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Human Rights

Main characteristics:

Human rights are universal.
They apply equally to all people everywhere in the world, and with no time limit.
Every individual is entitled to enjoy human rights without distinction.

Human rights are inalienable.
Even those who do not, for some reason, enjoy their human rights, still have them.
Because human rights are linked to the very fact of human existence, they are inherent to all human beings.

Human rights are indivisible, interdependent, and interrelated.
All human rights, political, civil, economic, social, and cultural, are intrinsically connected and cannot be viewed in isolation from each other. The enjoyment of one right depends on the enjoyment of many other rights.

Human rights and disability

Even if human rights are universal and apply to everybody, human rights are not equally respected or enjoyed.

Persons with disabilities have historically been excluded from many fundamental human rights.

Respect for rights is key to equality and equal opportunities so the consequences are systemic discrimination against persons with disabilities.

The UN Convention on the
Rights of Persons with Disabilities – CRPD

The CRPD was created to reverse systematic discrimination and exclusion of persons with disabilities. It does not entail any new rights but simply states that we should all enjoy the same fundamental rights, without distinction based on disability or any other reason.

The rights protected in the CRPD include the right to life, dignity, autonomy, and freedom. It states that persons with disabilities have the same right as anybody else to education, work, and family life. It also emphasizes the right to equal participation, access to justice, access to information, and the appropriate support to be a full and valid member of society. These are examples of the rights that the convention emphasises, but there are many more.

What is new in the convention, however, is the acknowledgment of disability as a normal part of human diversity and the recognition that disability is created in the interaction between impairments and external barriers that prevent effective participation in a society that is not created with diverse needs and abilities in mind.

The CRPD defines disability as follows:

Persons with disabilities include those who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual, or sensory impairments which in interaction with various barriers may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others.

Policies, laws, and human rights agreements
are important – but not sufficient to ensure rights.

Human rights are often defined in international agreements and then enshrined in policies, laws, and regulations in individual countries. However, this is not sufficient to guarantee respect and fulfillment of human rights.

There is another dimension to it – inclusion. To enjoy our rights, there needs to be a consensus in society that our human rights matter equally and that we should all have equal opportunities and the necessary means to live a dignified life.

Inclusion is a manifestation of human rights.

Inclusion means dismantling discrimination, and discrimination means disrespecting human rights.

Inclusion is thus bound up with human rights.
Inclusive societies respect diverse needs and abilities, in addition to human rights, and enable everyone's full inclusion and participation, regardless of disability or any other arbitrary factors.

Inclusion.

Inclusion is the practice of providing equal access to opportunities and resources for people who might otherwise be or have been, excluded or marginalised.

In practise, inclusion is a communal task to actively respect human rights, based on the common understanding that everybody, without exceptions, matters. Inclusion takes place in relationships and interactions between people in the context of a community.

Shared responsibility.

Human rights are universal, inalienable, and interrelated.

They apply to everybody, anywhere at any time, and that makes them everybody’s business.
Governments and legislators play an important role, but the whole community needs to contribute by consenting to respect rights and equal opportunities.

Human rights and inclusion are about life itself; it is about how people interact and what they do in their daily lives in everyday situations.

Persons with disabilities have the same human rights as anybody else and that makes disability rights everybody’s business.

Growing demand for inclusion.

Societies around the world are becoming increasingly diverse and the demand for inclusion has never been stronger.
The fairness and cohesion of our communities depend on it.

Disability is a part of human diversity and should be taken into full consideration in diversity management aiming at inclusion.

Threats to inclusion of persons with disabilities.

The CRPD is a relatively new agreement and unfortunately not very well known. The outdated view of disability as a flaw or health problem, rather than a normal part of human diversity, is persistent.

This sometimes serves as a justification for discrimination, often accompanied by the underlying idea that persons with disabilities lack the ability to be full and valid members of society (in a different way from, say an immigrant or a person belonging to a religious minority) and therefore they can’t hold the same human rights as others and cannot participate in society to the same extent as others.

This has resulted in two tired discussions about inclusion:

On one hand, there is a discussion about inclusion for persons with disabilities that usually takes place separately amongst legislators, local and national governments, and those responsible for disability-related services and policy implementation.

On the other hand, there is a mainstream discussion on inclusion as a tool for social cohesion, equal opportunities, equal participation, and preservation of democracy. This is an ongoing dialogue between different sectors and circles around origin, ethnicity, education, language skills, sexual orientation, etc.

Both discussions are very important, but they need to be joined because inclusion is always dependent on the same basic principles and awareness, regardless of grounds of exclusion.

It is always about changing circumstances – not people.
Because everybody has the same human rights, everybody should be included in discussions and plans about how we can build societies where diverse groups of people can flourish together on their own terms.