Ahead of Thursday's International Day of Persons with Disabilities, the United Nations called for early ratification of a disability convention, warning attempts to halve world poverty will suffer unless efforts are initiated to pull the estimated 650 million challenged persons out of neglect and unjust discrimination.
The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which entered into force in May 2008, reaffirms that all persons with all types of disabilities must enjoy all human rights and fundamental freedoms.
The Convention is intended as a human rights instrument with an explicit social development dimension. It adopts a broad categorisation of Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) and promotes disabled access, equal treatment, and the right to education, health and work, among other things.
Further, it clarifies and qualifies how all categories of rights apply to challenged persons and identifies areas where adaptations have to be made for them to effectively exercise their rights and areas where their rights have been violated, and where protection of rights must be reinforced.
In an appeal to mark the day, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay urged member-countries to re-examine their approach to human rights and development issues affecting Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) or challenged persons as they are now called, and to make ratification and implementation of this important new convention a priority.
Pillay said ratifying the disability convention would help states achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)), which are specifically designed to address the needs of the world's poorest and most marginalized populations.
In one of the fastest treaty ratification processes in UN history, 75 member-countries have ratified the convention and dozens have signed it.
Pillay said challenged persons formed "one of the world's largest and most neglected groups," with about 20 per cent of the world's poorest people having some kind of disability, while 90 per cent of challenged children in developing countries do not attend school.
Stating that these statistics "shock our conscience," the UN Human Rights official said it would be impossible to cut poverty in half by 2015 or to give every girl and boy the chance to achieve a primary education unless challenged persons were brought into the development mainstream.
The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, formed this year, said many national censuses simply do not account for the disabled in a bid to hide the issues of care, support, opportunities and their rights.
The committee members warned that the number of physically and mentally challenged persons are growing by the day, while forcible internment remains a major concern and the challenged persons are often stigmatized in some cultures.
Committee member Monsur Ahmed Choudhuri, who is blind, said disability is a "cross-cutting issue and it must be included in the mainstream in our journey from darkness to light, from isolation to inclusion, from despair to hope."
December 3 is observed as the World Day for the Disabled all over the world for international community to express its solidarity with the challenged persons.
The Day also provides an opportunity to focus the attention of Government and the society towards the problems of the challenged community, who draw inspiration to integrate themselves into the mainstream of social life.
Besides, the Day also helps to promote an understanding of disability issues, the rights of PWDs and the gains to be derived from their inclusion and integration in every aspect of the political, social, economic and cultural lives of their communities.
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