Inclusion Scotland launches the UNCRPD Scottish Civil Society report
This report is the culmination of a six-month project undertaken by Inclusion Scotland and a Steering Group of Disabled People’s Organisations and other third sector organisations to write a report to send to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Disabled People as it prepares to examine the United Kingdom.
The United Kingdom government agreed to ‘protect and promote’ the human rights of disabled people and people with long-term health conditions by signing up to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Disabled People (UN CRPD). It also agreed to take part in a review every 4 years so that the United Nations can check whether disabled people’s human rights are being upheld. The ‘UK’ includes the Scottish Government and public bodies in Scotland like Health Boards, education providers and councils.
The next time the United Nations will review the United Kingdom is likely to be in 2023. They will look at what the United Kingdom and the Scottish governments have done since the last review in 2017.
Although the report identifies some small improvements since the United Nation’s last examination in 2017, the evidence clearly shows that disabled people in Scotland still experience worse outcomes in so many areas of life and across the life course. And that the pandemic has exposed and deepened these inequalities.