March 30th represents the 10th anniversary of the Irish Government signing the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), which Ireland has not yet ratified!
A Disability Rights Protest will take place on March 30th calling on the Irish government to Ratify the CRPD and make equality the policy.This protest is about solidarity between people who have a lived experience of disability, organisations, families and friends.
Call to action: Ratify the UN Convention for People with Disabilities NOW
Join us: NCBI will be in the bar of Buswells Hotel from 10.00am on Thursday 30th to distribute placards and to meet people who would like to gather there before heading over to Leinster House at 10.45 for an 11.00 start.
Social Media
If you cannot participate directly on the day, you could join in and support this campaign on social media. If you are tweeting or using Facebook or any other form of social media please use the following hashtags #makeequalitythepolicy and #RatifyCRPD
If you are attending the protest please inform Elaine Howley, Director of Policy and Advocacy. Email elaine.howley@ncbi.ie or phone 01 830 7033.
You can find out more about this event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/394905607548424/
About the UNCRPD
As a human rights treaty, the CRPD does not create new rights for people with disabilities. This convention looks at the rights that already exist for everyone and shows how they can be applied to people with disabilities. It sets a standard for countries to enable people with disabilities to exercise their human rights on an equal basis as everyone else and includes rights both large and small. It provides for mechanisms which countries that ratify the convention must set up, in order to implement the convention.
Ireland signed the Convention on March 30th 2007. This was the first step. Ratification is the second step (which we have not yet taken!) and indicates readiness for the Convention to become part of our law – a promise to the international community and our own people to implement this convention. Implementation is the third and most difficult step.
Ratification – means that our government has made a promise to implement the convention. It offers new tools for advocating for the rights of people with disabilities. We can remind the government that they have made a promise to implement the treaty and we can assist by outlining what accessing our rights means under the various articles.
Ratification requires that there will be dedicated bodies nominated to “oversee” (within government, currently residing with the dept. of Justice and Equality) and “monitor” the implementation (outside government) via the Human Rights Commission.
The UNCRPD was drafted according to the principle of “nothing about us without us” and therefore has included people with disabilities from its original drafting to when countries signed up to it, through ratification and implementation, where progress is monitored.
Of the 47 Articles in the UNCRPD the18 listed below are particularly and specifically relevant to NCBI’s work and to people with sight loss:
- Article 4 – General Obligations
- Article 5 – Equality and Non-Discrimination
- Article 6 – Women with Disabilities
- Article 7 – Children with Disabilities
- Article 8 – Awareness-Raising
- Article 9 – Accessibility
- Article 17 – Protecting Integrity
- Article 19 – Living Independently and Being Included in the Community
- Article 20 – Personal Mobility
- Article 21 – Freedom of Expression and Opinion and Access to Information
Article 24 – Education - Article 25 – Health
Article 26 – Habilitation and Rehabilitation - Article 27 – Work and Employment
- Article 28 – Adequate Standard of Living and Social Protection
- Article 30 – Participation in Cultural Life, Recreation, Leisure and Sport
- Article 32 – International Cooperation
- Article 33 – National Implementation and Monitoring