The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (the Commission)Working Group on the Rights of Older Persons and Persons with Disabilities (the Working Group) met from 1 – 2 March 2014, in Banjul, The Gambia.
The Meeting, which is part of the Commission’s promotional mandate, was organised in accordance with Article 45 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (the African Charter), and also in order to give effect to Resolution ACHPR/Res143 (XXXXV) 09, that requires the Working Group to articulate the rights of older persons and persons with disabilities in Africa and draft texts to promote the rights of this segment of Africa’s population.
The Meeting was chaired by Commissioner ReineAlapini-Gansou. Other members of the Working Group, Commissioner Lawrence Murugu Mute, and experts Ms Nadia Abdel-Wahab El-Afify and Mr KudakwasheDube were in attendance. The Meeting was also attended by representatives from theDepartment of Social Affairs of the African Union Commission, the Africa Platform for Social Protection and theSecretariat of the Commission.
The primary objective of the Meeting was to consider and improve Draft I of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Africa (the Draft Protocol) and to follow-up on the Working Group’s Addis Ababa Meeting, held from 9 – 11 December 2013, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, which considered the zero draft of the Protocol.
The Draft Protocol seeks to provide an African context to the rights of persons with disabilities without undermining the letter and spirit of the 2006 United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). In addition to the CRPD, the Draft Protocol takes inspiration from a number of other regional and international human rights instruments, including the African Charter, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, among others.
The Working Group will shortly disseminate Draft II of the Protocol to the general public on the Commission’s website. This is to enable Disabled Peoples’ Organisations, Civil Society Organisations, as well as all other stakeholders review the Draft and provide their comments/inputs to the Working Group.
Banjul, The Gambia, 2 March 2014
