Since its adoption by the UN General Assembly on 13 December 2006, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Disabled People has been a major global catalyst for the progression of disabled people’s rights.
However a first damning review of the government’s compliance with the Convention, accused the UK government of presiding over a human catastrophe and called for improvements.
Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisations (DPPOs) play a key role in the review process, submitting “shadow” reports to the UN Committee responsible for the CRDP. In November we held two UN CRDP Capacity-building and Consultation online workshop events to gether views to submit to the shadow report.
Key findings of the workshops are:
• overwhelming agreement that the government has failed to implement the provisions of the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled People and that there has been further regression since the 2017 report by the UN Committee on the Rights of Disabled People.
• disabled people had been failed by the response to the coronavirus pandemic, with an expectation that the associated increases in government spending would be used to justify further cuts to disabled people’s support.
• areas of concern include social care, housing, work and employment, access to justice, support for disabled survivors of domestic violence, the benefits system, access to public and political life, and the response to the climate emergency.
Members of Sheffield Voices meanwhile have said that we ‘need a new government that cares about people’ and called for ‘more advocacy organisations and funding for them.’
The overwhelming demand is for the government ‘to listen to people with lived experience’ and base their policies on what these people have to say.
Participants’ contributions will be included in and help shape the next shadow report – due to be written and submitted by Inclusion London – in preparation for the next examination of the UK under the CRDP.
Read the full UN CRDP workshop reports from Disability Sheffield and Sheffield Voices
