"Today promises to be the dawn of a new era - an era in which disabled people will no longer have to endure the discriminatory practices and attitudes that have been permitted to prevail for all too long."
Kofi Annan, Former UN Secretary General, on the Convention on the Rights of Disabled People in 2006.
Is the UK living up to the UN Disability Convention? Last chance to have your say!
The government is giving you one last chance to comment on the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in the UK. Please note the government has extended its deadline for responses to 25th July 2011.
This summer the Government has to submit its formal report to the UN Convention Committee on how the UK is living up to the rights outlined in the Convention. (The Committee is the UN body which scrutinises the implementation of the Convention.)
Before submitting this report, the Government is providing a brief chance to comment on its draft report. The draft report runs to 100 pages, but is divided by headings which reflect the Convention Articles.
You or others you know can comment directly through the government website.
We've now submitted comments on this draft:
Download RNIB's response to the draft UK government's report (239 KB)
In our response, we applaud the fact that the UK does have good equality legislation to meet the requirements of the Convention. However, we question the overwhelmingly positive gloss the report puts on the implementation of the UK's equality legislation. There are many areas of life where blind and partially sighted people are still not enjoying equality in practice, and we felt the draft report mentioned very few of these. We also say that the Government's plans for cuts to welfare and other funding will undermine the UK's implementation of the Convention.
You can read the two previous reports we have submitted to the Government using the links below:
The history of the Convention
The UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled People sets out disabled people's rights in all the main areas of life, including access to the physical environment, transport, information, education and healthcare. When a UN member state ratifies it, they sign up to enact laws and other measures to improve disability rights and abolish legislation, customs and practices that discriminate against persons with disabilities.
Officially adopted by the UN general Assembly on 13 December 2006, it was opened for signature and ratification on 30 March 2007, and entered into force after 20 countries agreed to the conventions requirements by ratifying it. By 1 September 2009, 142 countries had signed the Convention and 66 had ratified it, including the UK in 2009.
On behalf of the World Blind Union, we worked hard to ensure that the views and needs of blind and partially sighted people were taken into account in the negotiations to establish the Convention. Since then we've been working with international partners to ensure that the largest possible number of member states, including of course the UK, ratify the Convention and that the subsequent monitoring of its implementation is carried out effectively.
Further information
For further information about this or other campaigning activity, email us at campaign@rnib.org.uk or call the campaigns hotline on 020 7391 2123.