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Resolution 1642 (2009)
Access to rights for people with disabilities and their full and active participation in society
1. More than
one person in every 10 suffers from some form of disability, representing
a total of 650 million people worldwide, with an even greater ratio
of up to 200 million in Europe alone. There is a correlation between age
and disability: as the population ages and health care improves,
the number of people with disabilities in Europe grows, and it will
continue to grow.
2. The Parliamentary Assembly recalls that the Council of Europe’s
European Convention on Human Rights (ETS No. 5) protects all people,
including those with disabilities, and that Article 15 of the revised European
Social Charter (ETS No. 163) explicitly guarantees people with disabilities
the effective exercise of the right to independence, social integration
and participation in the life of the community. A more recent and eagerly
awaited text, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons
with Disabilities, came into force with effect from 3 May 2008.
The Assembly welcomes this text, which gives a detailed description
of the rights of people, including children, with disabilities,
and will certainly contribute to the change of perception needed to
improve the situation of people with physical or mental disabilities.
3. The Assembly notes that, in practice, the access of people
with physical or mental disabilities to their rights on an equal
basis with those of people without disabilities frequently remains
wishful thinking and proves inadequate. It therefore welcomes the
preparation by the Council of Europe of the Disability Action Plan
to promote the rights and participation of people with disabilities
in society for 2006-2015 (Recommendation Rec(2006)5 of the Committee
of Ministers), which endeavours to find practical responses to the
most serious and most common problems encountered by people with
disabilities, to foster equality of opportunities, and which advocates
a number of measures to improve the situation of people with disabilities
in all aspects of everyday life.
4. The Assembly considers that the Council of Europe Disability
Action Plan must serve as the reference document for any new disability-related
policies and activities that are adopted and as a practical policy
tool for Europe to promote the United Nations Convention on the
Rights of Persons with Disabilities. It invites all member states
to participate in, to promote and implement the action plan at national
and local levels and to begin the necessary reforms which will finally
rectify the inequalities that persist, notwithstanding numerous declarations
of intent.
5. Moreover, the Assembly calls on member states, through their
national parliaments, to regularly report to the Council of Europe
on the progress of the implementation of the action plan. It also
invites the competent services of the Council of Europe to carry
out a mid-term review of the Disability Action Plan 2006-2015 by organising
a European review conference in 2010.
6. The Assembly invites member states to include disability issues
in every area of policy making, to ensure that disability-related
programmes are sufficiently resourced and that people with physical
or mental disabilities are able to enjoy full citizenship on an
equal basis with others. It is necessary to couple the fight against discrimination
and violence with the adoption of positive measures. In order to
speed up integration into society, the Assembly considers that certain
key areas of action need to be given priority.
7. Firstly, the Assembly invites member states to guarantee that
people with disabilities retain and exercise legal capacity on an
equal basis with other members of society by:
7.1. ensuring that their right to
make decisions is not limited or substituted by others, that measures concerning
them are individually tailored to their needs and that they may
be supported in their decision making by a support person;
7.2. taking the necessary measures to ensure that, in accordance
with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities and its Optional Protocol, people placed under guardianship are
not deprived of their fundamental rights (not least the rights to
own property, to work, to a family life, to marry, to vote, to form
and join associations, to bring legal proceedings and to draw up
a will), and, where they need external assistance so as to exercise
those rights, that they are afforded appropriate support, without
their wishes or intentions being superseded;
7.3. providing sufficient safeguards against abuse of people
under guardianship notably through establishing mechanisms for periodic
review of guardians’ actions and ensuring that legislation mandates
compulsory, regular and meaningful reviews of guardianship, in which
the person concerned is fully involved and has adequate legal representation.
8. The Assembly considers that in order to enable the active
participation of people with disabilities in society, it is imperative
that the right to live in the community be upheld. It invites member
states to:
8.1. commit themselves
to the process of deinstitutionalisation by reorganising services
and reallocating resources from specialised institutions to community-based
services;
8.2. provide adequate and sustained assistance to families,
above all through human and material (particularly financial) means,
to enable them to support their disabled family member at home;
8.3. develop effective, independent inspectorates to monitor
existing institutions.
9. With respect to employment, the Assembly invites member states
to ensure to the maximum extent possible that people with disabilities
have access to sustainable employment by:
9.1. offering incentives to work where they are able to do
so; following an objective and individual assessment of the employability
of people with disabilities, they should be given support so that
they can find appropriate employment or return to their previous
job;
9.2. taking specific measures of an appropriate nature to facilitate
the occupational integration of young adults with disabilities leaving
the institutions where they have spent their whole lives;
9.3. protecting people with disabilities against discrimination
at every stage of the filling of a vacancy – from candidate selection
to recruitment – and throughout their career;
9.4. offering genuine incentives to encourage employers to
take on people with disabilities, inter
alia through the use of recruitment procedures that ensure
that job offers are effectively made to people with disabilities,
and making reasonable adjustments to the workplace and/or or working
conditions;
9.5. taking into account in health and safety legislation and
regulations the specific needs of people with disabilities and by
eliminating any provisions that discriminate against them;
9.6. implementing support measures such as sheltered or supported
employment for people in need of personalised assistance on the
labour market; provision must also be made for people with disabilities to
be able to move from sheltered or supported employment to ordinary
employment;
9.7. offering incentives to employers to create new jobs, especially
for disabled people.
10. In the sphere of education, another priority field, the Assembly
invites member states to:
10.1. grant
equal access to education at every level to all people with disabilities,
and particularly to children, whatever the nature and severity of
their disabilities, giving particular attention to the educational
needs of children living in specialised institutions;
10.2. support and promote vocational education and training
throughout the lives of people with disabilities; it is important
that a transition should be possible between each stage of their
education and between education and employment;
10.3. ensure that all syllabuses and teaching materials within
the general education system are accessible to people with disabilities;
10.4. guarantee access to non-formal education, so that people
with disabilities may develop skills which they could not acquire
through ordinary education.
11. The Assembly invites member states to ensure that the rights
of people with disabilities are respected at every level of the
education system, by taking any appropriate steps, including raising
awareness of disability among very young children as part of the
syllabuses taught at schools and institutions offering general education.
12. The Assembly considers that the creation of a society for
all implies equal access for all citizens to the environment in
which they live. It invites member states to make this environment
genuinely accessible to people with disabilities and to remove any
obstacles that prevent them from playing a full part in everyday
life and from enjoying their fundamental rights by:
12.1. including universal design principles
in the training of all who will work in the occupations relating to
built environments, such as architects, engineers and town planners,
so as to simplify the lives of all by making the environment more
accessible, usable and understandable;
12.2. removing any obstacles in public buildings and indoor
and outdoor public areas and by ensuring that no new obstacles are
created. Every newly built structure must conform to universal design principles:
pavements, for instance, must not be laid without dropped kerbs;
12.3. giving particular attention to the safety of people with
disabilities when evacuation and emergency procedures are planned
and carried out;
12.4. allowing the animals which assist or guide people with
disabilities free access to all public buildings and areas.
13. The Assembly invites member states to contribute to equal
access to social facilities, cultural sites and sports venues and
to raise awareness of the opportunities presented by physical training,
sports, a healthy lifestyle and psychological methods of rehabilitation
as a way to achieve inclusiveness and social reintegration. The
Assembly calls on member states to promote scientific research in
these fields and to put special emphasis on the development and
promotion of the Paralympic movement.
14. The Assembly considers that the accessibility of transport
remains a priority area, notwithstanding genuine progress made in
the implementation of accessible transport policies, especially
relating to public transport. It invites member states to:
14.1. include disability awareness
training in the standard training courses for public transport staff;
14.2. oblige public-service transport providers to supply services
accessible to all users;
14.3. authorise and provide space in all public transport for
the animals which assist or guide people with disabilities (guide
dogs for the blind, for instance);
14.4. provide adequate numbers of suitable parking spaces for
the vehicles used by people with disabilities whose mobility is
reduced, and to make sure that these are used only by people who
are entitled to them.
15. The Assembly calls on member states to ensure equal access
to health care for people with disabilities and to encourage the
consultation of people with disabilities or their representatives
in the taking of decisions relating to their health plan. Care should
be taken to ensure that:
15.1. all
the relevant information is supplied to them in a comprehensible
format;
15.2. priority is given to the adoption of effective measures
to detect, diagnose and treat disability at an early stage; appropriate
instructions should be prepared on early detection, as should intervention measures;
15.3. attention is paid to the ageing of the population and
the health consequences thereof, especially for people with disabilities;
15.4. health-care professionals in all member states accept
the human and social rights model for people with disabilities and
do not focus solely on the medical aspect of disability;
15.5. a sufficient number of professionals, especially health-care
professionals and social workers are trained, and that the prevention
of abuse is promoted among employees of health-care establishments;
15.6. with the participation of those concerned, full, accessible
and appropriate rehabilitation services are available, so as to
enable people with disabilities to achieve maximum independence
and to make the greatest possible use of their physical, mental,
occupational and social capacities.
16. The Assembly calls on member states to ensure full access
to the media for disabled people, including printed and electronic
media and the Internet.
17. The growing numbers of elderly people in Europe mean a greater
likelihood of disability, reduced independence, increased use of
various services and reduced quality of life. There are nevertheless
many disability risk factors among elderly people which can be altered,
several of these linked to socio-economic criteria and living conditions,
but the lack of information about people with disabilities acts
as an impediment to the devising of relevant policies. The Assembly
therefore considers that there is an urgent need for research into
specific health care for elderly people with disabilities and for
related economic studies, and for:
17.1. research to be carried out into the environment-related
risk factors, which have to date not been the subject of particular
interest;
17.2. in-depth research to be carried out into ways of rehabilitating
people with disabilities and reintegrating them into the community;
17.3. encouragement to be given to applied scientific research,
particularly relating to new technologies, apparatus and products
which might foster an independent life for people with disabilities and
greater participation by them in community life.
18. Whereas the attitude of society, prejudice and fixed mindsets
remain the main obstacle to the access to rights for people with
disabilities and their full and active participation in society,
the Assembly invites member states to:
18.1. step up their campaigns drawing public attention to, and
providing information about, disability-related issues;
18.2. take legal action against and penalise discriminatory
practices and unacceptable attitudes towards people with disabilities,
especially abuse, committed either by isolated individuals or in
health-care establishments;
18.3. disseminate examples of good practices in all spheres
of everyday life, so as to make clearer − to all, and particularly
to young people − the scope of this question in civil society, the
working environment and the world of education;
18.4. ensure the full and active participation of people with
disabilities in all of these processes.
19. The Assembly invites the member states concerned to show their
political will to speed up the access to rights for people with
disabilities by ratifying and by implementing:
19.1. the revised European Social
Charter (accepting, inter alia,
Article 15 on persons with disabilities) and its Additional Protocol
providing for a system of collective complaints, which allows national
and/or international non-governmental organisations to lodge complaints
with the European Committee of Social Rights about violations by
states of social rights;
19.2. the recent United Nations Convention on the Rights of
Persons with Disabilities and the Optional Protocol thereto, which
also makes it possible for individuals and groups of individuals
to assert their rights.