Promoting the rights of Children with disabilities innocenti digest no

Changing attitudes
The UN Special Rapporteur on Disability has been a 
critical advocate in favour of the rights of persons with 
disabilities, and has stressed that changing attitudes 
towards disability require ridding society of prejudice 
and discrimination and breaking down walls of super-
stition and ignorance. The media are one of the most 
powerful tools to effect this change and have been 
successful in changing public attitudes in many coun-
tries and regions (see box 7.2 for an example from the 
Maldives). The Special Rapporteur has been engaged 
in promoting a major media campaign in the Middle 
East and North Africa region to raise awareness and 
motivate change in relation to both the image that 
people have of persons with disabilities and the im-
age that persons with disabilities have of themselves.
Just as raising awareness among the general public 
is important, so too is promoting the understanding 
of disability issues among professionals, including the 
police, judiciary, educationalists, health professionals 
and social workers at all levels of seniority. This 
is most effectively carried out by persons with 
disabilities and their families themselves. Initiatives 
of this kind help ensure that children and adults with 
disabilities are treated with equity in all aspects of 
civil society. 
budget allocations and priorities
The UN General Assembly Special Session on 
Children in 2002 called for the establishment of 
national goals for children incorporating targets 
for reducing disparities, including those between 
children with and without disabilities. Such a 
commitment requires clear budget allocations that 
permit these policies to be implemented effectively 
and promote equity at all levels. 
Box 7.2 Raising disability awareness in 
the Maldives
From 2001 to 2002, the UNICEF ’First Steps’ Early 
Childhood campaign in the Maldives broadcast 
messages about infants and young children 
across radio and television three times a day, 
using local children and families as ’actors’. Each 
week there was a different message, and sev-
eral spots focused on disability, including early 
detection, inclusion and positive perceptions of 
children with disabilities.
i
In one message, a new 
mother is shown simple ways to test whether her 
baby has a visual or auditory impairment. In an-
other, a group of older children use a parachute 
to play a game with their younger siblings. Some 
of the children have a disability, some do not. 
In 2004, an evaluation demonstrated a direct link 
between the campaign and changes in public 
attitudes and behaviours. It specifically empha-
sized that the “significant achievement” of the 
campaign was an increased awareness of chil-
dren with disabilities, children who had previous-
ly been all but invisible in the Maldives. It stated: 
“Social acceptance of mentally and physically 
challenged children improved and even child-to-
child interactions became increasingly positive 
following the campaign.”
Source:
i
 ’UNICEF Maldives 2002 Annual Report’ (internal docu-
ment), UNICEF, Maldives; Kolucki, Barbara, ’High Praise 
for Disability- Inclusive Early Childhood Campaign in 
Maldives’ , Disability World, No. 26 (December 2004- 
February 2005),
children/maldives.shtml>.

---

35
Promoting the Rights of Children with Disabilities
Innocenti Digest No. 13
Support is most effective when it is directed at 
encouraging new, inclusive approaches founded 
upon the family, the community and the rights of 
the child, including the right to express her or his 
views and influence decisions. It is important to 
acknowledge that support may sometimes be given 
to projects which, however well-intentioned, per-
petuate exclusion. These include segregated special 
schools, sheltered workshops, projects to renovate 
and improve institutions, or others that distance 
persons with disabilities from their families and the 
local community. 
Promoting inclusion also makes economic sense. 
It does away with the need for expensive parallel 
systems of service provision. Facilitating access to 
the world of work – including for children who, in 
conformity with relevant international standards, 
are old enough to have access to employment – 
reduces the high cost to States in terms of benefit 
payments and the loss of potential productivity. It 
also maximizes the contribution that persons with 
disabilities make once they are have a job in the 
form of tax and social insurance payments, and their 
contribution to the national economy by developing 
the consumer potential of persons with disabilities. 
Although there are few studies addressing this is-
sue, the potential economic gains in this regard are 
substantial. A study presented to the World Bank, 
for example, conservatively estimated that for 36 
countries of the Americas region, the productivity 
loss in 1993 due to exclusion of persons with dis-
abilities from the labour market amounted to ap-
proximately US$625 billion.
124