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	TX: 02.04.07 - Cherie Booth/UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities PRESENTERS: JOHN WAITE AND CAROLYN ATKINSON

	THE ATTACHED TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT. BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE 麻豆约拍 CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY. WAITE According to the United Nations around 10% of the world's population - that's about 650 million people - have a disability, yet 80% of those living in developing countries have limited or no access to the services they need. To help fill that gap a UN Convention on Human Rights for Disabled People has been launched in New York which, once it's ratified, will oblige states that sign up to it to enact laws to improve disability rights and also to abolish legislation and customs that discriminate against disabled people. The campaign to get global acceptance of the new treaty is being supported by the Prime Minister's wife Cherie Blair in her role as patron of the disability charity Scope. And she's been telling Carolyn Atkinson why she believes the convention is so important. BLAIR I feel very strongly about this, I mean I started out essentially with the women's rights agenda and as time has gone on we seem to be crossing all these thresholds with race, with women's rights and I think disability discrimination is the last big threshold we have to pass. The fact that that has been acknowledged internationally is a real step forward and because we have the experience now of dealing with this and dealing with all aspects of discrimination - anything that doesn't recognise the equal worth of every individual human being - I'm hoping that it won't take as long as it has for some of these other agendas for things really to start making an impact in the disability world. ATKINSON Why do you think it's taken 60 years to get a treaty for disabled people? BLAIR Well I think we need to recognise that this treaty itself has been the quickest treaty ever negotiated, so from the first time it was a thought to its actual fruition has been very, very quick and we see today, just as we've been looking, many countries just lining up to sign it, I'm sure it's going to get one of the most signatures to a treaty when it's first opened for signing of any of the other treaties. But let's just think - 1990 Convention on the Rights of the Child; CEDAW itself in the 1980s - these treaties have been a long time coming and in fact you could say that we're speeding up. ATKINSON What though does it say about disabled people in the way they've been treated up to this point across the world because we're talking about 650 million people across the world, we're talking about 10 million or so in the UK? BLAIR We're talking about very much people who are out of sight and out of mind and that's why the inclusion agenda is so important. In our country and even more so I think across the world where many, many countries they're still in the position where we were say 30, 50 years ago. ATKINSON You obviously specialise in human rights and you've talked a lot in the past about disableism, what do you think are the worst sort of aspects of disableism that we're seeing in this country at the moment? BLAIR Well I think the worst thing about disableism is the idea that disabled people are not equal to everyone else, they don't have equal rights, equal dignity. One of the worst things about that I think is this terrible out of sight, out of mind. We need to ensure that we're not having practical obstacles to disabled people who want - and they do want - to commit to our society, to participate into our society, to be fully engaged actually are not stopped from doing that by physical obstacles and by a lack of understanding and a lack of recognition by other people. ATKINSON Will you as a human rights lawyer, will you be using this new treaty do you think in cases that you now will be dealing with? BLAIR There's a technical legal answer to that which is essentially international treaties that the government sign are not directly affected in our country. On the other hand when judges are looking at what legislation we do have in this country means they can take account what international treaties say. And so just like in some cases we may refer to the Convention on the Rights of the Child or to CEDAW, this will be another tool in our armoury. ATKINSON And how do you think we're going to be able to measure whether this treaty actually has any impact on Mrs Jones who lives in Exeter? BLAIR In the end when Mrs Jones who lives in Exeter actually feels that she is a fully paid up member of our society and valued by everybody as much as her neighbour next door who isn't in a wheelchair. ATKINSON But being realistic that just is going to take such a long time isn't it, there's so much perception that's got to be changed. I mean how - I'm not asking you to come up with the solution - but how do you really think that can change because people are very disableist and people see - they have a perception about certain people and they think a certain way? BLAIR But a lot of that is due to the fact that people don't meet people with disabilities, that's why of course the inclusive agenda, particularly in schools, is so important because at an early stage if children get used to seeing people who are either in wheelchairs or perhaps are blind or whatever the particular disability is and get used to being round and recognising that they're exactly the same as they are then it really, really helps. And one of the problems we've had in the past isn't it is that we've provided help but we haven't necessarily given access. What we need to do is to ensure that disabled people have full access to our society in all its manifestations. Now that is going to take time because you don't create miracles overnight but that doesn't mean that there isn't a lot we can do, we've done a lot and there's a lot more that we can be pressing for. WAITE Cherie Blair talking to our reporter Carolyn Atkinson. Back to the Transcripts homepage Back to the You and Yours homepage The 麻豆约拍 is not responsible for external websites

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