The Family Dimension of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities explicitly acknowledges the critical role played by families for the promotion of human rights and the inclusion of persons with disabilities in society.

By voluntary will or obligation, families are particularly likely to undertake a caring role and remain the first and most immediate environment where people with disabilities can develop their potential and enjoy a fulfilling life. The concrete realization of the rights of persons with disabilities is strictly interdependent with the quality of life of their family members.


Presentation of the COFACE-Disability publication on ‘The Family Dimension of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities’

On the occasion of the United Nation’s International Day of Families, which takes place each year on the 15th  May, COFACE organised a conference in the European Parliament under the auspices of MEP Ádám Kósa, Chair of the Disability Intergroup. The event focused on family carers, the challenges they face and what family organisations can do. In addition, COFACE presented a book that was co-written by the Members of COFACE-Disability entitled The family dimension of the UN Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities.

With this publication, COFACE aims to highlight the family dimension of the Convention, contribute to its dissemination, and support the implementation of the European Commission's European Disability Strategy 2010-2020 as well as the European Parliament's report on mobility and inclusion of people with disabilities. It also aims at empowering European citizens living with disabilities and their families.

MEP Ádám Kósa welcomed conference participants by giving an overview of the European Parliament’s work on disability policies with a special focus on family carers. He underlined the family dimension of the Convention and emphasized that children with disabilities should receive support and encouragement from both parents, who share responsibilities and obligations stemming from the rights of the child. Henceforth, MEP Marian Harkin highlighted COFACE’s important role in calling and reminding the European Commission to safeguard family’s rights on the 18th Anniversary of the International Day of Families. She also reminded the audience of the European Parliament Resolution on mobility and inclusion of people with disabilities and the European Disability Strategy 2010-2020 which coincides with COFACE’s publication in several points such as the necessity of available, affordable and quality services that have an impact on the quality of family life.

On behalf of the European Commission, Johan ten Geuzendam, Head of Unit for Rights of Persons with Disabilities, stressed the commitment of the European Commission towards the implementation of the Convention. He described several actions and activities of the Commission such as the European Accessibility Act likely to be introduced in December 2012 or the European Access City Award 2013. As closing remark, he stressed that the event organised by COFACE is a good example how EU institutions and civil society are making their cooperation progress in the area of disability and family, and atrongly recommend that the collaboration should continue in the future.

Alain Faure, Executive Committee member of the European Disability Forum added the importance of Article 23 in the Convention which clearly provides the right of persons with disabilities to found a family and to decide freely on the number of children and on the spacing between births. Jan Jarab, Regional Representative for Europe of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, warmly welcomed COFACE’s booklet and highlighted the impact of the current economic crisis on welfare cuts which often affect precisely family centred services. He added that the EU Structural Funds have a potential important role to play in supporting the development in delivering family centred services.

Chantal Bruno, President of COFACE Disability shortly introduced the publication as well as the work of COFACE Disability. In her contribution she highlighted that family carers are an invisible section of the working population and pointed out that COFACE has been working for many years to highlight the family dimension of people living with disability, and especially the role and place of family carers in the society.

In 2012 the International Day of Families focused on "Ensuring work-family balance”. Since reconciliation of work and family life are at the heart of the work COFACE has been doing for over 50 years at EU level, COFACE calls for the European Year for Reconciling Work and Family Life in 2014. COFACE believes that such a year would further highlight the efforts of the European Commission for a job-rich recovery as well. See the pictures


Download here the book:


Factsheets:

The Family Dimension of the UNCRPD (new version-8 pages)
The Family Dimension of the UNCRPD (new version-2 pages)
The Family Dimension of the UNCRPD (old version-3 pages)