April 2007 — Saudi Arabia, along with other countries, signed on Friday night the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Optional Protocol opened for signature by states and regional integration organizations at a solemn ceremony at the UN General Assembly hall in New York on Friday. Six Arab states including Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen were among more than 80 countries that took part in the signature ceremony.
“All the other Arab countries including Saudi Arabia will sign the treaty in the near future,” Mukhtar Shibani of the Riyadh-based chair of the Arab region of one of RI’s commissions — International Commission on Technology and Accessibility (ICTA-RI), told Arab News yesterday.
Delegates discussed the treaty’s provisions for ten days prior to signing the convention, which is an international treaty that will give greater rights and freedoms to disabled people around the world under the UN auspices.
The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which was adopted in New York, is the first human rights treaty of the 21st Century, and the UN hopes it will mark a significant improvement in the treatment of disabled people.
The world’s disabled population is estimated to be 650 million. Rehabilitation International (RI) has congratulated all governments that have taken the lead by becoming the first signatories of the UN convention on the rights of Persons with Disabilities. Of the states that participated in the signing ceremony, RI has active membership in over two-thirds of these countries. RI has called on all governments to sign and ratify the treaty, as well as the Optional Protocol as a matter of priority, and to do so without reservations or declarations. Twenty countries must ratify for the treaty to become international law.
RI says it is honored that the International Disability Alliance (IDA) chair and RI Vice President for the Africa region, Gidion Kaino Mandesi, was chosen to deliver the high-level statement on behalf of IDA — a network of eight global organizations of persons with disabilities — and the International disability Caucus (IDC) — a coalition of more than 70 international, regional and national disabled persons’ organizations and their allies.
Mandesi is also the executive director of the Disabled Organization of Legal Affairs and Social Economic Development of Tanzania. “Signing the convention demonstrates a state’s commitment to officially recognizing and valuing persons with disabilities as equal citizens. The convention marks a significant paradigm shift to a human rights model of disability, embodying principles of dignity, nondiscrimination, full participation, respect, equality and accessibility for all persons with disabilities, regardless of age, gender, geographic location or type of disability,” Mandesi added.
The convention requires the establishment of an international committee of experts including people with disabilities to monitor the implementation of the treaty, in addition to national monitoring mechanisms. RI says it encourages the continued active participation of civil society, particularly organizations of people with disabilities, at all levels of the monitoring process.
