Human Rights – Page 3

Maynooth Alumnus and Disability Activist Selected to Represent Disabled People in the European Parliament

Stories/Lived Experience

Author: James Cawley, Business Development Executive at the Irish Centre for Diversity, Disability Rights Activist, and Member of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Disability Advisory Committee

James Cawley

James Cawley is a disabled activist from County Longford and an alumnus of Maynooth University who is currently working as a Business Development Executive at the Irish Centre for Diversity. He is also a member of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) Disability Advisory Committee (DAC) and has worked in numerous capacities and functions in the areas of education and disability rights advocacy. He has represented persons with disabilities in public and governmental fora, having recently served on the Irish Government’s Disability Stakeholder Group (DSG 6) in 2022 after his appointment to the group by the incumbent Minister of State for Disability, Anne Rabbitte.

The function of the DSG 6 is to play an important role in the ‘monitoring of the government’s disability policies and strategies’ and it comprises a membership representative of a diverse group of people from the disabled community.

“Human rights crisis within a crisis” – Intersectional challenges for persons with disabilities in the war in Ukraine

Social Structures

Author: Rebecca Daniel – PHD Student, Assisting Living and Learning (ALL) Institute, Department of Psychology, Maynooth University

The situation of persons with disabilities during the current war in Ukraine has been repeatedly described as a “crisis within a crisis” during the past number of months. This blog post aims to reflect on the multiple forms of discrimination that persons with disabilities face in times of conflict.

Approximately 15% of the worldwide population has a disability. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated that 13% of people in Ukraine, in need of humanitarian assistance in 2021, had a disability. In situations of war and conflict, these numbers can even increase, since many disabilities are caused or worsened by war (e.g. through war injuries, a lack of health care provisions, or post-traumatic stress disorders). Given this, it can be estimated that the numbers of persons with disabilities directly or indirectly affected by the war in Ukraine are even higher than those estimated above.

International Day of Sign Languages: Promoting Sign Languages and Deaf Culture as part of Human Diversity

Social Structures

Click here for Audio Version

Click her for Irish Sign Language Version

Author: Léa Urzel – PhD Researcher ERC Project DANCING, ALL Institute – Department of Law, Maynooth University

Léa Urzel

Today, 23 September 2021, marks the fourth celebration of the International Day of Sign Languages. Currently, Covid-19 continues to affect the lives of people around the world. The ongoing pandemic has posed unprecedented challenges for all, including persons with disabilities. It has further exacerbated the barriers that Deaf people and other sign language users face in their daily lives and highlighted the difficulties encountered in accessing services and information, notably health services and public health information (Panko et al, 2021). At the same time, it has also enhanced the use of national sign languages in public broadcasting as numerous press conferences, public health briefings and other speeches by government officials continue to be broadcast featuring sign language interpretation.

Adaptive Fashion: An Instrument to Enhance Independent Living and Self-Confidence of Persons with Physical Disabilities

Social Structures

Author: Francesca Albi, J.D. Candidate – Università degli Studi di Verona (Italy)

Francesca Albi Profile Picture

Accessibility is one of the general principles embodied in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and it is explicitly affirmed by Article 3 (f), Article 9 and other provisions of the Convention. Accessibility must be understood as “the right to use goods, services and facilities available to the public without discrimination, and obtain an equal benefit from them” (Broderick and Ferri, 2019, p. 140). Accordingly, accessibility is strictly linked to the concept of “universal design”, which is an expression of the paradigm-shift embraced by the CRPD (Cera, 2017, pp. 107-118) and which is defined in Article 2 of the CRPD as the “design of products, environments, programmes and services to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design”.

Sexuality, disability, and the law: a call for action

Debates

Author: Carla Maria Reale- post-doctoral researcher at Faculty of Law, University of Trento (Italy)

Original Post: The Loud Silence on Disability and Sexuality; My perspective. by Mohamed Maalim

Carla Maria Reale

Addressing the topic of sexuality and disability means uncovering issues capable of questioning our stereotypes, our bodies, the construction of our desires, and our ideas on desirability. Sexuality is an issue that touches the core of our relational selves, of our identities as persons. Anne Finger, a prominent writer, and disability activist, defined sexuality for people with disabilities as “the source of our deepest oppression; (…) the source of our deepest pain.” (Finger, 1992).

In a post published on this blog, while discussing sexuality and disability from a psychological/social perspective, Mohamed Maalim used the expression “loud silence”. I was deeply moved by these words, as the same loud silence dominates the legal sphere of sexuality and disability as well.

This short post has the purpose of engaging in an interdisciplinary dialogue, to better understand how, from different perspectives, scholars, activists, and professionals can create a positive approach to and constructive debate on people with disabilities’ sexualities.

The Loud Silence on Disability and Sexuality; My perspective.

Social Lives

Author: Mohamed Maalim – PhD Researcher, of the ALL Institute, Department of Psychology, Maynooth University

Mohamed Maalim

11^thof July is celebrated as World Population day to highlight global issues on sexual and reproductive health and rights gender equality and the right to family life. Personally, as a husband and father to five children, am blessed and privileged to be able to exercise this fundamental human right to family life and family unity as enshrined in international and European human rights provisions. Many people, however, including people with disabilities, refugees, and others requiring international protection do not enjoy the right to adequate sexual and reproductive health in particular.

In this piece, I will discuss sexuality issues for people with disabilities from the perspectives of personal understanding and professional practice both as a research student and a registered Occupational Therapist. From an Occupational Therapy point of view, sexuality is considered an activity of daily living (ADL) by the American Association of Occupational Therapists. Occupational therapists may include sexuality as part of a routine evaluation of clients and address this area in occupational therapy interventions. Sexual activity and intimate social participation are part of meaningful occupational participation contributing to personal satisfaction while sharing intimate relationships may potentially impact one’s wellbeing and quality of life. Sexuality should not be misconstrued to mean only physical intimacy but as a holistic concept encompassing sexual activity, decisions, communication, identity, and choice.

Protecting and Promoting Legal Capacity of Persons with Disabilities: Disentangling the Relationship between the CRPD and International Private Law in the Italian Legal System

Social Structures

Author: Francesca Albi, J.D. Candidate – Università degli Studi di Verona (Italy)

Francesca Albi

Persons with disabilities represent human diversity and their inherent dignity must be recognised. In legal terms, the protection of human dignity is linked to the recognition and respect of the right to legal capacity, which is established by Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). According to this provision, persons with disabilities have the right to legally act on an equal basis with others. Even though they may need support and reasonable accommodations, disability cannot be used to justify the denial of the right of persons with disabilities to make their own choices concerning their lives. To this aim, supported (and not substituted) decision-making mechanisms must be provided to help them in decision-making processes.

Since international mobility of adults (including those with disabilities) is an increasing phenomenon in the contemporary globalized world, international human rights instruments acquire special relevance regarding the exercise of civil rights in transnational situations. In that connection private international law, which has been defined as ‘the body of conventions, model laws, national laws, legal guides, and other documents and instruments that regulate private relationships across national borders’, must be read in conjunction with international human rights norms. To this end, legal scholars (Franzina, 2012; Franzina, 2015; Franzina and Long, 2016, 106-177; Franzina, 2019; Long, 2013) who investigate the transnational protection of the rights of adults with disabilities speak of “integral approach” to identify the mutual influence of international human rights and private international law.

Day of the Seafarer

Social Structures

Author: Joanne McVeigh, Lecturer at the Department of Psychology and the ALL (Assisting Living & Learning) Institute, Maynooth University

Joanne McVeigh

June 25^th marks the Day of the Seafarer, an international campaign aiming to increase governments’ support for seafarers during the pandemic, but to also more broadly ensure fair treatment and equitable employment conditions for seafarers. We often fail to appreciate our reliance on the world’s 1,647,500 merchant seafarers for the effective functioning of the global economy. However, international trade is underpinned by maritime transport, whereby approximately 80% of the volume of global trade and 70% of the value of global trade are transported by sea. In the book Ninety Percent of Everything: Inside Shipping, the Invisible Industry that Puts Clothes on Your Back, Gas in Your Car, and Food on Your Plate, British author Rose George questioned: “Who looks behind a television now and sees the ship that brought it? Who cares about the men who steered your breakfast cereal through winter storms? How ironic that the more ships have grown in size and consequence, the less space they take up in our imagination” (p. 2). Indeed, the importance of merchant shipping was brought into sharp focus by a container ship obstructing the Suez Canal in Egypt, through which more than 50 ships pass daily, constituting approximately 12% of world trade.

Promoting Equal Participation and Eliminating Discrimination: Time to Change the Narrative.

Social Lives

Author: Mohamed Maalim – PhD Researcher, of the ALL Institute, Department of Psychology, Maynooth University

Blue Butterfly with Brown slate background. Zero Discrimination Day 01 March 2021 wording in top right hand corner

The Zero Discrimination day is celebrated annually on the 1st day of March, to reflect on our rich human diversity and the need for equal opportunity to enjoy fundamental human rights, and to fight against discrimination in all its forms and manifestations. This year, above all previous, the ongoing global COVID-19 Pandemic with all its disruptive nature and the misfortune it has brought and caused, has also offered humanity a glimpse of its ‘non-discrimination’ attribute. The advent of COVID-19 reinforced upon us that we are all equal as humans in our susceptibility, our fear and concern for self and others, and indeed in our hope of getting back to as ‘normal life’ as possible or whatever that ‘normal’ means.

Additionally, with Covid-19, we have adopted a common enemy enforcing upon us an almost military-type operation to fight back. The nations of the world in an unprecedented fashion formed ‘NATO’ type alliances and collaborative networks with the ‘Big Tech’ and ‘Big Pharma’ in a concerted effort to develop digital contact tracing and tracking apps‘ and vaccines, respectively. Individual governments assumed the role of commanding officers alongside senior health personnel, frontline healthcare workers, and other so called ‘essential’ workers as the foot soldiers of the operation, while the general public’s hearts and minds were won by calls to stay at home to suppress the virus.

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