..Press Release................................ UNESCAP News Services

Date 14 October 2005
Press Release No: N/53/2005

Largest ever International Conference on Disabled Rights at UNESCAP

Bangkok (United Nations Information Services) -- Basic human rights for disabled people are the focus of a large two-day international conference in Bangkok involving participants from 80 countries.

Disability: A Global Perspective on Rights to Education and Livelihood will take place from 17 to 18 October 2005 at the United Nations Conference Centre (UNCC) Bangkok. The conference is jointly organized by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) and Leonard Cheshire International (LCI), a UK based disability NGO with projects in 57 countries.

The conference will be opened by the Deputy Prime Minister of Thailand H.E. Mr. Suwat Liptapanlop. Disability leader Ms Judy Heumann of the World Bank’s first adviser on disability and development, will also address the gathering.

UNESCAP is a regional facilitator for the promotion of an inclusive society for persons with disabilities. “This is the first ever large global conference on disability involving such a wide range of participants,” said Executive Secretary of UNESCAP Mr. Kim Hak-Su.

“Practitioners, policy makers and persons with diverse disabilities from more than 80 nations, including Sweden, Zimbabwe and South Africa, will gather to examine disability education and employment issues and to produce a set of recommendations,” he said.

“This conference is a call to action,” said International Director of LCI Ms Tanya Barron. “98 per cent of disabled children are not in school and 80 per cent of disabled people in developing countries are unemployed. We need to ask ourselves why this is happening and what we can do about it,” she said.

UNESCAP is also organizing a separate three-day regional workshop that will take place directly after the international conference, from 19 - 21 October. The Regional Workshop on a Comprehensive National Plan of Action on Disability aims to give policymakers practical solutions on implementing the Biwako Millennium Framework’s (BMF) disability-inclusive plans.

As a result of UNESCAP's work in this field, governments in the region have extended the Asian and Pacific Decade of Disabled Persons for another decade from 2003 to 2012. The new decade has been marked by the regional adoption of the Biwako Millennium Framework for Action: towards an Inclusive, Barrier-free and Rights-based Society for Persons with Disabilities in Asia and the Pacific as a regional policy.

NOTE TO EDITORS: You or your representatives are cordially invited to attend the conference's opening ceremony on Monday, 17 October 2005 at 0845 hours at the UN Conference Centre, UNESCAP, Rajdamnern Nok Avenue, Bangkok.

For further information please contact:
Ms. Aiko Akiyama
Project Expert on Disability
Emerginf Social Issues Division
UNESCAP
Tel: 02-288-2315
Email: akiyama@un.org

For media inquiries please contact:
Mr. David Lazarus
Chief, UN Information Services
UNESCAP
Tel: +(66-2) 288-1861-66
Fax: +(66-2) 288-1052
E-mail: unisbkk.unescap@un.org

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