by Frank Hall-Bentick DPI World Councillor (Asia Pacific)
During October the UN Economic and Social Commission Asia Pacific
organized an Expert Group Meeting in Bangkok Thailand 14-17 October 2003
to further develop an International Human Rights Convention for People
with Disabilities.
As usual Bangkok was tropically hot and the Conference Rooms were
freezing cold. We (me and my little sister, Annie) arrived on the
weekend with time to settle in and relax while most people arrived
Monday 13th.
On Monday UN ESCAP organized a meeting to follow up their forum for
Women with Disabilities in August to strongly recommend the inclusion of
gender issues and the rights of girls and women with disabilities in the
Convention. The meeting talked through the recommendations of the Forum
and strategies to ensure us men didn't forget their issues and rights.
I humblely and quietly sat up the back in the corner declining requests
to sit with them for these discussions. Better they have their
discussions and make their own decisions without my male wisdom.
Tuesday morning 14th October, the official meeting started with opening
speeches by DPI World Chairperson Ms Venus Ilagan, UN ESCAP's Deputy
Executive
Secretary, and Japan's Permanent Representative to ESCAP, re-starting
why the new Convention is so
important.
Venus was elected as Chair of the meeting while I and four others were
elected as Vice Chairs for the meeting with three Rappoteours. After
speeches detailing work on the Convention so far we settled down to
further develop text to be included in the Convention.
On Wednesday the 100 or so participants divided into these four working
groups.
a. Preamble, General, General obligation of State Parties
b. Civil and Political Rights
c. Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
d. Application of the Convention
As you can imagine the work of each of these working groups was huge
trying to achieve consensus of what should and shouldn't be in the
Convention. This is further complicated by the fact that no disability
group has produced a draft other than principles which are hard to
covert to text with which other will agree. Therefore we only had the
original Mexican draft text and Professor Andrew Brynes's working draft
to which he had applied as many principles as possible.
Wednesday and Thursday ground on with each working group reporting back
at the end of each day. Friday morning was agenda as a free time to give
Professor Andrew Byrnes time to incorporate last minute inclusions in
the final draft to be discussed and approved that afternoon. Also the
elected officials of the meeting meet as the drafting group to work
through any last minute problems while others meet to finalize
outstanding clauses and articles where a range of alternative wording
had been suggested.
The last session started at 2 pm Friday to discuss and approve the whole
text for what would become the Bangkok Draft. Venus was not feeling well
so
she asked me to Chair this final session which proved to be the most
taxing and wearing to all. Although scheduled to
finish at 4 pm we worked on and on finally finishing around 6.30 pm. As
Many experts wanted changes and deletions big and small, with lots and
lots and lots
to micro changes in the beginning to a weary co-operation towards the
end.
So we finally finished and with a weary sense of satisfaction thanked
each other for four days of intense discussions and co-operation.
Coming out of these discussions I see these issues for further work;
1. The right not to be locked away because of your disability you may
harm or infect others,
2. Should Inclusive education include segregated special schools for
blind and deaf children,
3. Should we exclude the articles on "Individual Inquiry Procedures" in
order to get Governments to sign.
4. Definitions of disability, independent living, access, informed
consent etc.
If you think the answers to these questions and others not listed are
easy, wait until you try
to convince a hundred or so other people from around the world.
And finally you can find the official report, background papers and the
Bangkok Draft Text at this web site.
http://www.worldenable.net/bangkok2003a/Default.htm
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