2nd Cycle Universal Periodic Review BRAZIL Joint submission by relevant stakeholders on the rights of persons with disabilities in Brazil November 28th 2011 *Revised English version* Submitted by: ABRAÇA - Associação Brasileira para Ação por Direitos das Pessoas com Deficiência www.autismonobrasil.com.br Associação 3IN – Inclusão, Integridade e Independência www.3in.org.br Conectas Direitos Humanos www.conectas.org FRATER – Fraternidade Cristã de Pessoas com Deficiência www.fraterbrasil.org.br RIADIS – Rede de Latino-americana de Organizações Não- Governamentais de Pessoas com Deficiência e suas Famílias www.riadis.net 1. Recognizing the important role played by civil society in the process of implementing and monitoring the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the need for increased involvement in the processes necessary to implement these rights at the national level, the following organizations take this opportunity to provide comments and contributions to the Universal Periodic Review process, hoping thus to give visibility to the Convention and contribute to implementation of the rights of people with disabilities provided by this human rights convention. Introduction 2. Brazil is a country of continental dimensions and is part of the list of nations with higher levels of social inequality in the world. According to the Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada (IPEA), 10 million people live with less than US$ 1per day. Approximately 54 million people (30% of the population) are considered poor. Of these, 34 million live in poverty and 20 million in extreme poverty. 3. In this scenario of poverty and inequality, disability stands out. According to preliminary data from the last Census, there are 45.6 million people with disability in Brazil - or approximately 23.9% of the population. 4. Among the Brazilian regions, the north and northeast represented higher percentage of disability incidence than the national average - 16.7% and 16.1%, respectively. According to data from the census of the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE) in 2000, 15.3% of women and 13.7% of men have some form of disability. When comparing ethnic origin, disability is higher among indigenous peoples (17%) and African descent - or afrodescendent (17.5%) and browns (pardo) (17%) - as designated by the IBGE. Among people over 15 years old, the deficiency represents 18.8%. The rural population represents 15.1% and 14.3% are urban population considering the total of persons with disabilities in the country, according to the same survey. 5. The School Census (Censo Escolar) of 2010 indicates 10% increase in enrollment made in Special Education - from 639,718 in 2009 came to 702,603, of which 218,271 (31%) are in special classes or schools exclusive and 484,332 (69%) in common classes. Enrollment of students with disabilities are basically concentrated in elementary education (74.4%), with little presence in high school (4%) and infant education(9.8%) and higher education and adult (11.3%). Currently 30% of the nation's public schools are considered accessible. 6. The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was the first human rights treaty incorporated the Brazilian legal system with the status of constitutional law. This achievement was a result of the efforts of groups engaged in promoting and protecting the rights of persons with disabilities, members of civil society, nongovernmental organizations, activists in the area of human rights and people with disabilities, as well as public and academic authorities. 7. After more than two years that the Convention entered into force, Brazil must submit its official report to the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. From April to June 2011, the Brazilian government, through the National Secretariat for Promoting the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, through the Public Consultation No. 01/2011, has opened the text of the report for comments and contributions from civil society. Until de closure of this UPR submission, Brazil, however, has not yet sent its report to the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. 8. In 2008, Brazil submitted the first report submitted under the Universal Periodic Review process. [2] The report dealt with women's rights and racial equality, land rights, education, health and work, adequate food, combating poverty and social inequality, the practice of torture and extrajudicial executions, right to public citizen security, memory and truth, sexual orientation and gender identity, the rights of indigenous people and children and adolescents. 9. About the rights of persons with disabilities, the document brought only a few percentage data on the situation of this population in Brazil, references to the First National Conference on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006), the National Program of Accessibility and the process of ratifying the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities that was, at that time, still on process. This content was insufficient to provide a picture of the invisibility and exclusion faced by people with disabilities in the country. 10. The effective implementation of the rights guaranteed by the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities requires that the Universal Periodic Review process gives greater visibility to the inequalities that still contribute to the lack of participation of persons with disabilities on an equal basis with others, in all aspects of life such as access to education with quality and basic public services, to health care, transportation and adequate housing, ensuring employability and ability to exercise rights. Legislative Measures 11. Through the recent Decree. 7612 of 17 November 2011, the Brazilian government instituted the National Plan of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities – Plano Viver sem Limite (Living Without Limits Plan). In addition to adopting the social model of disability and the concept of people with disabilities provided in the Convention, the plan focuses on measures aimed at ensuring access to education, health care, accessibility and social inclusion. [3] The actions foreseen in the plan tend to indicate a greater realization of the rights of people with disabilities at national level. Gradually the government has been mobilizing in order to adopt effective measures to harmonize the national legislation to the content of this human rights treaty ratified by the State in 2008. 12. On the other hand, there is a concern about the official Portuguese version of the Convention translated by the Brazilian government, which is inaccurate in the translation of the preamble and Article 1, which can lead to misconceptions about who are or may be considered a person with disability under the social model of disability adopted by the treaty. 13. In Article 1, the text of the Portuguese official version in Brazil says "[p]eople with disabilities * are those * who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments which in interaction with various barriers may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others". In the original English, in turn, included people with disabilities include those who (...)". The use of different expressions makes all the difference in the interpretation of who is the target audience of treaty. The Convention does not propose a definition that limits the persons that is protected by it, just highlights those that that at least should be included. The writing in Portuguese, in this sense, is more restrictive. 14. In the letter 'E' of the Preamble - which is not legally binding, but supports the understanding of the treaty and the new concept of disability in which it is based -, the official Portuguese version in Brazil says, that "Recognizing that disability is an evolving concept and that disability results from the interaction between people with *disabilities* (...) and barriers, using the own concept of disability to describe the concept itself, but the original version says that "disability results from the interaction between people with impairments and the barriers..." establishing a key concept for the disability social approach. 15. Inaccurate translation can result in misunderstandings about the target audience of the international standard, preventing certain groups of people to benefit from the rights guaranteed in the CRPD and take part in the process of discussing, implementing and monitoring the Convention. An example is the persons with psychosocial disabilities, who are not recognized as people with disabilities in Brazil, despite their activism for the implementation of the Convention at the international level. 16. There are only few measures adopted in the legislative framework - which are crucially important as first steps to ensure the realization of the rights contained in the Convention. In this sense, as an example, it is needed to promote discussions and proposals in order to update the definition of persons with disabilities in other national legislations, criminalize discrimination based on disability, including the denial of provision of reasonable adaptation and ensure the recognition of all people with disabilities as citizens before the law. Recommendations: 17. The Brazilian government should make efforts to correct misunderstandings in the translation of the CDPD contained in the preamble and Article 1 in accordance with the original text of the CRPD. 18. Update the legal framework