[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 65 (Tuesday, May 11, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E813-E814]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




STATEMENT OF JOHAN SCHOLVINCK, DIRECTOR, DIVISION FOR SOCIAL POLICY AND 
 DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL AFFAIRS, UNITED NATIONS 
  ON ``INTERNATIONAL DISABILITY RIGHTS: THE PROPOSED UN CONVENTION'' 
      BEFORE THE CONGRESSIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS CAUCUS, MARCH 30, 2004

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. TOM LANTOS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, May 11, 2004

  Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, on March 30th, the Congressional Human 
Rights Caucus held a groundbreaking Members' Briefing entitled, 
``International Disability Rights: The Proposed UN Convention.'' This 
discussion of the global situation of people with disabilities was 
intended to help establish disability rights issues as an integral part 
of the general human rights discourse. The briefing brought together 
the human rights community and the disability rights community, and it 
raised awareness in Congress of the need to protect disability rights 
under international law to the same extent as other human rights 
through a binding UN convention on the rights of people with 
disabilities.
  Our expert witnesses included Deputy Assistant Secretary of State 
Mark P. Lagon; the Permanent Representative of the Republic of Ecuador 
to the United Nations, Ambassador Luis Gallegos; the United Nations 
Director of the Division for Social Policy and Development in the 
Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Johan Scholvinck; the 
distinguished former Attorney General of the United States, former 
Under-Secretary General of the United Nations and former Governor of 
Pennsylvania, the Honorable Dick Thornburgh; the President of the 
National Organization on Disability (NOD), Alan A. Reich; Kathy 
Martinez, a member of the National Council on Disabilities (NCD); and a 
representative of the United States International Council on 
Disabilities (USCID) and Executive Director of Mental Disability Rights 
International, Eric Rosenthal.
  As I had announced earlier, I intend to place the important 
statements of our witnesses in the Congressional Record, so that all of 
my colleagues may profit from their expertise, and I ask that the 
statement of Mr. Scholvinck be placed at this point in the 
Congressional Record.

                    Presentation by Johan Scholvinck

       Mr. Chairman, thank you for inviting me to this historic 
     briefing on the proposed UN Convention on the Rights and 
     Dignity of Persons with Disabilities. It is an honour and a 
     pleasure being here with you.
       I will confine my remarks to describe the situation faced 
     by persons with disabilities in developing countries. I 
     believe that the disheartening picture that will emerge from 
     what I am about to say will be further proof of the need for 
     a UN Convention.
       First let me cite some statistics: 80 percent of people 
     with disabilities and their families live in a developing 
     country. Between 400 and 500 million people living in a 
     developing country have a disability.
       Persons with disabilities are often trapped in a cycle of 
     poverty and exclusion. For 150 million of them, disability 
     has been caused by malnutrition and contagious diseases while 
     conflicts and war accounts for a few millions, As many as 1 
     in 5 of the poorest people have a disability.
       These are staggering figures.
       Furthermore, persons with disabilities are frequently cut 
     off from employment opportunities and suffer unemployment 
     rates far higher than that of the non-disabled workforce. In 
     many developing countries, it is estimated that 80 percent or 
     more of the disabled are unemployed, which further 
     contributes to their high incidence of poverty and social 
     exclusion.
       While persons with disabilities also face similar 
     challenges in developed countries the situation is far worse 
     in developing countries where both disability benefits and 
     vocational rehabilitation services may be virtually non-
     existent. In such cases, the disabled are often left 
     dependent, destitute and despairing. Given the relatively 
     small size of the formal labour market in most developing 
     countries, particularly in rural areas where many of

[[Page E814]]

     the disabled live, opportunities for integration of persons 
     with disabilities through employment largely rest on informal 
     work, particularly self-employment. Unfortunately, persons 
     with disabilities are often denied loans by banks and 
     lenders.
       Improving the living conditions of persons with 
     disabilities in developing countries is an overlooked 
     developmental challenge. As James Wolfensohn, the President 
     of the World Bank once said, ``unless disabled people are 
     brought into the development mainstream, it will be 
     impossible to cut poverty in half by 2015 as agreed to by 
     more than 180 world leaders at the United Nations Millennium 
     Summit in September 2000''. So is the goal to give every girl 
     and boy the chance to achieve a primary education by the same 
     date.
       Every child is unique and has a fundamental right to 
     education. Yet in developing countries, only a small minority 
     of disabled children is in school. Less than 10 percent of 
     children with disabilities attend formal education and over 9 
     in 10 are illiterate. When denied the basic right of 
     education, disabled people become severely restricted in 
     terms of their economic, social and political opportunities 
     as well as the prospects for their personal development. 
     Without an education it is more difficult to secure a job, 
     particularly one that pays a decent wage, to participate 
     actively and fully in the community and to have a meaningful 
     voice in policy making, especially on issues that directly 
     concern the affected population.
       Given the dynamics of disability and health, access to 
     adequate health care services is essential for the promotion 
     of independent living for the disabled. Health services play 
     a critical role in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of 
     illnesses and conditions which can cause physical, 
     psychological and intellectual impairments. Yet for the 
     majority of persons with disabilities living in developing 
     countries, poverty precludes access to these vital services--
     either because health care facilities and practitioners are 
     not sufficiently available, or there are not enough funds to 
     purchase needed medications and devices. Particularly 
     dramatic is, beyond the lack of orthopedic surgeons, the 
     greatly insufficient number of medical rehabilitation centers 
     to help people adapt to disabling conditions. According to 
     the World Health Organization, at most only 5 percent of the 
     disabled in developing countries have access to 
     rehabilitation services.
       The potential for enhancing the possibility of persons with 
     disabilities to carry on independent lives rests on the 
     integration of the disabled into the general community, 
     rather than placing them in exclusionary institutions or 
     relegating them into ``colonies'' of disabled. Community 
     Based Rehabilitation programmes, which are in the process of 
     becoming fairly well established in industrialized countries 
     tend to be part and parcel of these strategies, but remain 
     rare in developing countries.
       In developing countries, persons with disabilities are 
     often excluded from the mainstream of the society, 
     discriminated against and denied their human rights. 
     Violations of the human rights of persons with disabilities 
     are seldom addressed in society. Many disability legislation 
     and policies are based on the assumption that persons with 
     disabilities are simply not able to exercise the same rights 
     as non-disabled persons. Consequently, the situation of 
     persons with disabilities is often addressed in terms of 
     rehabilitation and social services. In many countries, 
     existing provisions do not provide for the rights of disabled 
     persons in all their aspects--that is, political, civil, 
     economic, social and cultural rights--on an equal basis with 
     persons without disabilities. Furthermore, anti-
     discrimination laws often have weak enforcement mechanisms, 
     thereby denying opportunities for persons with disabilities 
     to participate on the basis of equality in social life and 
     development.
       Mr. Chairman, the adoption of the UN Convention will not 
     provide a magic wand in overcoming the dismal conditions 
     faced by persons with disabilities in developing countries. 
     However, without such an instrument their chances of becoming 
     fully integrated in their societies will remain infinitely 
     difficult to attain.

                          ____________________