We have been making sure that disabled people’s human rights are recognised by decision-makers and widely promoted throughout all Scottish society for many years.
Disabled People's Human Rights
You can find out more about our human rights as disabled people and about the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Disabled People in our toolkit in this section. You can also find out about the Committee in the United Nations which we reported to to tell them how the Government was doing in meeting its obligations.
Tools for you – Human Rights Toolkits
We coproduced the Human Rights toolkit with Glasgow Disability Alliance, Inverclyde Council on Disability and Angus Advocacy.
We coproduced an Easy Read version of the toolkit with People First Scotland. The Toolkit was launched at the Scottish Parliament.
The Human Rights Toolkit is in 5 sections:
- Part 1 – Introduction ER toolkit on human rights to independent living
- Part 2 – What is the Human Rights Act?
- Part 3 – UN Convention on the rights of Disabled People
- Part 4 – How to use your Human Rights
- Part 5 – Getting your human rights to independent living ER
Inclusion Scotland can offer information sessions to groups of disabled people interested in using the Human Rights Tooklkit.
If your group or organisation is interested in this training and would like more information, please contact Heather Fisken in the Independent Living in Scotland team.
Email contact preferred. Email: heather@inclusionscotland.org or phone: 18002 0141 559 5067 – please include the prefix.
The United Nations
The United Nations worked with disabled people from around the world to produce the Convention on the Rights of Disabled People. This includes the rights of disabled people and the actions that Government’s should take so that we disabled people enjoy our human rights. Read the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled People.
The United Nations includes a Committee which looks at the Convention on the Rights of Disabled People in practice. If a ‘State’ (a country) signs up to the Convention then the Committee will review what they have done to deliver all the Articles in the Convention. This includes looking at how they have involved disabled people in the policy making and evaluation. The UK Government has signed the Convention.
The CRPD Committee reviewed the UK (including Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) and published their report in 2017.
This was later than expected. The original examination by the Committee was postponed because the Committee heard about serious breaches of our human rights in the Convention. The Committee decided to investigate these claims. Read the Committee’s report that they published after the investigation.
You can look at the UNCRPD website to find out when examinations will take place and to read the reports of the Committee. These are known as ‘Concluding Observations’. Read the Concluding Observations to find out what the UN said about the UK in 2017
The Concluding Observations show that the UK was in violation of 3 Convention Articles. These related to living independently and being included in the community, work and employment, and adequate standard of living and social protection. They Government were given 12 months to respond to the observations and recommendations made by the Committee.
The Committee raised many more concerns and made recommendations on other Articles too.
Civil Society Shadow reports to the United Nations
Disabled People’s reports to the United Nations
We also went to Geneva, where the Committee meets to tell them about how our rights were delivered, or not, in Scotland as part of the UK. We work with other Disabled People’s Organisations in England, Wales and Northern Ireland to ensure that the Committee hears from disabled people across the UK.
In 2014 we consulted with hundreds of disabled people on what had got better and what had got worse over the previous 5 years. With all the feedback from this engagement – including an online survey – we sent a report to the United Nations (UN) Disability Committee. See the list of partners below.
We drew up a ‘List of Issues’ to show the Committee what they should be looking at when they examined the UK. We submitted our shadow report to the Committee to help them to examine the UK, including an Easy Read report for Scotland. This shows what disabled people said is happening in real life, and providing evidence to show where our rights are not being delivered by the Government and what needs to change.
In October 2018 we produced An Alternative Report along with other Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisations from across the UK. The report provides information on the UK Government’s progress over the past 12 months since the Committee published its Concluding Observations.
In October 2019 we followed up with a new Alternative Report. There are two reports. One is for the whole of the UK (some of which is about England only and some of which is about UK issues like Universal Credit) and the second report is about the Scottish Government. These reports were sent to the United Nations.
Independent Mechanism Framework
The Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Scottish Human Rights Commission have both been awarded Independent Mechanism Status. This means that these National Human Rights Institutions are part of a framework of non-Government organisations which report to Committee and help to monitor the Convention.
They produce a ‘List of Issues’ to tell the Committee what things they should look at when they review the UK.
12 months on from the Concluding Observations they have published a new report: Progress on disability rights in the United Kingdom. This tells the Committee what the Independent Mechanism Organisations think about the progress the Government has made since 2017.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission wrote a report: How well is the UK performing on disability rights? on the Concluding Observations and how the UK was preforming.
Scottish approaches to the Convention Rights
The Scottish Government and Confederation of Scottish Local Authorities (CoSLA) decided to develop delivery plans to show what they planned to do to promote our human rights. We are working with them to support them to deliver on their commitments and to monitor and evaluate how they are doing. You can read their reports below.
CoSLA LA DDP response Inclusion Scotland
CoSLA LA DDP response Inclusion Scotland pdf
During 2014 Inclusion Scotland engaged with hundreds of disabled people to ask them to prioritise their human rights issues. As part of the engagement we conducted an online survey, which got 139 responses from disabled people. You can read the results below:
Summary of responses to Inclusion Scotland
Summary of responses to Inclusion Scotland pdf
A year on, to support our engagement on the Scottish Government’s draft Delivery Plan consultations, we conducted another online survey. The survey results are below:
ANNEX DDP response Summary of responses to Inclusion Scotland 2015 survey
ANNEX DDP response Summary of responses to Inclusion Scotland 2015 survey
Inclusion Scotland's engagement partners
We partnered with some brilliant organisations to ensure that our UNCRPD engagement events could be publicised to as many disabled people as possible. Some of our chosen partners reflect our focus on engaging with seldom heard disabled people, including disabled people living in residential care accommodation, disabled children and young people, LGBT disabled people, disabled women, and disabled refugee women. Our partner organisations were:
- Arthritis Care Scotland
- Campaign for a Fair Society
- Carr Gomm
- Contact a Family
- Engender
- Equality Network
- Dumfries and Galloway Voice
- Glasgow Disability Alliance
- One Parent Families Scotland
- People First (Fraserburgh group)
- People First Scotland
- Refugee Women’s Strategy Group
- Scottish Refugee Council
