The UN is going to check the UK’s work on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on 13 March 2017. The Convention is a document signed by many countries, including the UK. It explains disabled people’s human rights and lists a set of rules that governments should follow to ensure that disabled people get their human rights.
The UN will check what the UK is doing to make life better for disabled people. It will discuss topics like right to life, equality before the law, health, education, employment, accessibility of transport, access to justice, hate crimes and support to live independently. At the end of August the Committee will report what it thinks about how the UK is doing, and what the government should do better for disabled people’s human rights.
Our Everyday Decisions research project wants to find out how law can work better for disabled people. The UN Convention says that disabled people should be treated like every other person and they should be helped to make their own decisions. We want to learn how people with intellectual disabilities make decisions about living, working, money, friends and relationships. We hope to come up with ideas about how to support people with intellectual disabilities better to make their own decisions.
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If you want to learn more about what disabled people’s organisations told to the UN, you can check the links below:
UK Independent Mechanism’s report
Reports of Disability Rights UK, Inclusion Scotland and Disability Wales