Deaf and Disability organisations from across the United Kingdom will today (21 August) highlight the Government’s ongoing human rights violations and evasive behaviour towards a major United Nations committee.
Deaf and Disabled people’s organisations (DDPOs) will tell the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Geneva that the Government has ignored many of the questions put to it earlier this year by the UN team. The committee is assessing the UK’s progress in implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled People, which the UK government ratified in 2009.
It will consider the Government’s response to its questions and the DDPOs’ observations before quizzing representatives from the UK and devolved Governments in Geneva later this week (23 and 24 August).
Referring to the Government’s submission for the investigation, Kamran Mallick, chief executive of Disability Rights UK, said: “Many of the Government’s answers have a tone of complacency at best and high-handed evasion at worst.
“The Government produced no evidence or detail to show how it is supporting people to lead independent lives; something it committed to when it ratified the convention in 2009. The Government document also makes grand claims about the impact of the Equality Act and the Care Act that simply don’t reflect the everyday experiences of disabled people in the UK.”