COMMITTEE ON THE RIGHTS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES CLOSES TWENTY-FIRST SESSION

The Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities this afternoon concluded its twenty-first session after adopting its concluding observations and recommendations on the reports of Cuba,
Niger, Norway, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Spain, Turkey and Vanuatu, which were considered during the session.

The concluding observations and recommendations will be available on the webpage of the session by Tuesday, 9 April.

Amalia Gamio, Committee Expert and Rapporteur, presented a summary of the draft report of the session, noting that the Committee had adopted the reports of Cuba, Niger, Norway, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Turkey, Vanuatu and Spain, and they would be available on the Committee’s website by Tuesday, 9 April in the morning. The Committee had also adopted lists of issues under the simplified reporting procedure regarding Belgium, Cook Islands, Czech Republic and Denmark.

The Committee then adopted the report of the twenty-first session of the Committee as well as the provisional agenda for the twenty-second session.

A representative of the International Disability Alliance congratulated the Committee for reviewing and adopting concluding observations and recommendations for nine countries this session. Despite progress, many challenges remained. The Committee should urge States parties to adopt the Optional Protocol to the Convention, and should urge them to remove reservations to key articles of the Convention. International Disability Alliance looked forward to learning of the advancements to forward General Comment 11. The Alliance was seriously concerned about the continued institutionalization of children with disabilities and urged the Committee to oppose this trend and challenge all who did not support the deinstitutionalization of children with disabilities.

Danlami Basharu, Chair of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, in concluding remarks, said that during the session, the Committee had considered the reports of nine States parties and adopted concluding observations on these States. It had also adopted Lists of Issues prior to reporting for four States parties, and had considered individual communications and carried out activities under the Optional Protocol relating to inquiries. On the first day of the session, the Committee had appointed a new Bureau and members of the Working Group on Communications. The Committee had been able to examine four individual complaints and adopted three final decisions on Communications, of which one was found to be a violation, one an inadmissibility decision, and one a discontinuance. It decided to postpone the examination of one communication to enable it to further investigate one of its aspects. The Committee had also adopted its follow-up report to Views that was presented by the Special Rapporteur for follow-up on Views. It decided to maintain the follow-up procedure which was ongoing with regard to five cases and to discontinue the procedure in one case.

The Committee’s public meetings, with closed captioning and International Sign Language, are webcast at http://webtv.un.org/.

The Committee will hold its twenty-second session from 26 August to 20 September 2019, during which it will examine the reports of Albania, Australia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Greece, India, Iraq, Kuwait and Myanmar.



For use of the information media; not an official record

CRPD/19/11E