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Select women with disability as MP for reserved seats
Speakers at a conference yesterday demanded steps to select a disabled woman as the member of parliament (MP) in the reserved seats and formulate a committee on disability in the parliament to ensure rights of people with disabilities. They highlighted the discrimination that the physically and mentally challenged people have been experiencing for the lack of a suitable law and for not implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD). The speakers said this at the two-day conference on 'Implementation of UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities' organised by Bangladesh National Women Lawyers Association (BNWLA) at LGED auditorium in the city.  Advocate Fauzia Karim speaks at a conference at LGED Bhaban in the city yesterday. On her left are Attorney General Advocate Mahbubey Alam and Advocate Salma Ali.Photo: STAR They also placed some recommendations so that 10 percent of the total population with disabilities can enjoy their rights properly. “The hospitals, courts, schools, colleges, secretariat and the prime minister's office - nothing are suitable and accessible for us and those are constructed in such a way where we can enter hardly,” said Abdus Sattar Dulal of Bangladesh Protibondhi Kalyan Samity. The speakers said even the offices of the social welfare ministry that is mainly handling the issues of the people with disabilities situated at the 2nd flood of the buildings where the people using wheel chairs cannot go at all. They also raised a question why there will have only one ministry to address the issues of the people with disabilities where there are distinct ministries for others to address their different issues like education, health, employment and others. BNWLA Executive Director advocate Salma Ali said, “Bangladesh signed and ratified the UNCRPD with all its optional protocols but as it is not incorporated with the domestic law through the parliament, we are yet to see its implementation. At the same time, there is no mechanism for implementation of the law enacted in 2001 that needs to be updated.” “BNWLA will prepare a guideline for updating the law and will also file a public interest litigation case later to ensure the rights of the people with disabilities,” she said, adding that the purpose of the programme is to analyse the UNCRPD, prepare an action plan committee as well as to form a platform to implement it. Attorney General advocate Mahbubey Alam was present on the occasion as the chief guest, while former member of Cedaw Committee Salma Khan, Dr Shahnaz Huda and Dr Sumaiya Khair of Dhaka University, Md Obaidur Rahman of Save the Children-Sweden Denmark, Shirin Akhter of NADPO and Hedayetullah Al Mamoon also spoke. Source: The Daily Star, 22.01.09
Amendment to laws stressed to ensure rights of disabled Lawyers, experts and rights activists on Wednesday urged the government to change the laws concerned to establish the rights of the physically challenged people and thus implement the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The demand came up at the inaugural session of the two-day conference on ‘The Implementation of UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities’ at the Local Government Engineering Department’s auditorium in Dhaka. Attorney General Mahbubey Alam, while delivering his address as the chief guest, also stressed the necessity of amendments to the laws to ensure the rights of disabled persons. ‘The existing laws need to be amended to ensure the rights of the disabled persons and I will urge the government to make the necessary amendments,’ he assured the rights activists and physically challenged persons. The inaugural session, presided over by the Bangladesh National Women Lawyers’ Association’s president Fawzia Karim Firoze, was also addressed by Salma Ali, executive director of the Women for Women. The second session dealt with the importance of human rights reporting to the UN and demanded that the human rights treaties — particularly CEDAW, CRC and CRDP — be made public to encourage people to gain the rights themselves. Salma Khan, who chaired the second session, said, ‘Bangladesh not only signed the convention, but also ratified it, which means any person or group will be able to report to the United Nations any kind of rights violation in the country to force the government to protect their rights.’ The Dhaka University law department’s chair, Sumaiya Khair, and National Alliance of Disabled Peoples’ Organisation’s coordinator, Shirin Akhtar, also addressed the session. The Bangladesh National Women Lawyers’ Association, in association with Women with Disabilities Development Foundation and National Alliances of Disabled People’s Organisation, organised the two-day conference. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was adopted on December 13, 2006 at the United Nations General Assembly. Bangladesh signed the convention on May 9, 2007 and also signed its optional protocol on May 12, 2008. Source: NEWAGE, 22.01.09 |
