Materials : Contribution by AODP
(Arab Organization of Disabled People)Review Paper
by Arab Organization of Disabled People
The condition of disability in the Arab region is still suffering from a lack of
serious commitment of Arab governments to the issue. In fact, looking at the different
statistics and reports, one can easily decipher the magnitude of the problem.
To begin with, statistics coming out of Arab governments showed that the number of
disabled people in the Arab World is between 1 & 2 % of the population, a percentage
very far away from the least reasonable percentage in this regards. In addition,
legislation in the Arab world on disability varies largely from one country to another.
Whereas Lebanon seems to have a comprehensive law on disability by the year 2000, most
legislation in the Arab countries are either inadequate or non existent. With The
exception of Lebanon, legislation in the Arab countries does not provide a democratic
representation of disabled people in different national councils on disability.
Furthermore, services for disabled people are quite poor in most Arab countries. With the
exception of rich oil countries of the Gulf, services to disabled people are inadequate
and little.
However, disability politics in the Arab world may be going into a new phase of a
serious commitment to the cause. Following the declaration of the African decade in 1999,
the Arab League, through a partnership with the Arab Organization of disabled
people(AODP), succeeded in getting the Arab Council of Ministers of Social Affairs to
agree for the preparation of a draft proposal for an Arab Decade of Disabled People
2004-2013. This decade is supposed to be declared in 2004 after the Arab Summit leaders
agree on the final draft of the proposed decade. The decade tackles all issues related to
disability including legislation, health, education, accessibility, transport, sports,
children with disability, woman with disability and elderly with disability.
Here follows the full text of The Arab Decade for People with disabilities, and the
most important recommendations.
The Arab Decade for People with Disabilities: 2003-2012
The member countries of the Arab League,
Out of their noble values, religious, spiritual and cultural heritage;
In keeping with the laws expressed through divine missions that promoted the status and
dignity of humans, and made humans better than other creatures;
In guidance by international conventions, agreements, laws, United Nations decisions
and the recommendations of world conferences held during the final decade of the last
century, which asserted the rights of humans to liberal and decent lives;
With commitment to the covenant of the Arab League, the Arab Convention of Social Work,
the strategy of social work in Arab countries, Children's Rights Convention, The Arab
Declaration of the Rights of Family, and the Arab Strategy for Health Development;
For the completion of Arab legislative efforts for the purposes of care and
development, in the field of securing the rights of people with disabilities as well as
their integration within their communities as they form an important part of its own
fabric;
With full conviction that people with disabilities are endowed with abilities and
potential that will make them effectively participate with other social groups in
achieving comprehensive development of the Arab World (which guides Arab citizens and
works for them), in particular if they have equal opportunities and suitable training and
rehabilitation conditions;
With the perception that our Arab Nation enjoys great potential as regards confronting
challenges and building a coherent society in terms of rights and duties, and without
discrimination as a result of sex, religion, race, ethnic origin or disability;
In view of our conviction that the disability issue is a social cause, which need to be
confronted by mutually integrated efforts of governments, NGOs, private sector, people
with disabilities and their families;
In anticipation of the resulting increase in the numbers and proportion of people with
disabilities due to the political, economic and social circumstances under which our Arab
society lives, and the conditions of occupation, war and siege that many of our countries
confront;
And for the satisfaction of our Arab nation's need to develop a framework for the
efforts made in the field of rehabilitating, caring for and developing of the disabled,
Issue the following Arab Decade for people with disabilities 2003-2012.
Objectives
- Changing society's view of disability and that of people with disabilities of
themselves;
- Making the disability issue one of the priorities of Arab governments, and allocating
the necessary funds for that cause;
- Giving people with disabilities and their companions discounts of no less than fifty per
cent for land, sea and air transportation when moving within any Arab country or across
countries;
- Granting customs facilities and exemptions for aids and necessary equipment that make
the lives of the disabled easier, and facilitate their integration within their community;
- Supporting and facilitating the formation of disabled people organizations, which must
be represented in the higher councils for disability so as to guarantee their active
participation in drawing up policies, programs and plans to raise the standards of living
of people with disabilities;
- Forming or activating the role and performance of higher committees or councils for
rehabilitation, which are responsible for drawing up national policies, plans and programs
that help raise the standards of living of people with disabilities;
- Developing the methods of measuring the numbers of disabled people according to age,
sex, geographical location, kind of disability by means of issuing disability cards,
regular censuses, and field research and studies;
- Developing and improving existing government and non-government services and programs to
satisfy the needs of people with disabilities;
- Unifying the terminology, definitions and classifications of disability;
- Making use of modern technology in the programs of training and rehabilitation of people
with disabilities;
- Supporting the families of people with disabilities financially and morally, while
providing them with information and the necessary modern technologies;
- Carrying out research and studies about the disability issue, while securing the needed
funding for such work and highlighting the disabilities of progressive development;
- Developing the potential and skills of those working with the disabled in the fields of
educational, social, psychological, medical and occupational rehabilitation and therapy;
- Guaranteeing the suitable circumstances for the successful implementation of inclusion
(inclusive integration) of people with disabilities in regular classes, within community,
workplaces, houses, social, cultural and sports clubs;
- Securing the representation of disabled at the level of local authorities, as well as
the parliament and at all other levels';
- Limiting registration for boarding institutions for the disabled to those severe
handicaps and of extraordinary circumstances till the right circumstances for their
integration within community become conducive.
Axes of the Decade
1. Entertainment and Sports
Achieving comprehensive development of disabled people by providing them with the
opportunities to carry out entertainment and sports activities that are enjoyable, safe
and suitable for their potential, and preparing circumstances conducive for their
practicing such activities in a basic manner with their non-disabled counterparts whenever
this is possible.
In order to achieve this objective, the Decade will seek to implement the following:
- Enlarging the base of practicing such entertainment and sports activities among the
disabled, without discrimination because of their sex, age or their available potential.
- Supplying specialized staff in the fields of entertainment and sports;
- Providing prostheses and aids to facilitate their carrying out of sports and
entertainment activities.
2. Education
Guaranteeing all disabled people equal opportunities of education within all schools,
and other academic and vocational institutes, whether in regular or special classes.
In order to achieve this objective, the Decade will seek to implement the following:
- Supplying specially training educators and academic staff to work and teach disabled
children within the policy of integration;
- Providing the aids and means that facilitate the educational process;
- Raising the awareness of families and community of the need to integrate disabled
children within regular schools, while preparing non-disabled children and school staff to
receive disabled children in the right manner;
- Reviewing the structure of school curricula so as to suit developmental and
psychological characteristics of people with disabilities as well as the character of
present times and technological advancement;
- Issuing school health cards for disabled children so as to facilitate their acquisition
of aids and prostheses, and enjoying medical and therapeutic government supported
follow-up;
- Continuing to unify terminologies of sign language for the curricula of sciences to
facilitate the schooling of the deaf.
3. Rehabilitation and Employment
Rehabilitating people with disabilities in the light of technical and scientific
developments, and the needs of the labor market in a way that guarantees equal
opportunities for those people.
In order to achieve this objective, the Decade will seek to implement the following:
- Developing the skills of vocational trainers in accordance with modern techniques and
technologies;
- Enlarging the process of establishing rehabilitation and training centers of the
disabled, and developing existing ones as is suitable with technological developments, and
labor market needs;
- Encouraging people with disabilities to start small, income-generating projects, and
providing them with easy loans;
- Encouraging the private sector to rehabilitate and train disabled people in order to
employ them.
4. Disabled Women
Raising the awareness of public opinion as regards the conditions of disabled women,
and attempting to correct prejudices concerning their poor potential, and highlighting
their abilities, which make them, equal to others.
In order to achieve this objective, the Decade will seek to implement the following:
- Activating the role of disabled women so as to get them represented in women's
federations and associations.
- Educating and raising the awareness of disabled women to enable them so that they may
get to know their legislative rights;
- Raising the awareness of families and communities of the needs of disabled women;
- Guaranteeing equality as regards providing services and care to both disabled women and
men;
- Rehabilitating disabled women and providing them with suitable job opportunities;
- Providing health and medical care for disabled women, when married, before and during
pregnancy and after birth.
5. Health
Fighting the causes of disability by raising awareness and prevention, and by providing
the disabled with health, therapeutic and rehabilitation services.
In order to achieve this objective, the Decade will seek to implement the following:
- Drawing up prevention programs based upon early intervention, awareness raising, and
health education;
- Providing suitable and helpful means for early and specialized intervention;
- Preparing national studies to get acquainted with the causes and effects of disability;
- Supplying specialized health staff in the field of disability of all kinds;
- Introducing into medical schools' curricula courses that may enable graduates to
diagnose disability, and the disabilities of progressive development in particular;
- Providing aids and prostheses that enable disabled people to get integrated within their
community and make their lives easier.
6. Legislations
Issuing and activating legislations that guarantee the rights of disabled people to
social integration and to equality with the other social groups.
In order to achieve this objective, the Decade will seek to implement the following:
- Activating the promulgation of national legislations that guarantee disabled people's
joining work in government administrations and private sector companies;
- Forming or activating National Councils for the Affairs of Disabled People;
- Issuing the personal disability card, along with a statement clarifying ways of its use;
- Guaranteeing the right of any disabled person to medical therapy and rehabilitation;
- Having a commitment to employ an adequate percentage of qualified disabled people in the
public and private sectors
- Emphasizing the right of disabled people to obtain rehabilitated housing suitable for
their conditions and needs;
- Securing the right of disabled people to gaining an access to public places- academic,
cultural, artistic and sportive and others;
- Exempting the cars of disabled people as well as their own prostheses from customs
duties.
7. Facilities and Transport
Acting to secure the rights of disabled people to mobility and unrestrained
accessibility to public places and utilities.
In order to achieve this objective, the Decade will seek to implement the following:
- Eliminating all physical barriers that prevent disabled people from access to housing
units, educational centers and workplaces and other sites;
- Exempting disabled people's own transport means, as well as those of institutions
concerned with providing services to people with disabilities, from customs duties and any
other fees or taxes;
- Introducing into the curricula of engineering schools the architectural standards that
satisfy the needs of people with disabilities;
- Allocating parking lots for the vehicles of disabled people, while raising the awareness
of policemen to commit themselves to that kind of measures;
- Enabling people with disabilities to obtain driving licenses.
8. Information and Community Guidance
Seeking to change society's view of disability, while getting away from anything that
may do harm to people with disabilities in different media.
In order to achieve this objective, the Decade will seek to implement the following:
- Committing media to supply all the correct information about the disability issue;
- Showing by written and audiovisual media successful models of disabled people of both
sexes and from different fields of activity;
- Widening the space given by media for the coverage of the activities of disabled people
organizations;
- Encouraging the publication of magazines and newspapers, and the broadcasting of special
radio and TV programs of/for disabled people;
- Insisting that visual media should use sign language as a guarantee for deaf people's
acquiring data and information;
- Publishing pamphlets, news bulletin and other material embossed into Braille dotted
letters so as to enable the visually impaired to read them.
9.Globalization, Poverty and Disability
Alleviating the negative effects of Globalization on the lives of disabled people, and
intervening in poorer regions in order to limit the spread of disabilities, and to enable
people with disabilities in such areas to raise their economic level so as to improve the
conditions of their families.
In order to achieve this objective, the Decade will seek to implement the following:
- Limiting the proportion of unemployment among disabled people as a result of the
economic changes and transformations imposed by Globalization;
- Intervening in poorer areas via educational, awareness raising programs for the
prevention of increased disability because of poverty;
- Organizing rehabilitation programs in poor areas to help families to treat positively
their disabled members, while working to develop any disabled person's intellectual and
professional abilities in order to turn him/her into an actively productive power within
his/her family and community.
10. Disabled Children
Guaranteeing disabled children's gaining all their rights at a par with their
non-disabled counterparts, while eliminating all hindrances to achieving this goal.
In order to achieve this objective, the Decade will seek to implement the following:
- Emphasizing the importance of community-based rehabilitation programs as a strategy and
policy to guarantee that health, care and rehabilitation services reach out to disabled
children everywhere;
- Carrying out research work and studies in the field of childhood and disability;
- Taking care of early discovery of, and intervention with disability, while providing
health care and rehabilitation of disabled children;
- Raising the awareness of families and community of the causes of disability in order to
limit its spread;
- Training the staff working with disabled children on modern techniques and assisting
technologies;
- Providing families with assistance, support and training on sound treatment of disabled
children.
General Recommendations and Proposals of the Conference on Disability in the Arab
World: Reality and Hope
- Calling on Arab countries to take part in the discussions of the International Agreement
on Disability that is intended to be approved by the United Nations General Assembly,
while working closely with regional and international agencies and disabled people to
speed up its approval;
- Encouraging the employment of disabled people by different media;
- Issuing legislations that guarantee the right of disabled people to use public transport
means;
- Urging Arab countries that did not sign yet international agreements on rehabilitation
and employment to do so and to commit themselves to abide by their rules;
- Furnishing rehabilitation centers and workplaces with the necessary technical means to
facilitate the performance of disabled people, and to guarantee occupational safety and to
avoid injuries at the workplace;
- Enhancing the partnership with employers while appreciating their role as regards
providing job opportunities for disabled people;
- Training and developing the skills of those working in rehabilitation centers, while
raising their awareness of the issues, needs and rights of the disabled;
- Integrating disabled children into mainstream schools whenever possible, and when
necessary special classes or schools are started and furnished with the equipment that
help giving instructions to disabled children;
- Developing the curricula of teacher training and adjusting them to fit the particular
conditions and character of the Arab society;
- Continuing to work for unifying communication means among Arab Disabled people such as
the sign language for the deaf, and the Braille contractions for the blind;
- Starting an information center to facilitate the exchange of successful Arab experience
and expertise in the fields of education, rehabilitation, employment, etc.;
- Organizing intensive campaigns to raise society's awareness of the disability issue, the
rights of disabled people to education, and raising the awareness of the families of
disabled people of the importance of education, and the role it plays in achieving
self-reliance and integration within society;
- Expanding the establishment of early disability discovery in rural and urban areas, and
staffing them with qualified personnel who are able to intervene early enough to limit the
consequences of disability;
- Insisting on the participation of the disabled in extra curricular and summer activities
that are organized by academic institutions;
- Emphasizing the partnership between NGOs and government administrations in order to
raise the level of health, educational, entertainment, sports and other services;
- The participation of disabled people and their families in planning and implementing
programs dedicated to them;
- Organizing encounters between people with disabilities and those working with them and
media people to establish and enhance a partnership between the two parties, and send
messages based on facts.
Position on the convention
It is the belief of AODP that the convention is a very good plus to the disability
cause world wide. The most important logic behind such a position is the need for a
compelling document pushing governments to deal with disability seriously. So far we had
lots of declarations and recommendations and plans of action on disability including the
UN decade on disability 1983-1992. However, the results are not promising. Accordingly, we
hope that with a convention, the disability movement will have in its hands a legal tool
that can be used to push governments for seriously meet their commitments in the
convention
Preamble
It is important that the preamble includes a reference to all major declarations and
recommendation on disability.
Objectives
The convention should be based on both the paradigm of human rights and
development. It is of vital importance that the convention includes the need to provide
support for third world countries in order the meet their commitment in the convention
Monitoring, review
It is of vital importance that governments provide the UN with a time table of a plan
of action for the implementation of the convention. The monitoring should be based on the
plan as a reference document for monitoring and reviewing the implementation process of
the convention.
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