RI Global Work/CRPD Empowerment
The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities marked a “paradigm shift” in attitudes and approaches to persons with disabilities. Persons with disabilities are no longer treated or viewed as objects of charity in need of social protection. The CRPD determined persons of disabilities as subjects with rights and the capability of claiming those rights and making decisions for their lives based on their free and informed consent, as well as being active members of society.
According to the Secretariat for the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the Convention “is intended as a human rights instrument with an explicit, social development dimension. It adopts a broad categorization of persons with disabilities and reaffirms that all persons with all types of disabilities must enjoy all human rights and fundamental freedoms. It clarifies and qualifies how all categories of rights apply to persons with disabilities and identifies areas where adaptations have to be made for persons with disabilities to effectively exercise their rights and areas where their rights have been violated, and where protection of rights must be reinforced.”
Project: Global Advocacy Campaign on the CRPD
Through the Global Advocacy Campaign, RI works with its members and partners to build the capacity of disabled persons’ organizations, civil society organizations, parliamentarians, government officials, the legal community and other key stakeholders on implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). RI facilitates greater global ratification of the CRPD through the following three step approach:
Information: Creating and disseminating resources on the CRPD; documenting good practices; conducting trainings; producing publications and newsletters; issuing press releases; and facilitating collaboration by creating common campaign platforms.
Advocacy: Promoting disability rights and inclusion on the global and regional level through outreach to multilateral institutions, participation at the United Nations, and through mobilization of RI’s global membership network. Advocacy campaigns comprise letter writing, outreach strategies, promotion of self advocates and targeted petitioning.
Reform: Conducting national level research and preparing recommendations on disability legislation, especially those laws related to access to justice and legal capacity, in order to facilitate brining national law in line with the CRPD. In addition, national conference, workshops, and trainings are held to promote the recommendations and develop a unified plan of action for greater implementation, monitoring and enforcement of the CRPD.