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The Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria, will be hosting a regional conference titled ‘Fulfilling the right of persons with disabilities to live in the community: Promoting choice, inclusion and participation’. The 7th Annual Disability Rights Conference will be held on 11 and 12 November 2019 in Johannesburg. 

Conference Programme 

Disability Rights Unit Flyer

For the past six years, the Centre for Human Rights hosted the Annual Disability Rights Conference, which brings together people who work in and share a passion for protecting the rights of persons with disabilities in Africa.

Persons with disabilities, their family members, policy makers, policy implementers, lawyers, scholars, human rights and disability rights activists, have converged in South Africa for the past six years to share ideas and experiences on the implementation of the rights of persons with disabilities as provided for in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).

This year’s conference will provide a platform for participants to exchanges ideas and experiences on implementing the CRPD with particular reference to article 19, the right to live independently and be included in the community. The conference will also focus on the development of mechanisms and strategies for the effective domestication and implementation of article 19.

Article 19 has a counterpart in the African regional human rights system. In 2018, the African Union adopted the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Africa (African Disability Rights Protocol). Article 14 of the African Disability Rights Protocol, to a large extent, mirrors - but also adapts and extends - the substantive provisions of article 19 of the CRPD in guaranteeing persons with disabilities a discrete right to live in the community.

The 7th annual conference, to be held from 11 to 12 November 2019, will serve as a forum for scholarly interactions and exchange of ideas on proffering recommendations to address impediments to the right to live in the community. It seeks to bring together scholars, practitioners, care and service providers and researchers from the African region and beyond working on various aspects of the right to live in the community.

Past conferences have focused on different themes:

  • effective implementation of the UNCRPD in Africa (2013),
  • effective implementation of the rights of women (2014),
  • rights of children and youth in Africa (2015),
  • advancing the rights of persons with albinism in Africa (2016),
  • the rights to access to justice, legal capacity in Africa (2017) and
  • addressing barriers to inclusive education in the African region (2018).

For more information, please contact:

Jehoshaphat John Njau
Project Coordinator: Disability Rights Unit

Tel: +27 12 420 5408
Fax: +27 (0) 86 580 5743
jehoshaphat.njau@up.ac.za