The CRPD Committee’s 26th session comes to an end today, on 25 March 2022. Throughout the last three weeks, most of the CRPD Committee members have been in Geneva, Switzerland, with some members joining online. This have been the first full time session of the Committee since August 2019, before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.
During the session, the CRPD Committee held five interactive dialogues with delegations from Hungary, Jamaica, Mexico, Switzerland and Venezuela and adopted Concluding Observations for each of them, which will become soon available on the session’s website here. The Committee also adopted the List of Issues prior to Reporting on the European Union.
In addition, the CRPD Committee and the Committee on the rights of the Child launched a joint statement on children with disabilities, which contributes to aligned jurisprudence and strengthen key messages towards States Parties to both conventions, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Convention on the Rights of Child (more information here).
Throughout the session, IDA was pleased to collaborate with a great number of organizations of persons with disabilities and civil society organizations from the countries under review who participated in the session and contributed with alternative reports, oral statements and replies to the questions of CRPD Committee members in private briefings. You can find the public information available on this here.
At the closing session, Mr Juan Angel de Gouveia highlighted: “the importance of continuing to encourage the participation of all the actors, especially the Civil Society Organizations that can contribute data to the Committee, but also of the States party. We must insist that they comply with the Committee's recommendations to continue developing good practices.”