COMMITTEE ON THE RIGHTS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES CLOSES THIRD SESSION

The Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities this afternoon closed its one-week third session, which was primarily devoted to the discussion of its procedures and working methods. This morning, the Committee also held a dialogue with States parties and other organizations on the reporting guidelines for State party reports, and in the afternoon the Committee heard from a representative of the United Nations Refugee Agency on the situation of refugees with disabilities.

During the session, the Committee adopted its rules of procedures and its working methods. The Committee also decided to hold a day of general discussion on accessibility at its next session. According to Article 9 of the Convention, to enable persons with disabilities to live independently and participate fully in all aspects of life, States Parties must take appropriate measures to ensure to persons with disabilities access, on an equal basis with others, to the physical environment, to transportation, to information and communications, including information and communications technologies and systems, and to other facilities and services open or provided to the public, both in urban and in rural areas.

The Committee also decided to establish a Working Group on follow-up on the situation in Haiti and other similar disasters around the world, and designated the Committee Expert, Ms. Cisternas Reyes, as Special Rapporteur on Communication under the Optional Protocol to the Convention, by which States parties recognized the competence of the Committee to consider complaints by individuals alleging that their rights under the Convention have been infringed by that State.

This afternoon, the Committee heard from Oldrich Andrysek, the Executive Head of the International Protection Unit of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), who said they had received the green light to go ahead and prepare an Executive Conclusion with respect to refugees with disabilities. Such a document would give guidance to the High Commissioner for Refugees on how to deal with this type of refugees. He would share with the Committee the preliminary draft of that document. A number of events would also be organized by the United Nations Refugee Agency in the very near future on disabilities and refugees.

Turning to the situation in the field, Mr. Andrysek said that, on average, UNHCR was registering under 2 per cent people with disabilities among refugees in the urban areas it was overseeing. In camp settings that number was a little over 3 per cent. Those numbers were rather low and the general feeling was that they were missing a lot of people using the current identification procedures. Especially as among refugee populations there were normally a very high number of persons that had been psychologically affected and traumatized by the conflicts or disasters they had gone through or by having seen their relatives raped or killed. The problem was that persons were often reluctant to speak about those issues. It was an important issue, as people with disabilities should be at the head of the queue in terms of help that was provided to refugees.

In introductory remarks at this morning’s discussion with States parties on the reporting guidelines, Ronald McCallum, Chairman of the Committee, noted that the first States parties’ reports were due to come in this May, and some 41 States parties were due to report to the Committee by the end of 2010. The Committee had issued its reporting guidelines on its website last November.

The guidelines were in line with other treaty bodies’ reporting guidelines, requiring States to report on progress made in relation to the implementation of the Convention’s provisions, as well as on the civil, political, social and economic rights of persons with disabilities. Mr. McCallum said that the other important issues the Committee would look at were the situation of women and children with disabilities, as well as existing cooperation with other States parties in aid and assistance.

In the discussion, States parties said that they were already drafting their reports and stressed the importance of doing so with the participation of all parties engaged on disability issues at the national level. They also welcomed the openness and transparency of the Committee and its readiness to cooperate actively.

Also at the morning meeting, the International Disabilities Alliance informed the Committee that they had organized a seminar this January to inform national organizations for persons with disabilities on the Committee’s reporting guidelines and how civil society could best provide complementary information to the Committee.

Mr. McCallum said the Committee would very much welcome parallel reports from civil society and dialogues with national human rights institutions that followed the Paris Principles. Other Committee Experts welcomed the idea of establishing a protocol for non-governmental organizations reporting to the Committee. They also highlighted the importance for States to start their work by fully implementing Article 33 of the Convention, which required States to set up a national coordination mechanism. Through the creation of such an entity, all other provisions of the Convention would be implemented more easily.

Present at the meeting this morning were representatives from Australia, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, China, Croatia, Ecuador, Germany, Hungary, Jordan, Kenya, Mexico, New Zealand, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, Uruguay, Zambia and the European Union. Also participating were representatives from the United Nations Children's Fund, the United Nations Special Magazine, the International Service for Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, the International Disability Alliance, the Bristol University’s Human Rights Implementation Centre and the International Disability Alliance.

The next session of the Committee will be held from 4 to 8 October 2010, during which it is expected to start considering State party reports.


For use of the information media; not an official record

CRPD10/003E