International

SP Member of Parliament Renske Leijten is demanding that the government ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities before the end of the year. The Convention commits signatories to granting people with any kind of disability the same rights as others and to ensuring that they are able to take a full part in the life of their societies. Once a state has signed, it must also ratify the treaty, which means that laws and regulations must be amended to accord with this commitment.

Leijten, who is SP parliamentary spokeswoman on health and welfare, will intervene in the forthcoming debate on the health care budget to seek a commitment from the government to ratification of the Convention by the year’s end. “I can count on the support of Parliament,” she says. “Every party included this in its election manifesto. The last government signed the Convention as long ago as 2007, but current administration is still dragging its feet because they first want to know what it will cost. I find it shameful that giving people with a disability equal rights is being postponed for financial reasons. It’s not people’s disabilities which exclude them, but society.”