Using the UN convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities - Helena Christina Gade

In order to use the UNCRPD beffectively you must study it first to understand it fully and also how this is related to your national laws. You can then use the UNCRPD to lobby nationally.

Following your pre-work on studying the UNCRPD and your national laws you can then establish a project with the main idea being spreading the knowledge: Informing & educating, developing values and attitudes, encouraging to arrange activities, enpowering through campaigning. You can establish different projects, such as an informational tour, or produce informational reports.

It is essential to have a strategy. I can then work effictively on what I would like to achieve. You can work in cooperation with the government or with politicians, or with disability groups and deaf organisations. In the strategy you can establish an expert committee. For example, in Denmark we establish this ad hoc committee. During our meetings we discussed how we could lobby our own government to incorporate the rights of the UNCRPD in the national laws.

Essential is that you have a good argumentation. You need to refer consistently to the legal documents and to present the reasons from a human right point of view. And your argumentation must have a good conclusion
Mor information can be found on the website: www.deaf.dk

A useful and powerful tool to use is the production of a "shadow report". The shadow report can be produced by the deaf organisation or another group of stakeholders, in which the real situation is reported. This can be presented alongside the report that the government sends to the UN. The government must present an evaluation or an informative report to the UN. This can be a one sided view and the shadow report will alert the UN to the problems that are really occuring on the ground. It is advised to write the shadow report with your national disability association.

The next step in the process is that you report on a violation of the UNCRPD. There are different levels of appeal that you can use in the case of vioalation of the UNCRPD. For example, the national appeal board, or the national board of equal treatment, the national court, etc. The situation in each country can be different in this respect. A powerful tool is also the media in the situation of violation or discrimination.

Countries who ratified the UNCRPD must set up a monitoring committee. This committee can also be of assistance if you do not know how to proceed. It is also important that you work collectively in your country and that you use all the tools that are available. You do not need to wait for the generosity of your politicians or your government, but you can actually now use the UNCRPD to lobby for your rights directly.

Human Rights the key to Global Deaf Renaissance - Deborah Oyuu Iyute

So far we have had three UN conventions that can be applied to Deaf people, and especially women and children:

1. Un Conventions on the Rights of the Child (CRC): 21 years ago
2. UN Conventions womemn (CEDAW) 30 yrs ago
3. UNCRPD was implemented 3 years ago

The CRC is for all children regardless of their disability. An important article in the CRC is article 2.1. One important aspect in this article is the right to language. The other important article is 12.1. The point of that article is that (deaf) children should be supported with judicial settings. In article 13.3 it says that the child has freedom to expression. This implies that the Deaf child can express him or herself in the language of his or her choice, such as sign language.

There are child specific issues that the presenter would like to focus on. One of the aspects is the sexual abuse, even within the marriages the women are raped. What can we do to prevent this situation.  The second issue is parental neglect. The parents neglect or exploit the child. This various by country but the convention touches each of us.

The CEDAW aims at enlarging our understanding of the concept of human rights, as it gives formal recognition to the influence of culture and tradition on restricting womens enjoyment of their fundamental rights.

CEDAW is also concerned with the dimension of human reproduction as well as with the impact of cultural factors on gender relations. Art. 16 of the CEDAW focuses on the issue of marriage and family relations, asserting the equal rights and obligations of women and men with regard to choice of spouse, parenthood, personal rights and command over property. In addition art. 4 affirms women's right to  reproductive choice.

Art. 10 of the CEDAW states that the state parties should take all measures to reduce discrimination against women to ensure equal rights with men in the field of educatin and in particular to ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women.  The presenter also mentions art. 14 which is focused on the problems faced by rural women who work extremely hard to take care of their families and children.

What needs to be done?
We need to eliminate the barriers that Deaf women and children face. We need to partner with other organisations and we need to share experiences.

To find solutions to solve the problems, we can use the UNCRPD, which came into place three years ago. The presenter focuses on article 9.2 (e) which relates to accessibility, especially by the use of professional sign language interpreters. We must advocate for the use of interpreters to assist us in becoming part of society and that society will become accessible. The other article mentioned is 21 (b) on the freedom of expression and opinion, and access to information.

We must inform our Deaf members and citizens of the CRPD, you all must participate in this informing. If you are not empowered you can not influence.  We also need active involvement and participation in different organisatons and we need to produce parallel reports within the organisations.

Effective strategies to promote our rights
It is important to build alliances with policy makers. So, you as Deaf people must allign with the policy makers and your government. You must also paly a key role in the domestication of the CRPD and other laws. The information must also be accessible to Deaf people through sign language. And also use to PR your cause.

efsli blog on break for Thursday July 21

Dear followers,

Tomorrow, Thursday July 21st, there will be no live reporting from the WFD congress. We will be back on Friday July 22nd. Warm greetings from Durban!

More impresssions

Exhibition at WFD - impressions

 

The cochlear implant in the constitution of deaf subjects in the Amazon jungle - Luiza Rezende

The presenter explains that she is affiliated with a university in the South of Brazil, but she conducted the research in the Amazon. She did her PhD study for four years.

Brazil has a law that identifies sign language as a legitimate language, but the media and society very much promote the implementation of babies.

There are many babies implanted in the Amazone region of Brazil. I went there for the first time in 2007. I was interested in the attitudes of the families who decided to implant their babies. I started the study with two mothers and their babies. The mothers were very accepting and I could easily research the situation.

The two mothers were advised by two different CI organisations not to use any sign language. And the media also helped in promoting the positive message of CI usage. Although the deaf organisations expressed their concern about the implants, the CI associations emphasized that the implanted children would become part of society and accepted.

The presenter researched over 300 pages of media and asked an interpreter to translate the materials so she would understand the content. In the data that she collected she found that repetitavely the CI was promoted as a positive thing.

The deaf association kept saying that we needed a different approach, a different way of discussing the issue.

The homes of the families with the implanted babies turned nearly into a hospital with one medical professional after another assisting the family with learning to speak and to get accustomed to the new situation. In addition, the CI was provided for free, which was seen as a very positive thing by the family. There was even one family who celebrated the day that the baby received the CI, and not celebrating the child's birthday.

The goal of the OAE testing is to find the babies with a hearing loss as soon as possible and have them implanted, there by eradicating sign language and the deaf community.

I would like to say that technology is a good thing, but this kind of technology is not making the babies equal. By the fact that the government pays for the CI the government has bio power.

The presenter continues to give several examples of when there were medical professionals in situations who repeatedly said that she as a deaf person would not need an interpreter if she would have a CI.

In the Amazon we tried to explain that next to a CI the child would also need sign language and deaf culture. Unfortunately, they did not understand this.

Codifying SASL: An overview of Research and the Way Forward - Naomi Janse van Vuuren & Lorato Rasebopye

Currently there is a conversation happening with the SA government on the SASL as a school object. This was also discussed in 2009 in SA parliament. Often the question is raised what is SASL exactly and what does it look like. This calls for the need to have SASL codified, so we can show the structure of SASL and other aspect.

In the presentation a very detailed overview of the SASL research of the past 25 years is given. The research is grouped by the different categories, such as morphological, lexical, syntax, etc. The current research (Fourie, 2011) is done on the  variation and standardization in sign languages & lexicographical model for a school dictionary.

In the second part of the presentation it was presented that there are 1.609.386 Deaf South Africans (Heap, 2003). The presenter works at (...) university at the SASL department where she works with three other deaf teachers.  There are five universities who conduct research on SASL in SA: Free State, Witwaterstand, (...)



There are some small pilot studies now carried out. In one project a comparisson is made of the construction of SASL, BSL, and AUSLAN. Until today only two publications published on SASL. In the current research we focus on the syntax of SASL and look if there is diversity in terms of school language policies. In addition, we will also look at oralism versus signing. Another area we are looking at phonology, and how we can develop new classifier handshapes in SASL, since currently we copy these mostly from other sign languages. We also would like to look at the lexicography and develop an electronic database. The presenter gives examples of signs that were copied from other sign languages, but are now newly being used which have no relation to other sign languages.

The presenter states that the Deaf SASL users are and will be involved in this research. In addition, we must collaborate in SA to undergo this development and research of SASL.