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Online advocacy campaign for the International Day of Persons with Disabilities #InclusionWorks

03
-
17
December
2020
Location: 
Online



The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) will commemorate the upcoming International Day of Persons with Disabilities on 3 December 2020 with an online advocacy campaign focusing on the inclusion of persons with disabilities in the labour market and in the workplace. The campaign hashtag is #InclusionWorks and it stresses that narrowing down the disability employment gap is our collective responsibility and requires joint efforts by all.

ESCWA is organizing this campaign with a number of key partners including the International Labour Organization (ILO), Lebanon’s Ministry of Labour, the Lebanese American University (LAU), and a number of organization of persons with disabilities including Helm (Egypt), Proabled (Lebanon), Arcenceil (Lebanon).
 


About 15% of the world's population lives with some form of disability per WHO estimates. By contrast, only 2 percent of the Arab population is reported to be living with disability. This data varies significantly for different countries in the region from 0.2 percent and 1 percent in Qatar and Mauritania to 4.8 percent and 5.1 percent in Sudan and Morocco.
 
Persons with disabilities in Arab countries face barriers in finding jobs and accessing education – both are fundamental human rights and are key to enabling equal participation of persons with disabilities in social and economic life. In all countries in the Arab world, persons with disabilities report substantially lower levels of employment than the total population.
 
Overall, population with disabilities in the region are only half as likely to be employed as the rest of the total working-age Arab population. Among men, the difference is even more striking, with 65% of adults employed compared to 28% for males with disabilities. Moreover, education attainments rates tend to be significantly lower for persons with disabilities than for total populations. For example, 58% of persons with disabilities in Egypt are considered illiterate compared to 21% among persons without disabilities.

 

Statement: Dr. Rola Dashti, Executive Secretary of ESCWA

On the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, we affirm our commitment at ESCWA to the importance of integrating disability inclusion into all development efforts that seek to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals in the Arab region.

We aim to invest in the fact that 21 Arab countries have signed or ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), and to unify our national and regional efforts to ensure the rights of persons with disabilities in all areas, including the right to work, on an equal basis with others, as confirmed by article 27 of the CRPD.

This year, the title of our campaign is #InclusionWorks towards the labour market inclusion of persons with disabilities, as narrowing down the disability employment gap is our collective responsibility and requires joint efforts by all. In light of the economic and social challenges that the world is going through as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important that our responses are inclusive, so we can build back better and in a sustainable way.

Achieving labour market inclusion requires the collaborative efforts of all stakeholders, the first of which are persons with disabilities themselves and the organizations that represent them, in addition to partnerships between the public and private sectors. We see in the Arab region success stories and experiences for empowering persons with disabilities in the labour market, which have succeeded in creating an enabling environment for inclusive workplaces, that help break down the negative stereotypes that prevent inclusion.

Persons with disabilities are diverse. They are not a monolith group but young and old, educated and less so, women and men, mothers and fathers, and live on different continents. They contribute different experiences, different abilities, different languages, different skills to our common endeavour in support to human freedom and progress. They can contribute to all endeavours; we just have to remove barriers.

Statement: H.E. Ms. Lamia Yammine, Minister of Labor

اليوم العالمي للأشخاص ذوي الإعاقة يحفّزنا لتكثيف جهودنا بهدف نشر الوعي حول قضايا الإعاقة وخلق بيئة حاضنة وأماكن متاحة لهم تحترم خصوصياتهم واحتياجاتهم وتضمن حقوقهم وتسهّل حياتهم وتصون كرامتهم الإنسانيّة. 
 
ندعو في هذا اليوم إلى مضاعفة جهود دمج الأشخاص ذوي الإعاقة في كل المِهَن والوظائف، واحترام حقوقهم في العمل اللائق التي يكفلها القانون والاتفاقية الدولية ذات الصلة.
 
ذوي الإعاقة مواطنون متساوون في الحقوق والواجبات والإستثمار في مهاراتهم قيمة مضافة وتأمين الفرص المتساوية لهم يحقق استقلاليتهم ومشاركتهم الفاعلة في المجتمع. 
 
فلنعمل لتأمين الفرص الوظيفية لهم ولنساعدهم على تخطّي العوائق البيئية والسلوكية التي تحول دون حصولهم على وظائف لائقة ودخل عادل وحماية اجتماعية، وبذلك نغني مجتمعنا ونعزز اقتصادنا.
 
 فلنبدّد المفاهيم الخاطئة والصورالنمطية ولنغّير السلوكيات ولنطبّق قانون «حقوق الأشخاص المعوقين»، 220/2000، كأولوية وطنية بعد عشرين عاماً من صدوره لأن الحاجة ملحة أكثر من أي وقت مضى لوضعه موضع التنفيذ.
 
ذوو الإعاقة يعانون أشكالاً مختلفة من التمييز والتهميش والاقصاء في مختلف أوجه الحياة ما يحرمهم التمتع بكامل الحقوق الاقتصادية والاجتماعية والثقافية، والتصدي لهذه المشاكل هو مسؤولية تتجاوز قدرة أي جهة لوحدها.
 
فلنعالج قضيتهم عبر التزام وطني على كافة المستويات الرسمية والاجتماعية، فهذا أقل الإيمان وواجب بديهي ملقى على كل واحدٍ منا. 
 
وزارة العمل من جهتها خططت وأقامت شراكة مع الاسكوا ومع غيرها من المنظمات الدولية للعمل جدياً على هذا الموضوع، ومناسبة في هذا اليوم العالمي للتذكير بأننا ملتزمون بثبات وتصميم بالقيام بكل جهد يحقق استقرار ذوي الإعاقات في بلدنا.