Protection or Restriction: An Analysis of the Blind Massage Policy for Employment Rights of Persons With Visual Impairments in China

2022 ◽  
pp. 0145482X2110736
Author(s):  
Xue Hui Li ◽  
Su Qiong Xu ◽  
Luan Jiao Hu

Introduction The United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities identified the Chinese blind massage policy as “reserved employment” in its Concluding Observations in 2012. In response, this paper reviewed the policy on blind massage in China and discussed its effectiveness and social impact. Methods: Adopting a historical perspective, this paper describes the development stages of the blind massage policy in China. It reveals the social construction process of the blind massage policy. Government data were provided to help analyze the positive and negative effects of the policy according to the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Results: The blind massage policy is a national strategy involving semi-reserved employment to improve the low employment rate of people with visual impairments in China. It promoted employment of people with visual impairments at the start, but, as the system of the blind massage gradually took shape, it restricted these individuals from choosing a career freely. The blind massage policy has resulted in deep-rooted social prejudices, and it demonstrates disability-based discrimination and charity-oriented practices. Discussion: The Chinese blind massage policy is discriminatory and does not reflect the modern concept of disability rights advocated in the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Implications for practitioners: The Chinese government needs to promote institutional reforms to provide better education and employment for people with visual impairments to change the limited content of vocational training and eliminate discriminatory policies.

2018 ◽  
pp. 119-138
Author(s):  
Jaime Prieto ◽  
Juan L. Paramio-Salcines

Little attention has been focused on the analysis of the interrelation between disability and elite disability sport from the human rights perspective as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) demands of those countries that ratified this global regulation. More than a decade since its promulgation in December 2006, the United Nations itself and a plethora of authors recognises that disability in general and disability sport by extension has not yet been seen as a human rights issue in many countries, principally in developing countries. This paper is divided into four main parts. First, academic literature in relation to disability, human rights policy and sport at elite level is explored. Second, it examines the active role of the International Paralympic Committee, regarded as a major advocate for the rights of the sport promotion of athletes with disabilities, to implement the Convention by the organisation of sports events for Paralympic athletes worldwide at all levels of the sport development continuum. Third, it explains the methods and data collection followed in the study and the following section presents results of the analysis. Finally, it draws an international scenario that might be valuable in informing academics, institutions and professionals to promote elite disability sport from the human rights perspective.


2020 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 26-36
Author(s):  
Rasa Genienė

The global coronovirus (Covid-19) pandemic has been revealed what about half of the world’s deaths are recorded in large institutions of the elderly and people with disabilities, and these are later thought to be incentives for states to take active deinstitutionalisation efforts. In order for deinstitutionalisation actions to respond to its ideological origins, which lie in the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, in the necessary legal instruments and in clarifying that Member States are responsible. The article reveals how the deinstitutionalisation processes that have already started are implemented and evaluated in Central and Eastern Europe and discusses their problems. Content analysis was used to investigate the Soviet regime, leading to the implementation of official and alternative (shadow) reports on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.


Author(s):  
Bantekas Ilias

This chapter examines Article 43 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). The formal act by which a state consents to be bound by a treaty is expressed through ratification. The various legal terms used to denote such consent (ie acceptance, approval, or accession) produce the same functional and legal effect in the international sphere. Their differences lie chiefly in the states’ internal/constitutional sphere. Article 43 CRPD departs from equivalent provisions in other treaties under the UN aegis, as well as other multilateral treaties, at least in phrasing. Other multilateral treaties specifically distinguish between the two classical types of consent: a) that which is open to signatory states, namely ratification, acceptance and approval and; b) that which is open to non-signatories, namely accession. Article 43 does not make this distinction explicit. Its wording seems to suggest that acceptance and approval are excluded from its ambit, but given that both of these produce exactly the same legal effects as ratification, the distinction is practically meaningless.


Author(s):  
Gledhill Kris

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) Committee oversees the implementation of the CRPD by its states parties through an assessment of periodic reports and by hearing disputes submitted under the CRPD’s Optional Protocol. Article 37 CRPD contains two distinct obligations: that owed by the signatory states of cooperation with the Committee (article 37(1)), and that of the Committee to bear in mind the need to augment domestic capacities to give effect to the CRPD (article 37(2)). An understanding of the import of this turns on the ‘ordinary meaning’ of the words used ‘in their context’ and bearing in mind their ‘object and purpose’. Accordingly, this chapter examines various relevant features and looks at the practice of the Committee to date in order to suggest the meaning of these obligations.


Author(s):  
Kovudhikulrungsri Lalin ◽  
Hendriks Aart

This chapter examines Article 20 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Personal mobility is a prerequisite for inclusion in a society. According to the European Court of Human Rights, to be mobile and to have access to transport, housing, cultural activities, and leisure is a precondition for the ‘right to establish and develop relations with other human beings’, ‘in professional or business contexts as in others’. The CRPD does not establish new rights for persons with disabilities. It is merely thought to identify specific actions that states and others must take to ensure the effectiveness and inclusiveness of all human rights and to protect against discrimination on the basis of disability. However, the fact that there is no equivalent of the right to personal mobility in any other human rights treaty makes it particularly interesting to examine the genesis and meaning of this provision.


Author(s):  
Nizar Smitha

This chapter examines Article 10 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which affirms every human being’s right to life. It first explores the efforts made by the drafters of the CRPD to frame the right to life of all human beings. It further examines the wider meaning of the right to life and its application, and traces the interpretation given by the CRPD Committee in its concluding observations. In order to understand the micro-level application of the right, the chapter examines the interpretation and its application by domestic and regional courts. Finally, it explores the individual complaints made under the optional protocol and the consequent interpretation provided. This is done to define the jurisprudence surrounding the right to life and the required measures to strengthen and facilitate its wider application as envisaged under the Convention.


Author(s):  
Broderick Andrea

This chapter examines Article 4 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). The article sets out the general obligations under the CRPD with a view to encouraging national legal and policy reform and guiding domestic implementation of the Convention. The content of Article 4 is of cross-cutting application, since it contains overarching principles that permeate the text of the Convention as a whole. The obligations contained in the article thus seek to contextualize the interpretation of the substantive provisions of the Convention. Article 4 enumerates both general obligations and specific obligations. This distinguishes it from similar provisions in other human rights treaties, which are more in the nature of general obligations of compliance.


2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (03) ◽  
pp. 68-70
Author(s):  
J. Maphisa Maphisa

The Mental Disorders Act of 1969 is the primary legislation relating to mental health in Botswana. Despite the country not being a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, its Act has a self-rated score of four out of five on compliance to human rights covenants. However, it can be argued that the Act does not adequately espouse a human rights- and patient-centred approach to legislation. It is hoped that ongoing efforts to revise the Act will address the limitations discussed in this article.


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