THE 7th ASEAN DISABILITY FORUM (ADF) CONFERENCE
11-12 December 2017
The Heritage Hotel, Manila, Philippines
The MANILA DECLARATION & RECOMMENDATIONS
We, the participants of the 6th ASEAN Disability Forum (ADF)
Conference 2017, organised by the ASEAN Disability Forum (ADF), in
cooperation with The organisation of Persons with disabilities (DPOs) in the
Philippines and multi stakeholders, to promote the UN Convention on the
Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), and the objectives of the
ASEAN Decade of Persons with Disabilities (2011-2020) in south east Asia
region.
DO HEREBY call upon the ASEAN Secretariat, the ASEAN Member
States, Regional Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), Disabled People’s
Organisations (DPOs), and organisations that work for persons with
disabilities:
To urge and expedite the inclusion of the issues and concerns of
ASEAN citizens with disabilities in the three pillars of the ASEAN
Community, namely: political-security, economic, and socio-cultural
pillars, with regards to the development, formulation and
implementation of policies, programs and activities in
accordance with international agreements commonly accepted by the
ASEAN Community;
ASEAN Disability Forum statement 2017
To acknowledge the imperatives of engagement of Persons with
Disabilities in all ASEAN Community institutions such as
the Independent Monitoring Committees for the implementation of the
UNCRPD, the ASEAN Decade of Persons with Disabilities, the
Incheon -Strategy, and the Beijing Declaration (2017);
To urge and fully support the meaningful participation of DPOs in
the development of tools and mechanisms for the inclusion of
disability issues in all policies, programs and activities of the ASEAN
Community on the basis of the principles and provisions of the CRPD
and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Thus, the
necessity to establish indicators and monitor compliance therewith;
To urge the ASEAN Economic Community and ASEAN
Members’ national statistics agencies to collect data and provide
statistical analyses on Persons with Disabilities by utilising the tools
developed by the Washington Group on Disability Statistics;
To require UN-ESCAP to share relevant statistical information with
ADF as a member of the working group;
To urge the ASEAN governments to expedite the establishment of
Commission on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of
Persons with Disabilities;
To urge other ASEAN agencies and institutions such as AICHR,
ACWC and ACMW to set up committees within their institutions
to monitor compliance to the principles and provisions of the CRPD;
To encourage and support the ADF members and national DPOs to
connect with and develop healthy working relationship with their
respective country’s Human Rights Commissions (HRC) and
media establishments to document and disseminate information on
cases of human rights violations involving Persons with Disabilities as
a means to aid in the ADF advocacy of protecting their rights;
To urge the ASEAN Community through its political-security pillar and
associate entities of Parliamentarian (AIPA) to promote and protect
the civil and political rights of Persons with Disabilities so as to enable
them to freely express, practice and enjoy their rights and freedom of
self-determination through accessible electoral processes;
ASEAN Disability Forum statement 2017
To encourage and fully support the ADF to introduce, promote and
share strategies that are accepted as best practices in the efforts to
end poverty and discrimination, to reduce gender inequality,
to promote healthy living, and to provide opportunities for education
and employment. This requires availability, accessibility and
transparency of budget processes and procurement policies of
governments addressing through Senior Official Meeting of Social
Welfare Development (SOMSWD);
To encourage ASEAN Business Advisory Council (ASEAN-BAC) to
promote Disability Inclusive Business and having procurement policy
research on the inclusion of persons with disabilities on the business
sectors in ASEAN;
To encourage ASEAN Member States, their government agencies
as well as the business sector through their associate entities in
ASEAN to promote the building of facilities that are safe, resilient and
accessible for Persons with Disabilities through the use of modern
technology and universal design;
To encourage ASEAN Member States, their government agencies,
ASEAN Mayor Forum and the business sector to adopt the
development of inclusive cities, municipalities and communities by
addressing environmental and accessibility issues in transportation
and other public services to promote independent living of Persons
with Disabilities;
To establish Standards on Accessibility that can be adopted
by ASEAN Member States and encourage their implementation. This
requires the installation of Technical Support Agencies through
including to member of associate entities related i.e transportation
(land, sea and sky) and aviation, and the establishment
of independent audit teams to monitor compliance of the Member
States;
To urge ASEAN Commission on Women and Children (ACWC) to set
up its policy strategy on tackling the violence against women and
children with disabilities by included it in ACWC Regional Plan of
Action implementation;
ASEAN Disability Forum statement 2017
To ensure access to justice, participation in the peace and conflict
resolution processes and equality of opportunities in development by
raising awareness of the benefits derived from respecting the
differences between persons and accepting human diversity in all
society. This requires the necessity of paradigm shift in looking at
Persons with Disabilities resulting to them being stigma-free. The
resolute practice of non-discrimination and inclusion shall enhance
protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms,
productive participation of DPOs in policy development, decision-
making, and political processes;
To promote disability as a cross-cutting and intersectional issue from
development and justice perspectives of Migrant Workers, Women
movement, Indigenous Peoples and Private/Business Sector;
To aggressively advocate for a paradigm shift in looking at
the provision by government of Personal Assistants, Sign Language
Interpreters and other human support personnel to Persons with
Disabilities from being considered as merely expensive welfare cost
to an imperative of productive investment in human resource. This
economic input will increase employment generation and thereby
expand the consumer base and the tax payer population. Aside from
enhancing the tapping of the productive capabilities of Persons with
Disabilities, the paradigm shift shall decrease the liability burden of
society;
Encourage international development agencies working on persons
with disability issues to develop their works with the twin track
approach such as mainstreaming and inclusion of the Persons with
disabilities and affirmative action approach to leverage the level of
equality and eliminate the discrimination by providing the reasonable
accommodation or adjustment; the target of work should be started
from the most marginalised group within disabilities i.e women,
children, psychosocial and deaf-blind, indigenous groups, victims of
violence.