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Not before time

"I have long accepted my reliance on a wheelchair to move about, as I have been using one ever since my spinal cord was fractured in a car accident when I was four years old. Like so many other individuals with disabilities, I accept who I am. But what I can never accept are the artificial limitations imposed upon me through physical barriers such as stairs, ignorance and sometimes downright discrimination.

This week and next, the United Nations is hosting negotiations, which include disability organizations, on a new human rights convention to protect and advance the rights of people with disabilities. Progress has been steady and there is a good chance that by the end of the next session there could be agreement on the convention's text. If adopted and ratified, the convention - the first human rights treaty of the 21st century - will ensure that people with disabilities enjoy the same rights as everybody else. In some instances they will obtain effective human rights for the first time."

So begins a piece in the IHT. We all "see" the disabled in our midst - and probably think that because buildings have ramps and there are special parking-spots for the disabled that they are accorded equal rights to everything the able-bodied enjoy. Not so. Read the complete piece here.

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