President Anthony Carmona said yesterday that while this country is a signatory to the United Nations (UN) convention on the rights of people with disabilities, unlike Caricom neighbours such as Barbados, Dominica, Haiti, Jamaica, St Vincent and the Grenadines, T&T is yet to join the 130 countries in ratifying the convention. He spoke at the launch of a year-long campaign to educate and raise awareness and social integration of people with disabilities.
The campaign is being organised by the National Centre for Persons with Disabilities (NCPD) and the Caribbean Kids and Families Therapy Organisation, and is sponsored by the local branch of Spanish-based oil company Repsol. The oil company has invested $1 million in the campaign.
In his address at the Hyatt Regency, Port-of-Spain, Carmona said people with disabilities should not be viewed “as objects of charity requiring medical treatment and social protection, but as valuable individuals with rights and freedoms who are capable of making decisions for their lives based on their free and informed consent, as well as active members of society.”
He recalled that a week after becoming president and after the appointment of temporary Independent senator Hugh Russel Ian Roach, who is disabled, he was scheduled to meet with Roach but “was embarrassed to learn and to have to inform Mr Roach that I could not meet with him at his official office on the second floor because it was not wheelchair accessible."
He said the first-floor offices also were also not wheelchair-accessible because there was no ramp. He said to facilitate the meeting on the first floor, “the Presidency had to have a ramp built over the weekend.” This was just one example, he said, of the nation’s institutionalised approach to disability. “This institutionalised omission,” he said, “has been in existence for the last 50 years.”
He asked why the country had engaged so long in this institutionalised unfairness. Carmona said NGOs should be committed to creating an equal space for all and he applauded the organisations for their vision.
Whilst few would argue against people with disabilities possessing the same rights as everyone else, he said, the reality is, that people with disabilities “have languished, suffering disadvantage in several areas of life, including access to education, training employment, infrastructural support, involvement in the decision making, acceptance within social groups, respect for their dignity and other fundamental aspects, pertaining to one's sense of well-being and self-actualisation.”
Carmona also said he noted with sadness a growing insensitivity toward people with disabilities within communities, and even while attempts were being made to accommodate people with disabilities in the capital city, he cited as an example people parking in front of entry points for visually-impaired people or the wheelchair-bound. Chairman of the NCDP/CKFTO, Dr Natalie Dick, also called for the ratification of the UN convention.
Dr Glenn Ramadharsingh, Minister of the People and Social Development, when questioned after the event about the ratification of the convention, said the ministry was unable to ratify it until studies and a report had been completed by a high-level committee set up by the ministry. Ramadharsingh said 2014 was scheduled to be the Year of the Disabled.
Asked how soon he expects to see the ratification, he said: “I'll be guided by the intense work being done by the Ministry of the People. I can’t speak without that because we have occasioned new work working toward 2014.” Pressed for a deadline for the ratification, Ramadharsingh said: “I am very enthusiastic. I would like to meet all the requirements. But we have to study the document because there are serious implications there.
“I can’t say that I have been proud of the track record of the work that has been done previously, but what I can tell you is that we have consulted on all the programmes and policies that we want for the differently-abled.” He said the committee had been working for the past three months.