Ref: 150/2022
Date: 03 December 2022
Time: 10:30
Saturday, 03 December 2022, marks the International Day of Persons with Disabilities that is celebrated every year after being proclaimed in 1992 by the United Nations General Assembly resolution (47/3) at the end of United Nations Conference for Persons with Disabilities (1983-1992.) The UN has launched the theme for this year to be “Transformative solutions for inclusive development: the role of innovation in fueling an accessible and equitable world.” Persons with disabilities all over the world celebrate this day to urge the need to respect and promote their rights in accordance with the general principles of human rights and aiming at entrenching full equality between all human beings without discrimination.
The ongoing Israeli Occupation Forces’ (IOF) violations in the occupied West Bank and the Israeli-imposed closure on the Gaza Strip for 16 years have led to the deterioration of the economic and social conditions in the Gaza Strip, and high rates of unemployment, poverty, and food insecurity among the Palestinian population. This has negatively affected the conditions of the persons with disabilities and their families who have suffered from acute shortage of rehabilitation and social care, healthcare and education services; not to mention the threats and difficulties the persons with disabilities face in general, and the motor impairment in particular during the Israeli aggressions against the Gaza Strip, and the difficulty to evacuate them from the dangerous areas or threatened civilian houses.
Persons with disabilities in Palestine still have difficulties accessing the basic services recognized by the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and guaranteed by the Palestinian Disability law No 4 for the year 1999, they suffer from diminished quality of diagnostic, preventive, curative and rehabilitative healthcare services while the Palestinian Persons with Disabilities Law, which was issued 21 years ago, has not yet been entered into effect.
The Palestinian political division mainly hinders the implantation of this law and deprives such a significant category of their rights to basic services in the areas of health, rehabilitation, training and education. The law stresses the importance of paying more attention to activities aiming at the early diagnosis of disabilities and decrease of the disabilities rate as well as providing medical devices and instruments necessary for their assistance and treatment. The law also stipulates that services which ensure their equal and fair engagement in society should be provided in addition to the free healthcare services included in the governmental health insurance available for them and their families according to Government Health Insurance System for Persons with Disabilities No. (2) of 2021.
A new report by the World Health Organization (WHO) shows evidence of a higher risk of premature death and illness among persons with disabilities compared to others in the society, enhancing the need for taking urgent action to address vast health inequities caused by unjust and unfair factors within health systems.[1]
Despite Palestine’s accession to the International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, on 02 April 2014, persons with disabilities in Palestine experience difficulties and challenges impeding their integration into the society and realization of many of their rights guaranteed by the Convention in light of the outgrowing number of persons with disabilities over the past years due to the continuous Israeli violations in the West Bank and military aggression on the Gaza Strip that have inflicted hundreds of amputation and disability cases.
According to the data released by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, there are 93,000 persons with disabilities in Palestine, i.e., 2.1% of the total population: 48% in the West Bank and 52% in Gaza Strip. The mobility impairment and use of hands accounted for the highest proportion of disabilities; 47,109 persons with mobility impairment constituted 51% of the total persons with disabilities. Also, 20% of persons with disabilities in Palestine are children under 18 years old. The percentage was in the Gaza Strip (22%) more prevalent than in the West Bank (17%).
The Data also indicates the unemployment rate among persons with disabilities registered 37% (19% in the West Bank and 54% in the Gaza Strip), while the participation rate of women with disabilities in the labor force constituted 23% compared to men with disabilities constituting 23%. This data shows a large gap between the reality of persons with disabilities in Palestine and their rights guaranteed by international and national laws.
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) reiterates its call upon all relevant parties to update the statistical information of persons with disabilities in Palestine[2], which entails developing intervention plans and programs that meet the services needed by this significant category. Moreover, it is hoped that statistics results will create positive changes that will develop policies and laws to enable persons with disabilities enjoy all their rights, based on accurate statistics of their numbers all over the Palestinian governorates.
In this regard, PCHR believes that all relevant parties should exert more efforts that guarantee the promotion of economic, social, cultural, political, and civil rights of persons with disabilities. Accordingly,
PCHR:
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[1] WHO report, Health Inequities Lead to Early Death in Many Persons with Disabilities, 02 December 2022, https://www.who.int/news/item/02-12-2022-health-inequities-lead-to-early-death-in-many-persons-with-disabilities
[2] WHO report, Health Inequities Lead to Early Death in Many Persons with Disabilities, 02 December 2022, https://www.who.int/news/item/02-12-2022-health-inequities-lead-to-early-death-in-many-persons-with-disabilities
