Rights of the Disabled Community

UNITED NATIONS, CMC – Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries have pledged their commitments to ensuring the rights of the disabled community in the region noting also that internationally agreed development goals cannot be achieved without incorporating persons with disabilities.

“They experience disproportionately high rates of poverty and are more likely to be marginalised and excluded from education, employment, healthcare support systems, recreation and the physical environment,” said Barbados Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Minister Maxine McClean.

She told the High Level Meeting on the Realization of the Millennium Development Goals for Persons with Disabilities here that the lack of accessibility is one of the key barriers to the full participation of persons with disabilities.

“Accessibility is both a means and a goal of inclusive and sustainable development and is essential to social integration and the full enjoyment of human rights,” she added.

She acknowledged that Barbados, like many developing countries, is faced with “formidable challenges in achieving its development objectives” but that the implementation of a “Fully Accessible Barbados programme…will be given high priority in the national post 2015 Development Agenda.

“Barbados will make its best effort to ensure that no person with disability is left behind,” McClean added.

Grenada has given the international community the assurances that the Keith Mitchell administration will ratify and implement the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities later this year.