INTERNATIONAL DISABLED DAY
Show You Care (SYC) along with Children’s Museum for Peace and Human Rights (CMPHR) and 7 other Institutes join together to campaign for the rights of persons with disabilities and to celebrate the International Day of Disabled Persons on 3rd December 2007. The Organisations involved were: Al-Umeed Rehabilitation Association (AURA), ABSA School and College for the Deaf, Ida Rieu, Special Olympics, Institute of Behavioural Psychology (IBP), Show You Care (SYC), Karachi Vocational Training Centre (KVTC), JS Academy and Children’s Museum for Peace and Human Rights (CMPHR).
Children from over 200 schools were also involved in this campaign. The campaign has three elements to it:
- To raise awareness about disabled people in our society and the problems they face in their day to day lives.
- To submit petition to the Government of Pakistan to sign the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled People as a first step towards creating better conditions and laws for disabled people.
- To campaign for better facilities and accessibilities for disabled persons in public places.
The key element of the campaign was to urge the Government of Pakistan to sign and ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. So far, since March 2007, 119 countries have signed the Convention but Pakistan has not.
The purpose of the convention is to promote, protect and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights by persons with disabilities. It covers a number of key areas such as accessibility, personal mobility, health, education, employment, habilitation and rehabilitation, participation in political life, and equality and non-discrimination. The convention marks a shift in thinking about disability from a social welfare concern, to a human rights issue, which acknowledges that societal barriers and prejudices are themselves disabling.
The articles of the Convention recognize all rights, civil, cultural, economic, political, and social. The United Nations promotes the notion that these rights cannot be separated, and thus the Convention addresses them as integrated aspects of the entire spectrum of individuals’ rights. These rights identify action-oriented policy interventions for States to adopt in order to actively bring legislative and judicial systems in line with the Convention.
Specific rights covered in the Convention include:
- Respect for home and the family
- Right to live in the community
- Right to education
- Right to life
- Right to health
- Habilitation and rehabilitation
- Right to work
- Right to an adequate standard of living
- Right to participate in cultural life
States Parties to the Convention are committing to:
- Respect the rights of persons with disabilities
- Protect the rights of persons with disabilities
- Fulfill the rights of persons with disabilities
All Special children performed to the best of their abilities and proved that they are as talented as any other normal children.
Barister Shahida Jamil, Minister for Social Welfare and Special Education was the chief guest. This petition was addressed to the Prime Minister of Pakistan requesting him to sign and ratify the UN Convention for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The children submitted the petition to the chief guest.
