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OAS Monitoring Committee of the Convention on Persons with Disabilities Advances in the Development of a Manual on the Rights of Disabled People

The Working Group of the Monitoring Committee of the Inter-American Convention for the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Persons with Disabilities (CEDDIS), whose Technical Secretariat is headed by the Organization of American States (OAS), concluded today a regional meeting in Lima, Peru, where it advanced in the development of an "Instructive Handbook on Supported Decision-making and Safeguards for the Exercise of Legal Capacity of Persons with Disabilities," for member countries.

For two days, the Working Group analyzed in the Peruvian capital the contents of the manual, which aims to support member states with specific guidance on different types of decision making to ensure persons with disabilities -including those with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities – the full exercise of their legal capacity.

The Handbook will be destined for judicial operators, judges, public defenders, prosecutors, notaries, public registrars, prison services, legal experts and public officials of the Americas.

The meeting was attended by 30 delegates, observers and experts from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay and Peru. The event also included officials from the Department of Social Inclusion of the Executive Secretariat for Integral Development of the OAS.

The agenda included discussion and agreement about the conceptual framework of the Handbook, and the basic criteria for the identification of good practices from different countries of the region, in terms of full exercise of the legal capacity of persons with disabilities. In this context, the Committee approved two questionnaires aimed to all areas of public sectors involved with this issue and to organizations of persons with disabilities, for the collection of such experiences and good practices, which will be the basis that sustains the definitive edition of the regional Instructive Handbook.

Also during today's session, a meeting was held with leaders of civil society organizations of persons with disabilities from Peru and the region to gather their views, comments and proposals about the documents under discussion.

With inputs from this meeting and a new round of consultations, the Working Group will advance in the development of the Handbook, which aims to promote a new social paradigm on disability, which affirms that every person, regardless of their disability, is a person first and a citizen with full rights and duties to exercise, on an equal basis with others.

For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org.

Reference: E-141/15