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| TX: 14.12.06 - UN Declaration for Disabled People PRESENTER: JOHN WAITE |
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| THE ATTACHED TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT. BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE BBC CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY. Waite Now it was nearly 60 years ago that the United Nations made its now famous Declaration of Human Rights. Archive Recognition of the inherent dignity of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world. Waite The unmistakable voice of Lawrence Olivier there, reading out the 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights. But in all the years since there's never been a declaration that specifically protects disabled people. That is until now. A few hours ago in New York the United Nations adopted an International Human Rights Convention on the Rights of the Disabled. It's taken several years of negotiation and now each of the 192 countries which make up the UN need to individually ratify the treaty, the UK plans to be one of the first. The convention will be binding on countries which sign up to principles like the right to life, the right to education, the right to healthcare and so on. Our disability reporter Carolyn Atkinson has been talking to the UK representative at those negotiations - Dr Richard Light. Light The important thing is it raises the profile of disability in particular issues of disabled people across the UN. So as well as being a standard that governments have to reach, it also actually increases the profile of what generally has been a completely ignored area. Atkinson It seems extraordinary that in almost 60 years the UN has never sort of written down anything to do with people with disabilities. Light Amazing or alarming. There's never been a shortage of rhetoric - declarations which aren't binding, various expressions of hope or aspiration - but little more and despite that we've had at least five UN reports, that I'm aware of, which have shown that routinely and systematically disabled people are denied their human rights. Atkinson And we've had a couple of countries trying in the past - Italy, Ireland - but in fact this time round it was led by Mexico. Light Absolutely. There was very little advance warning that this was coming, I think it took a lot of us by surprise. Atkinson Why Mexico? Light Very good question. The more cynical among us would say that previously Mexico's human rights record has been less than stunning and it was right that the right time for Mexico to take the lead on a human rights issue. Atkinson This has been four years in the making, you've been heavily involved as the delegate for Britain, why were you so passionate about it and why are you so keen that this convention really kicks in and gets up and running. Light Well I think part of my work when I first started human rights involved reading evidence reports of human rights abuse and all too often seeing photographs and despite the fact I've been a police officer for 12 years and seen some fairly unpleasant sights it rocked me on my heels. Ultimately somebody has to try and make a difference. Too few people seem to be dealing with disability as a human rights issue and there's comes a point when nobody else is doing it you've got to. Atkinson And worldwide, I mean you've done a lot of work and compiling a database of how people with disabilities were treated when it came to human rights, I mean what sort of things are happening? Light We like particularly in the wealthier northern states to think that we've got most of the issues taken care of and yet internationally by a significant margin the single biggest abuse endured by disabled people related to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment. There are some that people will be familiar with from very harrowing television images in particular - institutions in some of the former Eastern bloc countries for example. But still almost on a daily basis I'm receiving reports, for example, of learning disabled children chained to metal beds, sitting in a pool of their own urine and left that way indefinitely. Atkinson We're talking about the United Nations here, so we're talking about a lot of countries that are war zones or "third world countries", why would they want to prioritise something to do with disability? Light War zones are always an issue, if you look at the history of disability provision in the UK, the US, it's always been as a result of significant numbers of war injured. But also looking at the numbers of abandoned munitions where children, civilians, adults are being terribly wounded as a result of this war. Disability and dealing with its aftermath is a huge drain on very modest resources. So anything that improves that, that stops it being a continual drain and perversely coming into this idea of liberating or giving independence to disabled people to contribute to society again has to make sense for states who otherwise will have to use scarce resources to keep them somehow off the poverty line? Atkinson So we're talking about countries like Sudan, for example, who are in a war situation? Light Oh absolutely and a lot of the atrocities going back at least 15 years now. It's abundantly clear that the abusers have been intent on ensuring that they didn't kill their victim but that they were severely disabled. Atkinson And what about countries like China, where human rights has been heavily criticised for all people, will countries like China sign up and will they then actually make sure that it affects people with disabilities? Light This was something for me which was absolutely amazing - the enthusiasm with which countries like China and other, for example, Latin American countries who are not generally thought of as being at the forefront of these sorts of issues really seized on this. How that will be implemented and what it means for individual disabled people 5, 10, 15 years from now who can tell. But what we have is this yardstick, we can always keep using this yardstick as a way of reminding states of the obligations that they've voluntarily taken on. Atkinson Now we also have America, who have said they are not signing up to this, what's your reaction to that? Light Pragmatically it's probably better for us they've decided not to sign than to try and prevent progress at the convention which was a very real fear at the beginning. I'm not entirely convinced that I am quite as confident about the human rights of disabled Americans as the American government but that's my view. Atkinson And they would argue that everything's in place in America so they don't need a UN convention? Light Absolutely, that was precisely their argument. Atkinson What do you say to people who would say well we don't live in a war zone, we don't torture people with disabilities, we don't lock people up with disabilities, so how can the UK benefit from a convention like this? Light First of all, regrettably, I wouldn't agree with the proposition - we do lock up disabled people - people with mental illness, are a prime example. And the Mental Capacity Act and proposals for the Mental Health Bill are obviously prime examples. Atkinson And one key area is the health service, I mean what examples do you see and hear about in the health service that ring alarm bells for you? Light I'm increasingly concerned by what I would see as eugenic ideas coming back in and certainly I think a lot of us would consider that there's a cost benefit analysis taking place, rather than purely clinical analysis. And there have been studies by a number of charities, going back some time, showing how, for example, people with Down's Syndrome are routinely denied treatment for congenital heart disease. Do not resuscitate notices or DNR, there is increasing evidence found not just by the charity with whom I work but also the Disability Rights Commission where disabled people with easily treatable medical conditions - chest infections - treatable by antibiotics, are denied that treatment, purely and simply on the basis of quality of life, the assumption being regrettably that disabled people's quality of life is so poor they would be better off dead than treated. Atkinson Why does this effect us all and why should we care about the convention? Light Most of us, including me before I became disabled, like to believe that disabled people are treated well in this country, regrettably the reality is not always that way. But irrespective of that an inevitable part of becoming elderly is acquiring disability. To think I'm not disabled it doesn't affect me, is actually incredibly short sighted, it is almost certainly, if it is not now, at some point going to affect your parents and conventions like this ought to make a substantial difference to the way your mother or your father is treated when they have a fall and they're taken into a geriatric ward. And even more all encompassing than that, this isn't about charity, this isn't about doing the right thing, this is about what a country's really like. And if, in this context, the UK is unable to give effect to these fundamental principles that everyone has agreed since 1948 in the case of disabled people, what are the chance of them doing it with any other group and that's why it matters to everyone. Waite Dr Richard Light, talking to Carolyn Atkinson. Back to the You and Yours homepage The BBC is not responsible for external websites |
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