The Work and Employment of Persons with Disabilities

A/HRC/RES/22/3No PDF available

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 3Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development, published in 2013.

What subjects does this mandate have?

8 topics

Accessibility Anti-Discrimination Measures Employment Policy Equal Opportunity Persons with Disabilities Report Preparation Right to Education Right to Work

What does this mandate say?

30 operative paragraphs

Welcomes the fact that, to date, one hundred and fifty five States have signed and one hundred and twenty eight States and one regional integration organization have ratified or acceded to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and that ninety one States have signed and seventy six States have ratified or acceded to the Optional Protocol to the Convention, and calls upon those States and regional integration organizations that have not yet ratified or acceded to the Convention and the Optional Protocol to consider doing so as a matter of priority;

Encourages States that have ratified the Convention and have submitted one or more reservations to it to initiate a process to review regularly the effect and continued relevance of such reservations, and to consider the possibility of withdrawing them;

Welcomes the thematic study on the work and employment of persons with disabilities prepared by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and calls upon all stakeholders to consider the findings and recommendations of the study;

Calls upon States parties to ensure that persons with disabilities can effectively and fully enjoy the right to work on an equal basis with others, including the right to the opportunity to gain a living by work freely chosen or accepted in a labour market and work environment that is open, inclusive and accessible to persons with disabilities;

Also calls upon States parties to adopt and implement appropriate measures, including legislative measures, to ensure that persons with disabilities enjoy the right to work on an equal basis with others, including by, inter alia:

Prohibiting by law discrimination on the basis of disability in the area of work and at all phases of employment, including the denial of reasonable accommodation;

Promoting equal access for persons with disabilities to the open labour market, in particular by promoting alternative approaches to sheltered employment schemes where such schemes are inconsistent with the Convention;

Adopting positive measures, as appropriate, to increase employment of persons with disabilities in the public and private sectors, in particular for women and youth with disabilities, persons with intellectual or psychosocial disabilities, and ensuring that such positive measures are designed and promoted in a way that recognizes the value of diversity in the workplace and of equal career development for all;

Employing persons with disabilities in the public sector and considering setting targets for such employment;

Promoting inclusive and non-discriminatory opportunities for self-employment, entrepreneurship, the development of cooperatives and starting one’s own business, including through microfinance schemes;

Establishing accessibility requirements for all employers to eliminate barriers that hinder job seekers and employees with disabilities from access to the workplace on an equal basis with others;

Ensuring reasonable accommodation is provided in both public and private sector employment;

Ensuring also that persons with disabilities have equal access to education and vocational training that is non-discriminatory, accessible to and inclusive of persons with disabilities, including by providing reasonable accommodation, and by promoting continuous learning;

Ensuring further that habilitation and rehabilitation programmes are non-discriminatory and adequately take into account the needs of persons with disabilities;

Establishing and maintaining access to social protection programmes, including those created pursuant to recommendation No. 202 of the International Labour Organization concerning national floors for social protection, that support persons with disabilities in seeking, transitioning to and maintaining work, and that recognize the additional costs that persons with disabilities face in their access to the open labour market;

Promoting public awareness campaigns to address negative attitudes, stigma and stereotypes of persons with disabilities, including women with disabilities, that hinder their opportunity to participate in work and employment on an equal basis with others;

Reaffirms the obligation of States parties to ensure that persons with disabilities are not held in slavery or in servitude, and are protected, on an equal basis with others, from forced or compulsory labour;

Calls upon States parties, and urges private sector employers and workers’ organizations to ensure that measures to assist persons with disabilities in their access to and maintaining employment are consistent with the Convention, including the general principles of inclusion in society, individual autonomy, including the freedom to make one’s own choices, and independence of persons;

Calls upon States, in realizing the right to work for persons with disabilities, to engage the private sector and, in this regard, urges the private sector to employ persons with disabilities, to create a welcoming working environment and to identify and eliminate barriers that hinder their access to the workplace on an equal basis with others;

Urges States to consult closely with and actively involve persons with disabilities and their representative organizations in designing, implementing, evaluating and monitoring policies and programmes relating to the employment of persons with disabilities;

Encourages States and invites other relevant stakeholders, including national monitoring mechanisms, to collect appropriate information, including disability-specific and gender-specific statistical and research data, to enable the formulation and implementation of policies to improve the employment situation of persons with disabilities;

Encourages States to create or strengthen relevant monitoring or complaint mechanisms that, inter alia, promote, protect and monitor the implementation of the right to work for persons with disabilities;

Encourages all relevant actors in the design of products, environments, programmes and services relating to work and employment to pay due attention to universal design, which requires the consideration of the needs of all members of society in order to avoid the need for any subsequent adaptation or specialized design;

Acknowledges the importance of international cooperation at all levels and, in this regard, encourages all relevant actors in taking measures of international cooperation to consider appropriate and effective measures in support of national efforts to promote employment opportunities for persons with disabilities on an equal basis with others;

Decides to continue to integrate the rights of persons with disabilities into its work, in accordance with Human Rights Council resolution 7/9 of 27 March 2008;

Also decides that its next annual interactive debate on the rights of persons with disabilities will be held at its twenty-fifth session, and that it will focus on the right of persons with disabilities to education;

Requests the Office of the High Commissioner to prepare a study on the right of persons with disabilities to education, in consultation with States and other relevant stakeholders, including the United Nations Children’s Fund, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, regional organizations, the Special Rapporteur on Disabilities of the Commission for Social Development, civil society organizations, including organizations of persons with disabilities, and national human rights institutions, and requests that the study be made available on the website of the Office of the High Commissioner, in an accessible format, prior to the twenty-fifth session of the Human Rights Council;

Encourages organizations of persons with disabilities, national monitoring bodies and human rights institutions to participate actively in the debate referred to in paragraph 15 above, as well as in regular and special sessions of the Human Rights Council and its working groups;

Requests the Secretary-General to continue to ensure that the mandate of the Office of the High Commissioner on the rights of persons with disabilities and the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities are adequately resourced for the fulfilment of their tasks;

Requests the Secretary-General and the High Commissioner to continue the progressive implementation of standards and guidelines for the accessibility of facilities and services of the United Nations system, also taking into account relevant provisions of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and underlines that the Human Rights Council, including its Internet resources, should be fully accessible to persons with disabilities.

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