The Children’s Commissioner has submitted a report on disabled children to the United Nations, which is currently examining the UK’s treatment of disabled people.
The report, which draws on the Children’s Commissioner’s recent work with disabled children references research on issues affecting disabled children, findings from visits to places where children are living, evidence from the Help at Hand advice line, and consultation with children and young people.
It recommends greater monitoring of and insight into violence against disabled children and establishing taskforces to improve public attitudes toward disabled children and to tackle related hate crimes. It highlights the need for disabled children to have a consultative role in developing policies which will affect their lives.
The report will inform the UN’s assessment of how well the UK upholds the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled Persons. Ratified by the UK in 2009, the Convention is an international human rights treaty which sets out the rights that all disabled people – children, young people and adults – have.