Scoop has an Ethical Paywall
License needed for work use Register

Gordon Campbell | Parliament TV | Parliament Today | News Video | Crime | Employers | Housing | Immigration | Legal | Local Govt. | Maori | Welfare | Unions | Youth | Search

 

Disability Rights Report Highlights Challenges Under Lockdown

A new report from New Zealand’s Independent Monitoring Mechanism (IMM) highlights the realities and challenges disabled people faced during the COVID-19 emergency.

The report, Making Disability Rights Real in a Pandemic, Te Whakatinana i ngā Tika Hauātanga i te wā o te Urutā, examines New Zealand’s adherence to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (Disability Convention) during the COVID-19 emergency from late March to mid-June 2020. New Zealand’s IMM partners are the Disabled People’s Organisations (DPO) Coalition, the Ombudsman, and the Human Rights Commission (HRC).

At the centre of this report are the stories of disabled people as they lived through this troubling time.

These stories have shown resilience, strength, and commitment. Some stories have been distressing, others demonstrate caring and inventive responses.

The Disability Convention requires signatory governments to protect and promote the rights of disabled people. In particular, Article 11 requires governments to uphold disability rights in situations of risk and emergency, and put in place measures to protect and ensure the safety of disabled people.

Making Disability Rights Real in a Pandemic provides recommendations for future pandemic planning to ensure New Zealand is well equipped to guarantee disabled people’s rights are upheld during future humanitarian emergencies.

Advertisement - scroll to continue reading

Are you getting our free newsletter?

Subscribe to Scoop’s 'The Catch Up' our free weekly newsletter sent to your inbox every Monday with stories from across our network.

While the report tells of some positive experiences, it also notes that the restrictions imposed under various Alert Levels highlighted, and exacerbated, some existing inequities in disabled people’s enjoyment of human rights.

However, there are also instances of greater connectedness, of collegiality, and a sense of more inclusive community.

The report strongly recommends collaboration in decision making with tāngata whaikaha Māori (disabled Māori). The report also makes 23 other recommendations across seven sectors - access to essential goods, services, and spaces; decision making, participation, and data; access to information and communications; education; health; work and employment; and access to justice and disabled people in places of detention.

The COVID-19 report follows the publication of Making Disability Rights Real, Whakatūturu Ngā Tika Hauātanga, the third report of IMM on the adherence to the Disability Convention in New Zealand, in June 2020.

© Scoop Media

Advertisement - scroll to continue reading
 
 
 
Parliament Headlines | Politics Headlines | Regional Headlines

Gordon Campbell: On The Government’s Smokefree Laws Debacle

The most charitable explanation for National’s behaviour over the smokefree legislation is that they have dutifully fulfilled the wishes of the Big Tobacco lobby and then cast around for excuses that might sell this health policy U-turn to the public. The less charitable view is that the government was being deliberately misleading. Are we to think Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is a fool or a liar? It seems rather early on in his term of office to be facing that unpleasant choice... More


 
 
Public Housing Futures: Christmas Comes Early For Landlords

New CTU analysis of the National & ACT coalition agreement has shown the cost of returning interest deductibility to landlords is an extra $900M on top of National’s original proposal. This is because it is going to be implemented earlier and faster, including retrospective rebates from April 2023. More


Green Party: Petition To Save Oil & Gas Ban

“The new Government’s plan to expand oil and gas exploration is as dangerous as it is unscientific. Whatever you think about the new government, there is simply no mandate to trash the climate. We need to come together to stop them,” says James Shaw. More

PSA: MFAT Must Reverse Decision To Remove Te Reo

MFAT's decision to remove te reo from correspondence before new Ministers are sworn in risks undermining the important progress the public sector has made in honouring te Tiriti. "We are very disappointed in what is a backward decision - it simply seems to be a Ministry bowing to the racist rhetoric we heard on the election campaign trail," says Marcia Puru. More

 
 
 
 
 
 

LATEST HEADLINES

  • PARLIAMENT
  • POLITICS
  • REGIONAL
 
 

InfoPages News Channels


 
 
 
 

Join Our Free Newsletter

Subscribe to Scoop’s 'The Catch Up' our free weekly newsletter sent to your inbox every Monday with stories from across our network.