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UN ESCAP Workshop on Regional Follow-up to the Seventh
Session and Preparation for the Eighth Session of the Ad Hoc Committee of
the General Assembly on the Elaboration of a Convention on the Rights and
Dignity of Persons with Disabilities |
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Materials :
Country Papers :Viet Nam Paper on Conventionby Mr. Nghiem Xuan Tue Nowadays, there are over 600 million people with disabilities all over the world. It is different between countries in supporting disability issues and facilitation for the equality and integration of persons with disabilities. Disability - related issues such as health rehabilitation, education, vocational training and employment, access to built environment, public transportation and information and communication technology (ICT), establishment of disabled persons’ associations and self-help groups in every country … do not entirely depend on the national economic development, but mainly on awareness of responsible agencies, the whole society and community as well as persons with disabilities themselves. Therefore, State parties of the United Nations should possess a common Convention for making a standard and legal framework in developing national legislation documents, ensuring the fundamental rights of persons with disabilities to every opportunities, facilitating their truly equality and full inclusion. In general, after seven sessions of discussions and completion, the draft of 34 - article Convention is almost completed and finalized. Based on the main contents discussed and agreed and the remained or disagreed issues in the 7th session on Convention organized in New York during 16 January and 3 February 2006, we would like to comments as follows: Article 1 - Purpose. We agree with content of Article 1 but would like to add ‘for their truly equality and full integration of persons with disabilities’ as follows: The purpose of the present Convention is to promote, protect and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by persons with disabilities for their truly equality and full integration and to promote respect for their inherent dignity. Title of the Convention. Title of the Convention should be shortened so that every members in the society including persons with disabilities remember easily. Any long titles are not able to capture all contents of this Convention. Thus, we should name the Convention as “International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities”. Article 2 - Definition. We would recommend to use the definition of World Health Organization (WHO). Article 5 - Equality and non - discrimination. We agree with main text of this Article, however, words and sentences should be modified to match with the title of the article. Article 6 and Article 7: Women and Children with Disabilities. We strongly agree two separate articles on Women with disabilities and Children with disabilities. In Article on Women with disabilities, information should cover the following issues to ensure their rights such as right to divorce, right to separation, right to giving birth without marriage, right to participation in leadership levels, and fighting against women trafficking and sexual abuse. Article 8 - Awareness - raising on Disability. Awareness raising is one of important area in promoting the rights of persons with disabilities. Title of this Article should only be “ Awareness raising” because it is an article in the Convention so it already denotes the disability issue. We also strongly agree to change several words in this Article by others with positive meaning. For example, “combat” should be replaced with “remove” in the phrase “To combat stereotypes, prejudices and harmful practices…”. Article 9 - Accessibility. There should be clarification that the standard code should be applied in every aspects, constructions and facilities owned by public or private. Item 1 of Article 9 - 9 (1) should include the rights of persons with disabilities to access information and communication technology (ICT), assistive devices in all workplaces owned by the State or the privates. Article 10 - Right to life. We strongly support the text of this Article, but words and sentences should be modified, for example, ‘reaffirm” should be replace with phrase “ should be aware of” Article 11 - Situation of risk. We support a separate article on this issue as well as words in this Article. we only need to mention “ situation of risk” and it is not necessary to mention detailed all situations of risk as it is hard to list down all these situations. Article 32 - International Cooperation. A separate Article on International Cooperation is necessary. In the current context, countries on the world and region have different programs to support persons with disabilities, and different resources set aside for this issue as well. Experience exchange and mutual supports are needed in this regard. Article 34 - Monitoring. We support to Article 34 on Monitoring the implementation of the Convention, so that every countries will seriously implement the Convention which ensure that people with disabilities would fully enjoy achievements of this Convention. Note that development of monitoring mechanism should match with legislation and customs in each country. |
