World Report on Disability
(Posted June 2011)
The first ever World report on disability, produced jointly by WHO and the World Bank, suggests that more than a billion people in the world today experience disability. People with disabilities have generally poorer health, lower education achievements, fewer economic opportunities and higher rates of poverty than people without disabilities. This is largely due to the lack of services available to them and the many obstacles they face in their everyday lives. The report provides the best available evidence about what works to overcome barriers to health care, rehabilitation, education, employment, and support services, and to create the environments which will enable people with disabilities to flourish. The report ends with a concrete set of recommended actions for governments and their partners. This pioneering World report on disability will make a significant contribution to implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Key statistics
- 15% of the world’s population have a disability – over 1 billion people worldwide
- 110-190 million people experience a very significant impact from disability
- Many social barriers faced by people with disabilities are avoidable
- People with disabilities have poorer health, lower education achievements, less economic participation and higher rates of poverty than people without disabilities
- Disability is more common among women, older people and low income households
- Developing countries have a higher prevalence of disability than developed countries
Main messages
- Disability prevalence is high and growing
- Disability disproportionately affects vulnerable populations
- People with disabilities face widespread barriers in accessing services – health, education, employment, transport and information
Barriers
- Inadequate policies, standards and lack of service provision
- Negative attitudes and poor physical accessibility
- Lack of consultation and involvement
- Lack of data and evidence
World Disability Report Recommendations
- Enable access to all mainstream systems and services
- Invest in programmes and services for people with disabilities
- Adopt a national disability strategy and plan of action
- Involve people with disabilities in formulating and implementing policies, laws and services.
- Improve human resource capacity
- Provide adequate funding and improve affordability
- Increase public awareness and understanding about disability
- Improve the availability and quality of data on disability
- Strengthen and support research on disability
Translating recommendations into action:
Governments can
1. Review and revise existing legislation and policies for consistency with the Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities; review and revise compliance and enforcement mechanisms.
2. Review mainstream and disability-specific policies, systems, and services to identify gaps and barriers and to plan actions to overcome them.
3. Develop country specific disability strategies establishing clear lines of responsibility and mechanisms for coordination, monitoring and reporting across sectors.
4. Regulate service provision by introducing service standards and by monitoring and enforcing compliance.
5. Allocate adequate resources to existing publicly-funded services and appropriately fund implementation of national disability strategy and plan of action.
6. Adopt national accessibility standards and ensure compliance in new buildings, in transport, and in information and communication.
7. Introduce measures to ensure that people with disabilities are protected from poverty and benefit adequately from mainstream poverty alleviation programmes.
8. Include disability in national data collection systems and provide disability-disaggregated data wherever possible.
9. Implement communication campaigns to increase public knowledge and understanding of disability.
10. Establish channels for people with disabilities and third parties to lodge complaints on human rights issues and laws that are not implemented or enforced.
Development organisations can
1. Include disability in development programmes, using the twin-track approach (mainstreaming and disability specific).
2. Exchange information and coordinate actions – to agree on priorities for initiatives to learn lessons and to reduce duplication of effort.
3. Provide technical assistance to countries to build capacity and strengthen existing policies, systems and services – for example, by sharing good practices.
4. Contribute to the development of internationally comparable research methodologies for collecting and analysing data relating to people with disabilities.
5. Regularly include relevant disability data into statistical publications.
Full Report PDF (3MB or 872kb):
http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2011/9789240685215_eng.pdf
Easy Read PDF (1.87MB)
http://www.who.int/disabilities/world_report/2011/easyread.pdf
Accessible PDF (1.61 mb)
http://www.who.int/disabilities/world_report/2011/accessible_en.pdf
Report Fact Sheet (396 kb).
http://www.who.int/disabilities/world_report/2011/factsheet.pdf
Disability & Health Fact Sheet
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs352/en/index.html
FACT SHEET: HIV/AIDS AND DISABILITY
(Posted June 8th 2011)
CONTEXT
People with disabilities are often assumed to be at lower risk, and thus face lower of HIV infection rates, than their non-disabled peers. They are believed to be asexual, less likely to use drugs or alcohol, and at a lower risk of violence or sexual assault than the general population.
But a growing body of research shows that these assumptions are wrong—the HIV infection rate among people with disabilities is up to three times as high as people without disabilities.
According to the United Nations, at least one in every ten people—660 million individuals—live with a disability significant enough to make a difference in their daily lives.
HUMAN RIGHTS, DISABILITY, AND HIV/AIDS
People with disabilities face a wide range of human rights abuses that increase their risk of HIV. These include:
- Higher risk of violence and lack of legal protection
Individuals with disabilities are up to three times more likely to be victims of physical abuse, sexual abuse, and rape. In many countries, individuals with disabilities have little or no access to police, legal counsel, and courts for protection. Individuals with disabilities who are victims of rape or sexual assault often have less access to medical interventions, including psychosocial counseling and prophylactic care, than their non-disabled peers.
- Lack of Education
Children with disabilities are often shut out of education, including on sexual health. They are often considered a distraction in schools, or incapable of learning. In many parts of the world, children are barred from school because schools are physically inaccessible. The World Bank estimates that as many as 97 percent of all individuals with disabilities – and 99 percent of women with disabilities are illiterate.
- Lack of sexual health information
It is commonly assumed that individuals with disabilities are not sexually active. But research shows that they are as likely to be as sexually active as their non-disabled peers. Homosexuality and bisexuality occur at the same rate among people with disabilities as among the general population. However, they are less likely to receive information about HIV prevention and safe sex, and are less likely to have access to prevention methods such as condoms.
PROTECTION UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)
* Persons with disabilities enjoy all human rights and fundamental freedoms on an equal basis with others (Article 5).
* Persons with disabilities have the right to be actively involved in planning and carrying out HIV policies and programs, especially those directly impacting them (Article 4).
* Governments must protect a broad range of rights including the right to education, information and communication, as well as the right to individual autonomy and independence (Articles 3, 16, 19, 21, 22, 24).
* Governments must provide persons with disabilities with the same quality and standard of health care and programs as provided to other people, including in the area of sexual and reproductive health and population-based programs (Article 25).
* Governments must also enable persons with disabilities to attain and maintain their maximum independence, full physical, mental, social and vocational ability, and full inclusion and participation in all aspects of life (Article 26).
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)
* All persons, including persons with disabilities, have the rights to work, to social security, to family life, to an adequate standard of living, and to education (Articles 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13).
* Governments must protect the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health (Article 12).
* Governments must guarantee that the rights in the ICESCR will be exercised without discrimination of any kind as to birth or other status, such as disability (Article 2).
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)
* All persons are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to the equal protection of the law. The law shall prohibit any discrimination and guarantee to all persons equal and effective protection against discrimination on any ground (Article 26).
* Governments must protect the rights to life, physical integrity, to individual liberty and security, to privacy and to procedural fairness in law (Articles 6, 7, 9, 10, 14, 16, 17).
* Governments must guarantee that the rights in the ICCPR will be exercised without discrimination of any kind as to birth or other status, such as disability (Article 2).
Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)
* Governments have an obligation to protect the human rights of all children, including children with disabilities. The rights set out in the CRC must be applied without discrimination based on disability (Article 2).
* Assistance to the child and those responsible for his or her care “shall be designed to ensure that the disabled child has effective access to and receives education, training, health care services, rehabilitation services, preparation for employment and recreation opportunities in a manner conducive to the child’s achieving the fullest possible social integration and individual development” (Article 23).
WHAT YOU CAN DO
* Reach out to persons with disabilities and disabled peoples organizations to learn more about the specific needs of persons with disabilities in your community.
* Ensure HIV services, including testing centers, care services, and teaching and training sessions are fully accessible to persons with different types of disabilities. This includes providing sign language interpretation, easy-to-understand information materials, Braille resources and ensuring that the services are physically accessible.
* Provide information in formats tailored to people with different disabilities.
* Train staff of HIV organizations on disability issues and the disability community on HIV issues. Train persons with disabilities and especially HIV-positive persons with disabilities as peer support workers in HIV programs.
* Promote and fund research on HIV and disability, ensuring that persons with disabilities are included in the team designing, implementing and analyzing the research.
* Encourage governments to ratify and incorporate into national law instruments that protect the human rights of persons with disabilities, including the CRPD.
* Advocate for persons with disabilities to have full sexual and reproductive rights, access to harm reduction services, and to be free from physical and sexual abuse.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
AIDS-Free World: Disability & HIV/AIDS, www.aids-freeworld.org/content/blogcategory/35/66/
AIDSLEX, http://www.aidslex.org/english/Topics/Topic-Details/?rid=26
Health Canada, http://data.unaids.org/pub/Report/2009/20091111_hiv_and_disability_en.pdf
Human Rights Watch: Disability Rights, http://www.hrw.org/en/disability-rights
Human Rights Watch, “As if We Weren’t Human: Discrimination and Violence against Women with Disabilities in Northern Uganda,” http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2010/08/24/if-we-weren-t-human
World Bank, http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DISABILITY/Resources/Health-and-Wellness/HIVAIDS.pdf
Yale University and World Bank Survey on HIV/AIDS and Disability, http://cira.med.yale.edu/globalsurvey/
QUOTATIONS:
“If you have a wheelchair and you go to an AIDS service organization and the first thing you see are all these flight of stairs, you are immediately discouraged. Secondly, HIV testing and counseling services are supposed to be confidential. But if you’re deaf and you go into this service, you have to go with someone who can interpret for you, which takes away the confidentiality part. So in the end, people don’t turn up.”
Winstone Zulu, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis activist, Zambia
“[My second child’s father] would just come at night, have sex, and leave in the morning. He lives around here, but has deserted me. When I went for antenatal care, then I came to know that I was HIV-positive. My older daughter takes me to the hospital to get [anti-retroviral drugs].”
Edna, a woman who is blind and hearing-impaired, northern Uganda
Download PDF Fact Sheet: http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/related_material/HIV_Disability_Fact_Sheet_FINAL_formatted_June11%20(2).pdf
Source: Human Rights Watch -September 2011
Posted November 28th 2009
- The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that disabled people make up 10% of the population – around 650 million people.
- 80% of persons with disabilities live in developing countries, according to the UN Development Programme (UNDP).
- Disabled people account for 15 – 20% of the world’s poorest (World Bank, Elwan 1999).
- Women with disabilities are recognized to be multiply disadvantaged, experiencing exclusion on account of their gender and their disability.
- According to UNICEF, 30 per cent of street youths are disabled.
- Although disabled people are amongst the poorest they were not included in rural poverty alleviation programmes (ESCAP, 1999).
- There is no country in the world where disabled people’s rights are not violated (Disability Awareness and Action, Hurst 1999).
- Disabled people of working age in developed and developing countries are 3 times more likely to be unemployed and live in real poverty (DPI, Resource Kit 2003).
- No country has all its transport systems accessible.
- The majority of countries have no free medical care or social security system.
- In many countries, disabled people are unable to place their vote.
- In the UK, 50% of disabled people are economically inactive and disabled women are more than likely to be unemployed than men (Office for National Statistics, 2001).
- Persons with disabilities are more likely to be victims of violence or rape, according to a 2004 British study, and less likely to obtain police intervention, legal protection or preventive care.
- Research indicates that violence against children with disabilities occurs at annual rates at least 1.7 times greater than for their non-disabled peers (UN).
- 98% of children with disabilities in developing countries do not attend school, says UNESCO.
- For every child killed in warfare, three are injured and permanently disabled (UN).
- In Bangladesh, 97% of disabled women are unemployed.
- The global literacy rate for adults with disabilities is as low as 3%, and 1% for women with disabilities, according to a 1998 UNDP study.
Source: Action on Disability & Development. May 2009
