Statement by Mr. Richard Young on the occasion of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities at the round table titled “The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Dignity and Justice for All of Us”

Ashgabat, 2 December 2008

Today we mark the International Day of Persons with Disabilities. Dignity and justice for all of us is the theme for this year’s International Day for Persons with Disabilities. These are the universal principles that along with equality and non-discrimination have informed and guided the United Nations for the past 60 years. They are enshrined in various instruments such as the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as the International Covenants on Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. These instruments reaffirm that all human rights are universal, indivisible, interrelated, interdependent and mutually reinforcing. 

This year is very important for disabled people around the world as it signifies the entry into force on 3 May 2008 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Optional Protocol. These are legally binding instruments that set out legal obligations of states to promote and protect the rights of persons with disabilities. Turkmenistan was the first Central Asian country to accede to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on 4 September 2008, and I welcome Turkmenistan’s accession to the Convention. The purpose of the Convention, as stated in Article 1, is to “to promote, protect and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by all persons with disabilities, and to promote respect for their inherent dignity.”

Recognizing this fact, Turkmenistan has committed to creating the enabling environment for people with disabilities and ensuring their comprehensive inclusion into social and economic life. To this effect, cooperation between the United Nations Development Programme and the Deaf and Blind Society of Turkmenistan on the social and economic integration of visually and hearing impaired can be cited as the flagship project which is demonstrating sustainable approaches to creating better living conditions for people with disabilities. Our cooperation focuses on improving access to basic services for disabled people from remote areas, basic and vocational rehabilitation of people with disabilities as well as their economic integration, institutional capacity development in management of public organization for disabled, community mobilization and raising public awareness.

As of today, within the framework of the joint project the Deaf and Blind Society has provided basic rehabilitation to 48 people, vocational rehabilitation to 165, and computer literacy training to 24 people. Building on the project experience, the Deaf and Blind Society is now operating a Social Rehabilitation Center providing English language course for blind young people, vocational rehabilitation course for blind girls, IT course for blind girls, and a fitness room. The DBST is successfully cooperating with the donor community to fund rehabilitation programmes. Amongst our partners are the European Commission, the US Embassy in Turkmenistan, the World Bank and Asian Blind Union as well as Counterpart Consortium Turkmenistan.

Today, in the second half of the day, we are going to attend the inauguration of a sewing workshop the renovation of which was funded by the European Commission as part of our joint project. The workshop is expected to provide jobs for forty deaf women and increase the production capacity and image of the DBST. Income generated by this workshop will contribute to raising the living standards of the DBST members and support social rehabilitation programmes for visually and hearing impaired. The DBST will demonstrate the capacity of a recording center which was also modernized within the framework of our joint project. The center will produce one hundred new “talking books” a year for blind people and provide access to information and education materials.

The project is also doing well on raising public awareness and outreach activities. To this end, the senior management of the DBST held numerous round tables in all provinces of Turkmenistan to raise with local authorities issues of education, healthcare and jobs for people with disabilities.

I believe that all these efforts are truly assisting to integrate disabled people into society and provide greater opportunities for them. Yet there are many issues that still need our further attention.