{"id":1323,"date":"2020-11-02T11:06:17","date_gmt":"2020-11-02T07:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ohrc.om\/english\/?p=1323"},"modified":"2026-05-25T18:13:56","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T07:13:56","slug":"coronavirus-starkly-exposes-vulnerability-of-persons-with-disabilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ohrc.om\/en\/coronavirus-starkly-exposes-vulnerability-of-persons-with-disabilities\/","title":{"rendered":"Coronavirus \u2018starkly\u2019 exposes vulnerability of persons with disabilities"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
The COVID-19 pandemic has \u201cstarkly exposed\u201d the heightened vulnerability and risks to persons with disabilities, a major meeting convened to discuss the international treaty that supports persons with disabilities, heard on Monday.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
In the first online session for the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Ibrahim Salama, head of the Human Rights Treaties Branch in the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) lauded the treaty body, which, despite significant challenges posed by the virus, have done \u201cextraordinary work\u201d to implement their mandate.Speaking on behalf of the Secretary-General and the UN human rights chief, he commended their work in focusing on the rights of persons with disabilities in the context of\u00a0COVID-19.\n

Procedural developments<\/h3>\nMr. Salama updated the meeting that the mandates of the Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities and on the Elimination of discrimination against persons affected by leprosy, had been extended for a period of three years.Moreover, nine UN entities had been working collaboratively to support disability inclusiveness on COVID-19 response and recovery at the national level.\n

Treaty body review<\/h3>\nThe OHCHR representative also informed the committee that the 2020 review of the treaty body system was launched on 2 June, where UN High Commissioner Michele Bachelet highlighted the need for \u201cbetter digital tools\u201d to strengthen treaty bodies\u2019 accessibility, including for persons with disabilities, said Mr. Salama.\u201cThe High Commissioner stated that the COVID-19 pandemic presented an opportunity to rethink and expand working methods to have more impact and visibility on the ground, while addressing the need for language interpretation and other technical challenges of working online\u201d, he added.According to the\u00a0OHCHR\u00a0representative, Ms. Bachelet maintained that the pandemic \u201cpresented an opportunity to rethink and expand working methods to have more impact and visibility on the ground\u201d, while also \u201caddressing the need for language interpretation and other technical challenges of working online\u201d.\n

Need to uphold rights, \u2018greater than ever\u2019<\/h3>\nThe Treaties Branch head informed that during a virtual meeting at the end of July, the Chairs stressed that \u201cin this time of unprecedented global crisis, the need to uphold human rights is greater than ever\u201d.They called on States and the Secretary-General to \u201cfully support the work of human rights treaty bodies and to enable them to exercise their mandates to the maximum extent possible in the coming months\u201d, stated Mr. Salama.Against the backdrop of having to work online since March, the committee Chairs discussed with Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, Nada Al-Nashif, the challenges they are facing.However, until they can resume face-to-face sessions, the Chairs decided that the COVID -19 Working Group of treaty body members should continue to focus on the practical impact of the virus on human rights.\n

Explore technology<\/h3>\nOthers also made contributions, including the Chair of the\u00a0Human Rights Council\u00a0Taskforce for the accessibility for persons with disabilities, Socorro Flores Liera, who maintained that \u201cincreased reliance on technology opens up new avenues for accessibility\u201d and that they should be \u201cbetter explored\u201d.The Director of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), Ricardo Mena, acknowledged, \u201cwe are very much aware that much more needs to be done to ensure that persons with disabilities are included in disaster planning and that their inclusion and participation is monitored and well supported\u201d.And the President of the International Disability Alliance, Ana Lucia Arellano, urged State parties to \u201cwork hand-in-hand with persons with disabilities and their representative organization as well as with allies from other civil society organizations in the design and implementation of public policies\u201d.\"\"<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The COVID-19 pandemic has \u201cstarkly exposed\u201d the heightened vulnerability and risks to persons with disabilities, a major meeting convened to discuss the international treaty that supports persons with disabilities, heard on Monday. In the first online session for the Committee…","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1324,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ohrc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ohrc.om\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ohrc.om\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ohrc.om\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ohrc.om\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ohrc.om\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1323"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ohrc.om\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":989699,"href":"https:\/\/ohrc.om\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1323\/revisions\/989699"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ohrc.om\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ohrc.om\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ohrc.om\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ohrc.om\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}