THE FOURTH SESSION OF THE CONFERENCE OF STATES PARTIES TO THE CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES, HIGH-LEVEL SEGMENT

STATEMENT BY PROF. SILVIA BERSANELLI, SECRETARY-GENERAL OF THE NATIONAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE FOR THE INTEGRATION OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES OF ARGENTINA

New York, 7 September 2011

 Mr. Chair,

Argentina wishes to express its gratitude for organizing this IV Conference on such an important topic as development together with participation, employment and international cooperation.

Our country is working hard on this field. Proof of this is the organization, along with the Global Partnership for Disability and Development and the World Bank, of the next international meeting under the title “Development and Disability” to be held in Buenos Aires from 21 to 23 September 2011. At that meeting, many of the countries present here today will meet to exchange experiences and create and strengthen the bonds of international cooperation as a strategy to identify synergies to achieve the objectives enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Persons with Disabilities.

Mr. Chair,

Argentina has made enormous progress relevant to the crystallization of the Convention in the practice of public policy. Because of time constraints, I will only mention a few examples of this:

Through the Ministry of Labor, Employment and Social Security, a Technical Committee for the Monitoring of the labor and social security rules for the implementation of CRPD was created to study and analyze the legal and regulatory rules and administrative practices in order to propose the necessary legal modifications or adaptations to achieve the full compliance with the rights enshrined in the Convention.

In addition, by Decree 806 of June 2011, the President of the Republic, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, has appointed the National Advisory Committee for the Integration of Persons with Disabilities as the government agency responsible for matters relating to the application the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Optional Protocol and established the Observatory of Disabilities that will have the task to generate, disseminate, update and systematize the information collected from various sources, both public and private, on the matter. On this basis, this body will monitor the compliance of the provisions of the Convention and the Optional Protocol in the various fields of application in accordance with article 33 of the Convention.

Also, as established in its Article 29 on political and public participation of people with disabilities, we carried out actions and measures to ensure that participation in the recent primaries and will continue to work towards the next general election through the Ministry of Interior.

In the realm of the Ministry of Defense and, more specifically, within the framework of the Committee for the Implementation of International Humanitarian Law we are in the process of creating a working group for the analysis and design of measures for the development of a specific protocol on the care of people with disabilities in the context of armed conflict both at the domestic and at the international levels and in the cases of humanitarian actions. This will allow for the beginning of a job aiming at taking the necessary measures to ensure the safety and protection of persons with disabilities in situations of risk, including situations of armed conflict, humanitarian emergencies and natural disasters, in line with Article 11 of the Convention. In this regard, we will continue the south-south cooperation we have started with the people of Haiti.

Mr. Chair,
I would like to reiterate my appreciation for this opportunity to share some of the actions being carried out by Argentina to implement the Convention. I thank you.

Misión Permanente Argentina ante las Naciones Unidas