Discapacidad e inclusión social

This paper provides an overview of disability policy in Portugal, and advances an analysis of selected law and policy instruments with a focus on issues relevant to the sexual and reproductive rights of women with disabilities. The analysis demonstrates that reforms underway have so far been unable to reverse path dependent trajectories, which erased gender-related concerns from the disability political agenda since its inception. Therefore, issues connected to disabled women's sexual and reproductive rights remain invisible. Given that Portugal has now signed and ratified the CRPD, implementation of the Convention is expected to affect positive change in this important area of rights.

This paper approaches the general issue of the complex challenges in the relationship between those who generate data -- researchers, scientists, and state statistical offices -- and those who use data -- researchers and policy-makers -- in light of the more specific policy challenges created by the monitoring requirement of the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD: Article 33). International Conventions and Treaties standardly suffer from being persistently ineffectual primarily because of the absence of implementation mechanisms. The CRPD, by contrast, explicitly requires State Parties who have ratified it to institute data generation and monitoring mechanisms for its implementation. This paper argues that WHO’s International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) can be brought into the service of the CRPD data generation and monitoring mandate, both in the shaping of relevant data streams and in the creation of relevant indicators, and concludes by reviewing the challenges that remain.

The present paper examines the theories and principles upon which the Convention of the rights of people with disabilities (CRPD) are premised. It therefore demonstrates the potential value and utility that these have in extending the inherent human rights that people with disabilities, are endowed. The implementation of the CRPD is a challenge considering the complex ‘rights based’ issues involved and because disabled people have to generate the commitment from civil society and government. It is argued that there is a need to move from policy to implementation, and that this needs to be adequately monitored and evaluated. Sustainable and effective interventions will benefit by being informed, monitored and evaluated based upon the broader human rights paradigm and the capabilities approach.