Home > Make Your Voices Count! Calls for Input from Organizations of Persons with Disabilities

Make Your Voices Count! Calls for Input from Organizations of Persons with Disabilities

Photo o Indonesian OPDs led by women with disabilities.

Women with disabilities in Indonesia advocating for an inclusive anti gender-based violence bill.

“When persons with disabilities participate in decision-making processes, it provides strong support towards ensuring that policies, strategies, programmes and operations to be more effective in addressing barriers to inclusion and more relevant in supporting their full and equal participation. Persons with disabilities have first-hand experience of the challenges they face and know better what can be done to enhance their rights and wellbeing. In addition, active participation of persons with disabilities and their representative organizations is a key part of shifting attitudes and dismantling stigma.”  

— Consultation Guidelines of the United Nations Disability Inclusion Strategy 

Our views matter on all matters: Nothing without us! 

In line with Article 4(3) of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), persons with disabilities and their representative organisations should be closely consulted and actively involved in matters concerning them. This includes persons with disabilities in all their diversity- children, women, older persons, persons with diverse SOGIESC, Indigenous peoples, migrants and others, as well as persons representing different disability constituencies.

Our unique perspectives draw on our own expertise and experiences and can help shape and inform programmes, policies and practices – including beyond disability-specific matters- to strengthen inclusion for everyone. 

Let’s put our participation to practice by seizing these opportunities*:

*Information on this webpage will be updated regularly. Don’t miss out: place a bookmark for easy access to check on the latest calls for contributions.

  • Special Rapporteur on disability– Rebuilding Inclusive Societies in Post-Conflict Situations – the active involvement of Persons with Disabilities, deadline 5 April 2023

The Special Rapporteur’s next  report will look at peacebuilding processes and the inclusion of persons with disabilities.

The Special Rapporteur will outline the evidence for the positive impact of persons with disabilities in peacebuilding processes, looking both at how their participation helped to advance the overall process and in the outcomes for them specifically. He also intends to explore how the UN peacebuilding architecture integrates includes persons with disabilities, while considering parallels with similar processes such as women, peace and security. On the basis of his analysis and conclusions, the Special Rapporteur will make recommendations to achieve better inclusion of persons with disabilities in peacebuilding processes.

To inform his report, the Special Rapporteur would like to seek written inputs from all interested stakeholders and strongly encourages sharing concrete examples of good practices where available.

The questionnaire is available in English | Français | Español

Responses should be submitted in word or PDF format in English, Spanish, French to hrc-sr-disability@un.org by 5 April 2023.

For more information, visit the Special Rapporteur’s dedicated webpage.

  • Sub-Committee for the Prevention of Torture– draft general comment of the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (SPT) on the article 4 of the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT), deadline 14 April 2023

The SPT is preparing a general comment on article 4 of the OPCAT with the aim of clarifying and addressing questions that States parties, national preventive mechanisms and other relevant actors may have regarding the obligations of States parties to the Optional Protocol as they pertain to the definition of places of deprivation of liberty. The Subcommittee considers that this is a crucial issue because the essential purpose of the Optional Protocol lies in the system of preventive visits by the Subcommittee and the national preventive mechanisms to all places of deprivation of liberty.

Call for comments

The SPT is inviting all interested parties or stakeholders to comment on the first public draft of its general comment, available in English, French and Spanish (the working languages of the SPT):

English | Français | Español

Public discussion

The SPT will hold a public general discussion on the draft during the 50th session of the SPT, in June 2023 (5 to 16 June), exact date to be announced in due course.

Only those submitting a written document and expressing interest to participate in the public discussion will be able to take the floor during the half day of general discussion taking place in June. The SPT will try to accommodate all requests for oral interventions. However, it will reserve the right to select and organize the list of speakers at its discretion depending on time constraints and number of requests received.

Written submissions should be sent in English, French or Spanish in a Word document to laetitia.colucci@un.org by 14 April (6pm Geneva time).

Submissions must be in one concise and focused document, indicatig precisely the paragraph to which comments are being made; they should not exceed 3,000 words (all included).

The submitter(s) should be clearly identified in the document (name of person/State party/NPM/NHRI/NGO/institution, etc., with an email address); if the document is a joint submission, all those subscribing it must be indicated; only one document per submitter will be accepted;

The document will not be accepted if it does not comply with all the aboveThe documents will be posted on the current SPT webpage, in chronological order of submission, and will not be translated;

For more information, visit the Sub-Committee’s dedicated webpage.

Housing affordability – a key element of the right to adequate housing – has become key concern for more and more people, including political decision makers at local, national and international level. 

Many urban areas have witnessed a sharp increase of housing costs outstripping the income of households. Millions living in informal or inadequate housing continue to lack the financial resources to access adequate housing meeting official building standards. Families go hungry or cut on health expenditures to pay rent, mortgages or utility charges.  Unpaid housing costs have become the most prominent reason for evictions in many countries.

Lack of accessible affordable housing is the main reason for the growth of informal settlements and increased homelessness. Dramatically rises in energy costs have sharply increased energy poverty and housing costs in many countries. Rising inflation has turned an already serious problem into a housing affordability crisis of global dimensions.

Key questions asked

The report “A place to live in dignity for all, make housing affordable” will aim to respond to the following questions:

  • What obligations have States under international human rights law to ensure that housing is accessible and affordable to all without discrimination?
  • What happens to you when you cannot afford anymore your home?
  • Who is at particular risk to experience housing cost overburden?
  • What are the consequences of housing unaffordability for the enjoyment of human rights?
  • What have States, local Governments, development cooperation agencies, housing providers, town planners, architects and civil society organizations done to ensure that housing is affordable to all without any discrimination?
  • What laws, policies, programmes and practices have been successful to reduce the unaffordability of housing?

Questionnaire

In order to collect more detailed information for his forthcoming report, the Special Rapporteur has published a short questionnaire available in English.

Inputs may be sent in word format to hrc-sr-housing@un.org  (cc:) ohchr-registry@un.org in English, French or Spanish by 6 March 2023. Please put as the email subject line: Input SR housing – report on housing affordability.

For more information, visit the Special Rapporteur’s dedicated webpage.

The Independent Expert’s next thematic report will focus on older persons in the context of climate change-induced disasters and building back better. The report will be presented to the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly in October 2023.

In this report, the Independent Expert will examine the human rights of older persons in responses to climate change-related disasters, including emergency preparedness and management. The report will aim at taking stock of laws and policies at the international, national and local level that are taking older persons into account in relation to emergency response in relation to climate change but also risk management and preventive measures. It will also address the issue of older persons’ access to information in relation to climate change disasters, as well as the participation of older persons in climate change-related emergency response and preparedness. The objective of the report is to provide a catalogue of good practices put in place by governments, as well as an analysis of the gaps in the existing framework and the challenges faced by relevant stakeholders. The Independent Expert will address the issue from an intersectional perspective, in exploring the interactions with other social factors such as gender, sex, race, ethnicity, indigenous identity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, social status, place of origin, and immigration status. Finally, the Independent Expert will provide recommendations on upholding the human rights of older persons in the prevention, mitigation, and response to climate-change disasters.

Key questions

In this regard and to inform her report, the Independent Expert would like to seek written inputs from relevant stakeholders, including national and local governments, national and international non-governmental organizations, national human rights institutions, international and regional inter-governmental organizations, United Nations agencies and entities, activists, academics, and older persons.

She strongly encourages sharing concrete examples of good practices where available.

The Independent Expert kindly invites all interested stakeholders to share their views and provide written submissions on the following issues:

  • Legal, policy and institutional frameworks: Is there national legislation on emergency disasters? Does the legislation address the specific needs of older persons? Is there a national plan, policy or strategy to address the prevention, mitigation, and/or response to climate change-related disasters, and does it include older persons? Please provide detailed information and relevant documents, if applicable.
  • Access to information: How do you raise awareness about existing measures in relation to prevention, mitigation, and response to climate-change related disasters in the public? How is information about access to essential services (e.g. access to shelters, food security, healthcare, legal assistance, social services) made accessible and available for older persons? Please provide detailed information.
  • Participation: Are there measures in place to ensure the full and meaningful participation of older persons in addressing climate change-related disasters? Please provide detailed information.
  • Intersectionality: How do climate change-related disasters affect specific groups of older persons in all their diversity (including older women, older LGBTI persons, older persons belonging to national, religious, and linguistic minorities and older indigenous people, refugees and internally displaced persons, older persons with disabilities, older persons based in urban and rural areas, among others). Please provide detailed information.
  • Data: Is disaggregated data available at national and local level about the impact of climate change-related disasters on older persons? Is data available on the response to climate change-related disasters, in particular with regard to older persons? If available, please provide figures and such data.
  • Please provide examples of good practices for addressing the needs of older persons in preventing, mitigating and responding to climate change-related disasters.

Written submissions can be sent in Word format (with a maximum of 1,500 words) in English, French or Spanish by email to hrc-ie-olderpersons@un.org by 1 May 2023, indicating in the heading “Submission to the call for inputs on climate change – 2023 GA report”.

Early submissions are strongly encouraged. Unless otherwise indicated in the submission, inputs received will be published on the website of the Independent Expert at the time of the publication of the report.

For more information, visit the Independent Expert’s dedicated webpage.

The Special Rapporteur on Health will devote her next thematic report to the General Assembly, to be held in October 2023, to the issue of “Food, nutrition and the right to health”. In the report, the Special Rapporteur will turn her attention to the underlying determinants of health, with a focus on how food and nutrition positively or negatively impact the right to health. In particular, she will rely on the frameworks of the social and commercial determinants of health to address how colonialism, racism, and other power asymmetries continue to build and maintain inequitable food systems and environments, influencing activities across the production, aggregation, processing, distribution, consumption, and disposal of food products, and ultimately shaping  the context in which consumers acquire, prepare, and consume food. The Special Rapporteur’s analysis will consider the double burden of malnutrition, which refers to the co-existence of undernutrition with diet-related non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer. In this sense, she will emphasize that rights-based approaches to food and nutrition must reconcile and address both concerns, often misconstrued as competing. The Special Rapporteur will also report on new and emerging trends related to the impact of climate change, conflict, and COVID-19 on food and nutrition, as well as related responses.

Importantly, the Special Rapporteur will adopt an intersectional approach and consider the multiple forms of discrimination affecting persons in the context of food and nutrition. She will analyse the links between inequities in accessing adequate food and sex, gender, poverty, class, and the rural and urban divide, as well as related systems of oppression.

The Special Rapporteur intends to analyse the obligations and responsibilities of actors, such as States and corporations respectively, in relation to food and nutrition under the framework of the right to health. The Special Rapporteur would therefore like to identify specific challenges and opportunities related to food and nutrition in countries and within communities around the world. She would also like to identify good practices that affirm the right to health in this context, as well as seek examples of how to combat discrimination in accessing adequate food.

Key questions and types of input/comments sought

She is particularly interested in the questions highlighted in the questionnaire. Responses can address some of the questions or all of them, as feasible or preferred. Questionnaire: English | Français | Español

Input/comments, of up to 750 words per question, may be sent in English, French or Spanish in word or PDF formats by e-mail to ohchr-srhealth@un.org by 24 March 2023 18:00 CEST.

Please note that all responses will be published on the official webpage of the Special Rapporteur by default unless it is indicated that the submission and/or the supporting documentation should be kept confidential.

For more information, visit the Special Rapporteur’s dedicated webpage. 

The Special Rapporteur’s next thematic report will address the procedural or participatory elements of the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, including access to information, public participation and access to justice with effective remedies. In light of the Framework Principles on Human Rights and the Environment, the report will also address related topics including the rights to environmental education, freedom of expression and association, and safe spaces for environmental human rights defenders.

The Special Rapporteur invites and welcomes your answers to the following questions:

  1. What are States’ obligations—and businesses’ responsibilities—related to the rights to access information, public participation and access to justice with effective remedies in environmental matters? What are the major barriers to the full enjoyment of these rights? How can these barriers be overcome?
  2. What are States’ obligations related to the right to environmental education, and the rights to freedom of expression and freedom of association in environmental contexts? What are the major barriers to the full enjoyment of these rights? How can these barriers be overcome?
  3. What can States and businesses do to ensure the safety of environmental human rights defenders?
  4. Please specify ways that the rights to environmental education, access to information, public participation and access to justice with effective remedies, freedom of expression and freedom of association can be fulfilled for populations who may be particularly vulnerable to climate and environmental harms (e.g. women, children, persons living in poverty, Indigenous Peoples and traditional communities, older persons, persons with disabilities, ethnic, racial or other minorities and displaced persons).
  5. To what extent have the two regional treaties on environmental democracy—the Aarhus Convention and the Escazu agreement—been effective in advancing human rights related to access to information, public participation, access to justice with effective remedies, environmental education, freedom of expression and association, and safe spaces for environmental human rights defenders?
  6. Please provide examples of good practices related to access to information, public participation, access to justice with effective remedies, environmental education, freedom of expression and association, and safe spaces for environmental human rights defenders.

Please send your responses to the questionnaire in Word format by email to hrc-sr-environment@un.org with a maximum of 5 pages (or 2,000 words).

For more information, visit the Special Rapporteur’s dedicated webpage.