Tajikistan is making preparations for joining the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).
A two-day international conference on exchange of experience in joining the UN CRPD will kick off in Dushanbe on November 15.
Organized by the National Association of Persons with Disabilities of Tajikistan under support of the Government of Tajikistan, the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) and some other partners, the conference will take place at Hyatt Regency Dushanbe Hotel.
“International experts from among persons with limited opportunities Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Germany have been invited to participate in the conference. They will share experiences of their countries in joining this Convention,” Asadullo Zikrikhudoyev, the head of the National Association of Persons with Disabilities of Tajikistan, told Asia-Plus in an interview.
According to him, representatives of the President’s Executive Office, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of labor as well representatives of the Agency for Architecture and Construction under the Government of Tajikistan will also participate in the conference.
The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is an international human rights treaty of the United Nations intended to protect the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities. Parties to the Convention are required to promote, protect, and ensure the full enjoyment of human rights by persons with disabilities and ensure that they enjoy full equality under the law. The Convention has served as the major catalyst in the global movement from viewing persons with disabilities as objects of charity, medical treatment and social protection towards viewing them as full and equal members of society, with human rights. It is also the only UN human rights instrument with an explicit sustainable development dimension. The Convention was the first human rights treaty of the twenty-first century.
The text was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 13, 2006, and opened for signature on March 30, 2007. Following ratification by the 20th party, it came into force on May 3, 2008. As of October 2017, it has 160 signatories and 175 parties, which includes 172 states and the European Union (which ratified it on December 23, 2010 to the extent responsibilities of the member states were transferred to the European Union). In December 2012, a vote in the United States Senate fell six votes short of the two-thirds majority required for ratification. The Convention is monitored by the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
