Includ-ed, red europea de educación inclusiva

On 27th-28th August 2015, the European Union as the first regional organization to ratify a human rights treaty was examined by the Expert Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disability in Geneva. This UN human rights treaty body formulated recommendations to strengthen the rights of persons with disabilities in Europe until the new examination period in 2019. 

The EU ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD) in 2010 and was called in 2015 to present the work it has done on the implementation of the Convention since then. The UN CRPD is the first international human rights treaty that the EU as a whole has ever ratified. The EU review in Geneva with the constructive dialogue between the UN and the EU can be watched again on the UN Treaty Body Webcast page.

The Expert Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disability published on 4th September its concluding observations and recommendations on the initial report of the EU. The recommendations focus on the question how the EU can promote and protect the rights of persons with disabilities in Europe in areas such as: freedom of movement, non-discrimination, independent living, education, employment, humanitarian aid and international cooperation, legal capacity, access to justice, liberty and security, health, participation in elections etc.

The incluD-ed network welcomes the UN’s recommendations to the EU in line with incluD-ed’s recommendations made in its diverse position papers on EU linked initiatives and legislations (find all the incluD-ed position papers here). Especially, the areas of education and employment that are dealt in article 24 and 27 of the UN CRPD are of special interest to the network. The development and access of inclusive quality education in line with the Convention should be a top priority for the EU and its Member states as well as the labour market inclusion of people with disabilities.

The Expert Committees’ recommendations are as following and should be implemented by the EU until 2019 when the next follow-up review is scheduled:

• > Education (art. 24)

1. The Committee recommends that the European Union evaluate the current situation, and take measures to facilitate access to, and enjoyment of, inclusive quality education for all students with disabilities in line with the Convention, and include disability-specific indicators in the Europe 2020 Strategy when pursuing the target on education.

• > Work and employment (art. 27)

• The Committee recommends that the European Union take effective actions to measure the employment of persons with disabilities and to increase their employment rate in open labour market, including by providing training for Member States on reasonable accommodation and accessibility in the context of employment.

1. incluD-ed fully agrees and supports the recommendations in the area of education and employment.
2.  
3. The European Network on Inclusive Education & Disability, incluD-ed is convinced that to advance the vision of ‘Europe 2020’ and achieve a smart, sustainable and inclusive economy in coming years, inclusive education systems need to be promoted, developed and established throughout the EU.  As incluD-ed underlined in its recent Statement on promoting inclusive education systems in Europe, handed in to the European Parliament in April 2014 during the First Conference on Inclusive Education and Disability in Europe, “high levels of employment, productivity and social cohesion — priorities of EU2020 — cannot be achieved without establishing inclusive education systems”.
4.  

Find the UN’s concluding observations to the EU on the UN’s website.

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The European Disability Forum (EDF) already made its first observations on the UN’s recommendations to the EU.

Important actions that the UN requests the EU to take in the following years are for exemple:

- To adopt a comprehensive strategy to implement the Convention across all EU institutions and Member States.

- To undertake a mid-term review of the European Disability Strategy 2010-2020, and include the UN Committee’s recommendations in this exercise.

- To review EU existing legislation and policy to ensure that it is in line with the Convention.

- To set up a structured dialogue for persons with disabilities and their representative organisations in all EU decision making processes.

- To run a campaign to raise awareness of the Convention and to combat prejudice against persons with disabilities.

- To promote the freedom of movement of persons with disabilities when moving to another EU member state to work or live: adoption of a European Accessibility Act in line with the Convention, adoption of equal treatment legislation extending protection against discrimination of persons with disabilities including the provision of reasonable accommodation, portability of social security benefits for workers with disabilities and for short-term stays in other Member States for students or interns, ensuring accessible and inclusive voting for all persons with disabilities.

- To develop an approach to guide Member states’ efforts of deinstitutionalisation and to strengthen the monitoring of the use of the European Structural & Investment Funds with the meaningful engagement of representative organisations of persons with disabilities. The UN Committee recommends that they should be used strictly for the development of support services for persons with disabilities in local communities and not the re-development or expansion of institutions. The UN Committee further recommends the EU to suspend, withdraw and recover payments if the obligation to respect fundamental rights is breached.

- To guarantee access for all children with disabilities to inclusive and quality education in European schools.

Read all EDF’s first observations on the UN’s recommendations to the EU