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INDEPTH: DAY CARE
Day Care in Canada
CBC Television News Online, February 9, 2005
It was first proposed in 1970 a program that would provide affordable day care across the country.
It was promised when Brian Mulroney and the Conservatives swept to power in 1984. And again four years later.
By the time Jean Chretien's Liberals did some political sweeping of their own in 1993, promises of a national
day-care strategy had fallen victim to the realities of a government wallowing in debt. With budgetary knives
sharpened and drawn, day care would have to wait.
But the economic climate began to shift and in 1997, Quebec introduced its own day-care system, offering spaces at
$5 a day. Demand quickly surpassed supply.
More ..
The International Day of Disabled Persons - December 3
The International Day of Disabled Persons, which is held
every year on 3 December, aims to promote an understanding
of disability issues and mobilise support for the dignity,
rights and well-being of persons with disabilities. The
2007 theme was 'Decent work for persons with disabilities.'
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities -
the first major human rights treaty of the 21st century
This year's International Day of Disabled Persons had special
significance as a new international
Convention for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities,
which was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2006, has
become the fastest ever signed Convention, with 118 signatures
so far.
Two countries - Spain and South Africa - took the opportunity
of the International Day to ratify the new Convention; Bangladesh
also ratified last week.
However, the Convention has yet to come into force as only
10 countries – Bangladesh, Croatia, Cuba, Gabon, Hungary,
India, Jamaica, Panama, South Africa and Spain - out of
a required 20 have ratified the Convention.
Children with disabilities
Some 150-200 million out of two billion children worldwide
- or ten per cent of children - live with disabilities.
Children with disabilities experience widespread violations
of their rights, many of which are common to those faced
by adults – poverty, social exclusion, lack of accessible
environments, violence.
They face abuses including abandonment as babies, institutionalisation,
exclusion from education, lack of birth registration, lack
of respect for their evolving capacities, inappropriate
child protection systems. Estimates indicate that over 90
per cent of all children with disabilities are unlikely
to receive any formal education.
Children and the new Convention
The new Convention marks a shift from seeing children with
disabilities as objects of charity, and addressing their
'special needs' - the approach set out in Article 23 of
the Convention on the Rights of the Child - to subjects
of rights.
All the Articles in the text apply to children with disabilities;
in addition, Article 7 sets out specific obligations to
ensure children with disabilities enjoy of all human rights
and fundamental freedoms on an equal basis with other children,
to ensure that the best interests of the child is a primary
consideration, and to provide disability and age appropriate
assistance to ensure that children with disabilities are
able to realise the right to their express views on all
matters of concern to them and have them taken seriously
in accordance with age and maturity.
Read more in Gerison Lansdown's paper: The New Disability Convention and the Protection of Children.