MURINET and the human rights approach to disability (poster presentation)
Ines Figueiredo Alves, Consiglio Nazionale sulla Disabilita (Italy)
Abstract
The MURINET (Multidisciplinary Research Network on Health and Disability - Marie Curie Research Training Network, 6th European Framework Programme, MRTN-CT-2006-035794) aims to explore health, disability and the biopsychosocial model (base of the WHO's International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health). This project has as key assets mainstreaming, inclusion and full participation of people with disabilities, and a notion of universality of disability. MURINET is organised into four main areas, composed by thirteen different organisations located in various countries (Germany, Italy, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands), which should actively network and share expertise, projects, concerns, and outcomes. The fours areas are: 1 Clinical and Rehabilitative 2 Child health, psychology and education 3 Health and disability information for policy 4 Ethics and Human Rights Within the Area 4 the researchers working at the Italian National Council of Disability (CND) will focus mainly on the Human Rights approach to disability and the operationalisation of this same paradigm. This will happen in three main stages. The first stage consists on researching and building a database of relevant International and European documents (from organisations such as UNESCO, OHCHR, ILO, Council of Europe, National organisations such as Disability Rights Commission (UK), Organisations of people with disabilities such as EDF, etc.) aiming to understand the requirements of good practices and the key concepts in the field of disability and Human Rights. Taking into account the importance of accurate data and statistics to promote change in terms of national approaches do disability, the second stage of the project will focus on developing a tool to assess and plan disability policies in a Human Rights framework. Taking into account the existence of ICF, the CND aims to develop a tool that can capture the policies' approach to disability and its respect towards the principles of the 2006 UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with disabilities, which will enter into force in May 2008. The designed tool should be able to assess the level of different policies' respect for principles of inclusion and mainstreaming in the various areas of life (education, health, insurance, transport, employment, leisure, etc.). The tool should be a means to collect data about the legal situation of disability at macro level, by gathering information on availability, accessibility (physical, economic, informational, e-accessibility), affordability, accommodation, awareness, non-discrimination, autonomy, etc. The third stage of the research will focus in testing and improving the tool previously developed by analysing and comparing national policies of a number of European countries (Italy, Portugal, UK).