UN panel praises Oman over empowerment of persons with disabilities

Energy Wednesday 21/February/2018 22:13 PM
By: Times News Service
UN panel praises Oman over empowerment of persons with disabilities

Muscat: Members of the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities today praised the Sultanate's progress in supporting and empowering persons with disabilities and the responses made by the Sultanate's delegation during the discussion of this report in Geneva.
The Committee formed to discuss the report, which is composed of 18 countries from around the world, expressed its satisfaction with the efforts of the Sultanate in the field of services provided to persons with disabilities and their integration into various areas of life.
The Committee looked forward to providing better services to them and to seeking more in their community integration and involvement in various social, economic and cultural aspects.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Said Al Kalbani, Minister of Social Development, headed the Sultanate's delegation to the meeting in the presence of Abdullah bin Nasser Al Rahbi, Permanent Representative of the Sultanate to the United Nations, members of the Permanent Mission of the Sultanate in Geneva and members of the Sultanate's delegation, the representatives of the Ministries of Social Development, Law, Health, Education, National Centre for Statistics and Information, Sultan Qaboos University (SQU), Oman Association for Disabled, and Omani Association for the Hearing Impaired.
Minister of Social Development reviewed the Sultanate's report to the Committee on the various achievements made in the field of persons with disabilities. He stressed in his speech the keenness of the Sultanate to prepare comprehensive periodic reports on human rights during 2011 and 2015 and followed up the implementation of the recommendations of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), in addition to its commitment in submitting initial and periodic reports on the conventions it joined.
He said " In this context the Sultanate prepared the core document in 2012, in accordance with the harmonized guidelines for reporting to the international human rights treaty monitoring bodies. It is currently completing the submission procedures of the core document to the Secretary-General of the United Nations during the 2018."
In his speech, the Minister of Social Development addressed the official interest of the Sultanate's government in the affairs of persons with disabilities, pointing out that the Sultanate was one of the leading Arab countries where it contributed to the drafting of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and was one of the first countries to ratify it.
He added that the Law on the Care and Rehabilitation of the Disabled has been adopted to support the services provided to persons with disabilities, as well as the Children's Law, as a result of these laws and conventions, the Sultanate represented by the Ministry of Social Development has moved from the caring concept to the developmental concept which adopts the human rights approach to guarantee human rights and the rights of persons with disabilities and other segments of the community.
The Minister of Social Development, Shaikh Mohammed bin Suayed Al Kalbani, concluded his speech on the efforts of the international committee of persons with disabilities, facing the challenges that always require integration among the various sectors to overcome them, in addition to finding alternatives to achieving the objectives of integration for that category.