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Event : Conference

NHRIs and the rights of persons with disabilities

Graphic: Teacher with student with disability, India

Event starts

14 Jun 2016

Event ends

14 Jun 2016

Venue

UN Headquarters, New York
Disability Intl. engage

The role of NHRIs to promote and protect the rights of persons with disabilities will be the focus of a side event at a key annual UN conference.


Across the Asia Pacific and around the world, national human rights institutions (NHRIs) work closely with disabled peoples' organisations, governments, employers, service providers and others to build understanding of disability issues and to address the structural barriers that lie at the heart of discrimination and human rights violations that people with disabilities experience.

NHRIs also have an important responsibility – set out in article 33 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities – to independently monitor the human rights of people with disabilities in their respective countries.

The role of NHRIs to promote and protect the rights of persons with disabilities will be the focus of a special side event, to be held in conjunction with the 9th Session of the United Nations Conference of State Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

The side event will be hosted by the APF and the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI), and co-sponsored by the Governments of Australia, Germany, Ireland, Morocco, Mongolia and New Zealand.

Speakers from the NHRIs of Costa Rica, Finland, Morocco and New Zealand will describe their approach to working in partnership with disabled peoples' organisations and advocating for greater respect for the rights of people with disabilities.

The side event will also discuss:

"Promoting and protecting the rights of people with disabilities continues to be a priority for the APF and our members," said Kieren Fitzpatrick, Director of the APF secretariat.

"We will shortly publish a manual for NHRIs on promoting and protecting the rights of people with disabilities, which will be used in a blended learning training course for staff of APF members," he said.

Professor Beate Rudolf, GANHRI Chairperson and Director of the German Institute for Human Rights, will chair the side event.


Image credits

  1. Teacher with student with disability, India - engelsmannen, Flickr; http://bit.ly/219tZmP