Adopted by the participants of the European Symposium and of the DPI Europe General Assembly
Zagreb, Croatia, September 29-30, 200
These days, in New York on September 25-27 and on October 1-2 2007, the debates that take place in the UN General Assembly are providing opportunities for Member States to sign and ratify a variety of international treaties, including the new Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).
This International treaty recognize that issues around persons with disabilities are human rights issues, and that disability is an interaction between an individual characteristics and society and is aim is to respect human diversity in rules, policies and services.
In Europe Union 24 countries have signed and many are putting in place the necessary legislation to enable it to ratify the CRPD and other 9 countries in east and central Europe. However, 15% of citizens have independent living restrictions, more than 5 million persons with disabilities live in conditions of discrimination and lack of equal opportunities, 500 000 persons have no choice of place to live and many are then placed inappropriately in residential care, 75% of workers with a disability are unemployed, 50% of children with a disability are going in special schools separate form their friends and their neighbors, equal liberty to move in Europe is still not a reality for millions of citizens …and there are many other examples.
People are living longer and want to be independent whatever their abilities, new needs are arising and it is urgent that our societies face this challenge. The CRPD is an answer that needs to be promoted and implemented, with us and as quickly as possible to enable people to live with dignity.
We, the representative group of over 50 millions of disabled people in Europe, knowing how to transform the obstacles into resources, being aware of human potentials and mobilizing and lobbying for 20 years with our organizations within DPI, will be able to provide a lot of these competencies and to contribute to enrich our communities as far as this International Treaty will be ratified and implemented for all.
With the objective to propose an effective and mobilizing network of competencies, we, have decided to unite our forces with the DPI Movement and to have a common action for application of the Human Right Treaties, with the first objective being the implementation of the UN Convention on the right of people with a disability everywhere and for all.
- We encourage the individual European States to create a barrier free world, by creating close partnerships with representative disabled people’s organisations and by using their experience and expertise for that goal.
- We ask the European Union to create a precedence and ratify the Convention and implement a horizontal directive on disability, and we ask the Council of Europe to implement their Action plan immediately.
We demand that disabled people with experience of independent living be recognized as experts, trained and employed as advisers and as educators at all levels, in European, National and local administrations and, in accordance with the Declaration of the European High Level Conference on the Council of Europe Disability Action Plan 2006-2015: “National Implementation – from Policy to Practice” adopted on 21 September 2007, that Members of the European Council urgently adopt measures to ensure that representative organizations of disabled peoples are properly funded and resourced to enable them to participate at all levels.
Jean-Luc Simon
DPI Europe Chair