From exclusion to equality: the rights of persons with disabilities
At the 117th IPU Assembly the IPU, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), and the United Nations Department for Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) jointly launched a handbook on the recently adopted Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Optional Protocol, aimed at raising awareness of this new legal instrument among legislators. Persons with disabilities - some 650 million worldwide - remain among the most marginalized in every society and "disabilities have had a direct or indirect effect on 2 billion people across the world", said the IPU President, Mr. Pier Ferdinando Casini.
President Casini explained that the Convention constituted a watershed in the way persons with disabilities were perceived in society, and an effective tool to prevent the exclusion of persons with disabilities from all aspects of life and ensure that they were not merely passive recipients of care, but active members of society, who enjoyed their rights. "All parliamentarians should urge their governments to ratify the Convention", said Mr. Casini in an appeal for international support.
Former Swedish MP, Mr. Kaj Nordquist, who had been involved in the drafting of the handbook with three other parliamentarians from Australia, South Africa and Uganda, said that while it was natural that there were people with disabilities in the world, it was unnatural that the poorest of the world's poor were disabled, adding that "only 2 per cent of disabled children were in school and only 3 per cent of the world's disabled persons could read and write". He urged parliamentarians to work towards the ratification of the Convention in order to ensure that it entered into force. "A society's level of decency was measured by the way it treated minorities", he added.
Strengthening the role of parliament and MPs
as the guardians of human rights
All constitutional States that aspire to be sustainable and effective need to have a solid foundation. Parliament - as the legislative branch composed of elected representatives of the people - has an important role to play in encouraging democracy to take root, which necessarily implies promoting and defending human rights. But the reality of the situation is that parliaments are not always well-versed in instruments they have ratified, nor are they fully aware of the political, economic and socio-cultural impact treaties will have on their State, noted the participants at a regional seminar held in October in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
Parliaments and MPs are not informed either of the work done by treaty bodies entrusted with monitoring the implementation of treaties by States parties. As legislators, they should ensure that fundamental rights and freedoms are respected by adapting laws to the needs of a constantly evolving society. One of their roles is to incorporate in national law the standards contained in the human rights instruments to which their State has acceded, said the participants to the seminar, organized jointly by the IPU and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), in collaboration with the National Assembly of Burkina Faso.
Members of parliament and parliamentary staff of the parliaments of Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Mauritania, Senegal and Togo exchanged views with experts from the OHCHR and the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights on various problems related to the implementation of treaties and ways in which MPs could better play their role as the guardians of human rights. Representatives of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), the Inter-African Union for Human Rights (UIDH), the UEMOA Inter-Parliamentary Committee and the ECOWAS Parliament were also present.
The challenges of migration
The participants - some one hundred parliamentarians working on human rights, including migration questions, and experts from 36 countries around the worldexplored ways of managing irregular migration in a human rights-compatible way and of fighting inhuman or discriminatory treatment of migrants. A strong focus was placed on the international legal and policy framework that exists to safeguard human rights and the contribution that parliaments and their members can make.
Migration as a phenomenon has always existed. While the absolute number of migrants has risen in the past decades to reach some 200 million, this group continues to make up around three per cent of the world population. Notwithstanding, migration has become intrinsically linked to globalization and its effects. Foreign workers represent 10 per cent or more of work forces in many Western European countries, 15 per cent in North America, and even higher proportions in Africa and the Middle East. Indeed, migration has become a key feature of meeting economic, labour market and productivity challenges in a globalized economy. It serves as an instrument to adjust the skills, age and sectoral composition of national and regional labour markets. Moreover, due to economic, demographic and technological changes, migration is central to the future economic survival of the North and the South.
Migrant workers still largely perform dirty, dangerous and degrading jobs to sustain sectors of economic activity that are no longer attractive for local work populations. These include agriculture and food processing, construction, cleaning and maintenance, hotel and restaurant backroom services, labour-intensive assembly and manufacturing, the sex industry, and domestic labour. In addition, there is a greater need for highly educated and skilled labour, which has led to a significant "brain drain" in countries of origin.
It is becoming increasingly apparent that migration can and should be a mutually beneficial situation for both sending and receiving countries, and most importantly, for migrants and their families. "We need to be ready to take a critical look at ourselves. All countries in the migration chain have a responsibility to fulfil. In this regard, many countries may be classified as being of origin, transit or destination", said the participants.
The challenges that come with migration are not exclusive to any one continent: migratory flows take place not only from the South to the North, but also increasingly within the South. Continuous study is needed to analyse the full scale and impact of migration, as well as its changing face as rising numbers of highly educated workers leave their countries in pursuit of a better life.
Education to fight xenophobic sentiments
The participants at the seminar added that legislators and opinion leaders need to speak more clearly and openly of the important - and often indispensable - contribution of migrants to growth and prosperity. "This also requires us to confront fellow parliamentarians when they appeal to emotional negative stereotyping of "the immigrant" for political gain. We have spoken much about the negative role the media plays in stereotyping immigrants as criminals or bogus asylum seekers. It is our duty, given our privileged access to the media, to ensure that they refrain from doing so, and rather report on the positive real-life stories of immigrants and their contribution to society".
Parliamentarians who appeal to xenophobic sentiments often do so because they think they reflect the sentiments of their electorate. "Therefore, if we want to change this situation, we must change attitudes through education. We have a responsibility to ensure that education promotes a culture of tolerance, understanding and equality and to recognize that school curricula can play a decisive role in this respect. In particular, history must be taught in an objective manner", underlined the participants.
Legislators need to ensure that the rights of migrants are fully respected by applying a rights-based approach to laws and policies on immigration. Migrants are not "commodities" of international trade. Yet commercial interests and market forces that create jobs for migrants are often unconcerned about the legality or ethical standards of employment. Particular attention was paid to the situation of domestic migrant labour, which, together with agricultural work, often falls outside the protection of national labour laws. The participants are particularly concerned that forced labour thrives in the absence of labour law protection. "Fellow parliamentarians may draw inspiration from the British Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004, which protects migrant workers from gross exploitation".
Parliaments must ensure that laws are implemented
Fundamental international labour and human rights norms apply to migrants without exception. "We have a particular responsibility to help ensure that they are fully implemented and do not exist simply on paper. In order to exercise such oversight effectively, we should assert ourselves vis-à-vis the government in order to receive all the necessary information and take part in the international migration policy dialogue", the participants insisted.
When it comes to adopting laws to protect migrants, parliaments must ensure that they include an enforcement mechanism for effective implementation, in particular by allocating adequate resources, such as in the case of labour inspections. Parliaments should also make sure that laws are adopted in a timely manner, are complete and consistent by ensuring that different branches of law, such as civil and labour law, do not contradict each other. They should also ensure that these laws comply with international human rights and labour standards.