DR UK called for evidence, between September and October 2016, on the UK’s performance under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD).
How people contributed
People contributed via:
- an online survey
- events held around the country
DR UK wanted responses to the following two questions:
- What are the priority issues that you believe should be included in our report to the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities?
- Why do you consider these to be priorities and what evidence can you provide to show that there is or could be an adverse impact on the rights of persons with disabilities?
Contributors were referred to this guidance on the UNCRPD to help when thinking about these questions.
Contributors could also submit additional evidence please email crpd@disabilityrightsuk.org
DR UK events
Disability Rights UK held 7 half day free events around England between 14 September and 5 October. These were at Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, Southampton, Plymouth, Newcastle and London. For more information on these see our flier, available in Word or PDF format. For what people have said about the events, see DR UK Deputy CEO Sue Bott's blog
Our partners Disability Wales and Inclusion Scotland have been running similar events in their respective countries.
Background to the call for evidence
In 2017 the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities will examine how well the UK government, including the devolved jurisdictions in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, is doing at promoting, protecting and ensuring disabled people’s human rights.
This includes in areas such as promoting accessibility of buildings and transport, ensuring protection from discrimination, improving public attitudes, increasing participation and achievement in education and employment, ensuring people can enjoy independent living and are supported to make their own decisions, tackling disability hate crime, making sure that people can vote in elections and take part in politics and enjoy leisure and sport.
The Committee is interested in the laws and polices that the government has in place to address these issues, the steps it is taking to ensure that they are implemented and the situation faced by disabled people in their everyday lives.
You can find out more about the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and what it covers here
The Committee needs help to carry out this task and is seeking evidence and insight from disabled people and their organisations in the UK. This will help it to decide which issues matter most and what it can most helpfully recommend that the UK government can do to improve matters in future.
To these ends, the Equality and Human Rights Commission has kindly provided financial support to Disability Rights UK and Disability Wales to produce an independent report on implementation of the Convention in England and Wales. The report will:
- Set out what disabled people’s priorities are in England and Wales
- Provide evidence to the Committee regarding whether and how far disabled people are or are not enjoying their human rights
- Assess how effective UK law and policies, and their implementation, are at ensuring that the rights of disabled people are protected, promoted and ensured.
- Propose recommendations and questions for the Committee to put to the UK government when it is examined in 2017
Inclusion Scotland is conducting the same exercise in Scotland, and the two reports will form a single Great Britain report to be submitted to the Committee.
