During its 26th session, the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities carried out its second review of Mexico. As a result, on 25 March 2022, the Concluding Observations issued by the Committee, with new recommendations, were published. They are available, only in English for the moment, here.
The conference “Results of the second evaluation cycle of Mexico before the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Challenges" began today and has the purpose to disseminate to a broader audience the highlights of the review, including key recommendations. The Conference continues tomorrow and is part of a series of events organized by the Mexican Coalition for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
The IDA representative, Juan Ignacio Pérez Bello, described the process and the participation of civil society. He stressed that: “seven years after the first review, many recommendations are reiterated as if nothing had been done in this regard. Particularly worrisome is the ‘serious decline in the availability of mechanisms for the consultation with persons with disabilities through their representative organizations concerning the design and implementation of laws and policies affecting them’. Hopefully the Committee’s recommendations will contribute not only to trigger new positive actions but also to correct the course of negative processes, such as the draft legislation on ‘differentiated autonomy' presented on 29th March 2022, which clearly contradicts the CRPD and should be discarded.”
Ms Rosa Idalia Aldana, Guatemalan member of the CRPD Committee, presented and stressed several issues from the CRPD Committee’s recommendations that the Mexico must consider. In particular, she highlighted the need to ensure consultation with organizations of persons with disabilities, in line with Article 4(3) of the CRPD. She also stressed the need to review and reform legislation and regulations to enhance prevention and protection of persons with disabilities from violence, abuse, and exploitation.
Ms Aldana focused on the lack of the following:
- adequate budget/resources and on the lack of transparency in the use of available funds, including their positive impacts on persons with disabilities,
- disaggregated data by gender, disability and other grounds.
She highlighted that: “if there are no data on persons with disabilities, it is as if we did not exist” and stressed that the Committee recommended the State to strengthen the National Human Rights Commission to fullfil its monitoring role under Article 33(2) of the CRPD.
“We hope to find much better results in the next review of Mexico,” she said.
