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Speech by the
United Nations Special Rapporteur
on Disability
Delivered to the Meeting of the
First Ladies of Latin America
Honourable Ladies, I was almost unable to make to this meeting due to a number small difficulties that kept adding up. But it was the determination of the National Bureau of Social Integration of People with Disabilities at the Office of the President of the Republic that made it possible for me to be here. Your Excellency Madam Vivian de Torrijos, I would like to start by thanking you for inviting me to your country. I would especially like to thank you, on behalf of the more 400 million people with disabilities who live in the developing world, most of them in conditions of poverty, for making this a priority As United Nations Special Rapporteur on Disability, I take great pride in knowing that distinguished women such as yourselves have decided to put their weight and their influence behind the issue of disability. Focusing your meeting on disability and poverty, provides the necessary thrust needed to place disability and development on the world agenda, especially considering the inextricable link between poverty and disability, particularly on countries of the South. It is my firm conviction that this meeting marks a turning point in advocating and raising awareness of the issues and concerns of persons with disabilities, and supports the work of the disability movement worldwide. It is even more important, coming at this time when the Millennium Development Goals dealing with poverty reduction, education and literacy, nutrition, and access to a safe environment, are being assessed, and when the G8 meeting earlier this month focused on aid and poverty reduction for the poorest countries. I believe your meeting, dealing with poverty and disability is extremely timely. It is not surprising that the issues of disability have found supporters such yourselves in Latin America. Through my own work, my first hand observations, my contacts with disability organizations, advocates, activists and government officials in many countries of Latin America, I have seen the kind of commitment, the awareness, and deep understanding of the issues of disability and the rights of persons with disabilities in your countries. I have also seen, in all of the developing countries I have visited and the people I have come into contact with, the strong link between poverty and disability. However, many of us have noted the absence of disability issues from most development agendas, the programmes and priorities of most United Nations agencies, and from the target areas of the Millennium Development Goals and the. Former World Bank President, Mr. James Wolfensohn, has said, “Unless disabled people are brought into the development mainstream, it will be impossible to cut poverty in half by 2015 or to give every girl and boy the chance to achieve a primary education by the same date—goals agreed to by more than 180 world leaders at the United Nations Millennium Summit in September 2000.” However, we find that other than through the work of DPOs, the issue relating to poverty and disability, education and inclusion for children with disability, employment and access to services, most governments and development agencies have not brought disabled persons into the development mainstream. The relationship between disability and poverty varies between cultures and communities and depends to a certain extent on the degree of development in a specific country. However, in industrialized countries where the Standard Rules for the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities are implemented to large degree, people with disabilities are amongst those living in chronic poverty, and all disabled people experience some form of discrimination. It is also important to note that poverty is not only economic and does not only relate to income, but is about social exclusion and powerlessness. People with disabilities become poor because they are excluded from social institutions. Exclusion leads to lack of resources, lower expectations, poor health and poor education. In these cases, poverty is caused by disability. There are, according to conservative estimates, over 600 million persons with disabilities in the world. Eighty per cent of those live in developing countries where they have little or no access to social services, health and rehabilitation services, education, or employment and where they suffer from social exclusion and discrimination within their own poor communities in which there aren’t enough resources to go around. Less than 2% of children with disabilities receive any kind of education. In some countries, where disability is viewed as a shame and a curse, children with disabilities are even deprived of social interaction, as their families fear being stigmatized by their communities. In many cases, children with disabilities become street children. Many spend their entire lives begging in the streets for a few coins, for scraps of food and handouts. In Guatemala, in Mexico, in Morocco, in Guinea, in Lebanon, in Egypt, in India, in countless countries of varying levels of development and different cultures and traditions, the same is true. The majority of children or adults living on and making a living in the streets are disabled. However, in spite of the fact that disabled children make up a large percentage of street children, they are often excluded from development, education and reintegration programmes that target street children. The same is true of women with disabilities. I have found that the invisibility of and discrimination against women with disabilities extends to the organizations that work on women’s issues and defend women’s rights. The neglect and disregard of education, health care nutrition of girls with disabilities, their isolation and exclusion are a major contributing factor to the often abject poverty in which they live as women. It is for all these reasons and more that I have been working on two main initiatives. One dealing with the World Bank and the other focusing on the upcoming meeting in New York in September to assess progress made on the Millennium Development Goals five years after the Declaration. The World Bank initiative focuses on the need to ensure that all lending made to countries by the World Bank takes into consideration issues that concern persons with disabilities. No schools should be built with World Bank money without ensuring that those schools are accessible to children with disabilities. Any infrastructure development projects funded with World Bank loans, should include a checklist on accessibility. All debt reduction and debt forgiveness should include an agreement with governments concerned on allocating 10% of those funds to poverty reduction programmes for persons with disabilities. This initiative, in its detailed form was presented and discussed with Mr. James Wolfensohn last year and will be presented again to the current World Bank President, Mr. Wolfowitz. The second initiative has been a campaign to urge the heads of state who will meet in September in New York to assess the Millennium Development Goals, to include disability, particularly the issues relating to poverty and disability in their speeches and their plans for the coming five years. Through individual, personal meetings with ambassadors and foreign ministers, I have been sending this message to all heads of state. I have so far had the privilege of meeting with ambassadors and foreign ministry officials from countries 46 in the past month or more. I intend to continue those meetings throughout the summer months and into September, in order to secure the largest support at the highest levels of government for including the issues of persons with disabilities at the top of national and international agendas. Distinguished Ladies, Madam First Lady of Panama, So far my meetings have been extremely positive and very successful. We have received responses from some countries asking us to draft a paragraph or two to be included in the speeches. Others have requested that we discuss plans of action and ways in which the issues of poverty and disability can be more systematically addressed through development programmes and better access. It is for this reason that I believe your own meeting here today is not only important in that it has chosen poverty and disability as its topic, but is also because it is extremely timely. I want to take this opportunity to invite you to support both the World Bank and the MDG initiatives. I would like to ask you to use your influence, your power and your positions to push these issues forward, I also would like to ask you to use the unrestricted access that you have to the heads of state of your countries, to ensure that disability finds its place on world agendas at the international level. For my part, I intend to convey the message, the declarations and resolutions of this meeting in every country I visit and every official I come in contact with—in Africa, in Asia, in the Middle East—urging that this not remain a Latin American initiative and concern, but that women of the South who are in your positions should be able to use their influence and their status to strengthen the cause of persons with disabilities everywhere. Thank you
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