Professional Documents
Culture Documents
• Equality means that all people have the same worth and
must be treated equally, regardless of ethnic background,
sexual orientation or functional impairments.
• The word equality comes from the UN's Universal
Declaration of Human Rights from 1948. The Universal
Declaration of Human Rights is about all people having the
same dignity and rights. All people have a right to say what
they think, believe in whichever god they want and choose
whichever partner they want to live with.
• The Declaration of Human Rights applies to all people in
the world. A modern democracy does not function well if
human rights are not respected. The state must be able to
protect its inhabitants from discrimination and oppression.
Justice (Social Justice)
• The disability may be a physical or mental condition that limits a person's movements, senses or
activities. It substantially affects a person's life activities and may be present from birth or occur
during a person's lifetime. Disability is a contested concept, with different meanings of different
communities. It may be used to refer to physical or mental attributes that some institutions,
particularly medicine, view as needing to be fixed.
• It may refer to limitations imposed on people by the constraints of an ablest society.
• Disabilities can be physical in nature, cognitive, behavioural, or even emotional. All human beings
are born free and are equal in dignity and rights. People with disabilities all over the world
experience human rights violations, stigma and discrimination.
• There are many social factors that can affect the individuals with disabilities. They (the disabled) are
included or excluded from participation on various activities, which in turn can affect development
or esteem. Disability is thus just not a health problem.
• Persons with disabilities face discrimination and
barriers that restrict them from participating in
society, on an equal basis, with others every day.
• They are denied their rights to be included in the
general school system, to be employed, to live
independently in the community, to move freely,
to participate in sport and cultural activities, to
enjoy social protection, to access justice, to
choose medical treatment and to enter freely
into legal commitments such as buying and
selling property.
• In recent years, there has been a revolutionary
change in approach, globally, to close the
protection gap and ensure that persons with
disabilities enjoy the same standards of equality,
rights and dignity as everyone else.
• The Convention on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities, which was adopted in 2006 and
entered into force in 2008, signalled a standard
shift from traditional charity-oriented, medical-
based approaches to disability to one based on
human rights.
• Former UN High Commissioner for Human
Rights, Louise Arbour, said, "The celebration of
diversity and the empowerment of the
individual are essential human rights
messages. The Convention embodies and
clearly conveys these messages by envisaging
a fully active role in society for person with
disabilities."
The Convention and its Optional
System of Rules:
• The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities offers
sufficient standards of protection for the civil, cultural, economic,
political and social rights of persons with disabilities on the basis of
inclusion, equality and nondiscrimination.
• The convention makes clear that persons with disabilities are
entitled to live independently in their communities, to make their
own choices and to play an active role in society.
• The Optional Protocol on the Convention came into force at the
same time as the Convention. It gives the Committee of experts
additional capacities.
• The Committee can accept and examine complaints filed by
individuals, and where there is evidence of grave and systemic
violations of human rights, it can launch inquiries.
• The Convention and its Optional Protocol received immediate and
wide support from the international community
The Committee of Experts: