NASSAU, The Bahamas – The
Bahamas will join its sister Member States of the United Nations in ratifying
the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities next week in New
York, United States of America, during the 70th Regular Session of
the United Nations General Assembly. (Ratification will take place on Monday,
September 28, 2015).
Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. Perry Gladstone Christie will
lead the Bahamian delegation to New York where he will join other world leaders
in attending the General Assembly. The delegation departed New Providence Thursday,
September 24, 2015.
Mr. Christie, was accompanied by Minister of Social Services
and Community Development, the Hon. Melanie Sharon Griffin, senior government
officials and officials from The Bahamas Permanent Mission to New York.
The General Assembly opens
on Friday (
September 25) ahead of
the Summit on Sustainable Development that takes place
September 25-27. The 193
Member States are expected to adopt the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
that are included in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The General Debate will take place from Monday, September
28, to
Saturday, October 3, 2015.
United Nations Secretary-General Mr. Ban Ki-Moon said the
Agenda for Sustainable development is “a roadmap to ending global poverty,
building a life of dignity for all, and leaving no one behind.”
“It is also a clarion call to work in partnership and
intensify efforts to share prosperity, empower people’s livelihoods, ensure
peace and heal our planet for the benefit of this and future generations.
“The new agenda is people-centred, universal, transformative
and integrated. It calls for action by all countries for all people over the
next 15 years in five areas of critical importance: people, planet, prosperity,
peace and partnership. The agenda recognizes that ending poverty must go
hand-in-hand with a plan that builds economic growth and addresses a range of
social needs, while tackling climate change,” the U.N. Secretary-General added.
The opening ceremony of the Summit will take place at
10:50 a.m.
Friday.
Mrs. Griffin will sign the protocol ratifying the U.N.
Convention of the Rights of Persons With Disabilities on behalf of the
Government and the people of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas
on Monday. The
Bahamas will also accede to two protocols associated with the Convention on the
Rights of The Child.
Ratification of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons
With Disabilities ends a whirlwind three-year period for the country, which
signed onto the Convention in September 2013; passed national legislation in
December, 2014 and implemented the legislation earlier this year.
“We are really elated to be able to do that (ratify the
Convention) on behalf of Persons With Disabilities at this time,” Mrs. Griffin
said. “Ratification simply means that we endorse the Convention and that we
agree as a country, to make provisions for the Convention in national
legislation which we have already done.
“We are expected to be among the first nine countries that
will ratify the Convention,” Mrs. Griffin added.
Minister Griffin said ratification of the Convention on the
Rights of Persons With Disabilities is a “significant” achievement for the
community of persons with disabilities and indeed The Bahamas as a country as
it allows The Bahamas to join the world in saying that it not only supports
persons with disabilities, but will make provisions for equal opportunities and
rights for those persons in our country who live with a disability.
“Particularly because it has been so long in coming, but it
feels like (over the past two years especially) in almost one swoop, we have
been able to achieve it. However, it’s been a culmination of many, many years
of hard work by so many people, so many advocates, so many persons with
disabilities to be able to arrive at this particular point in our country where
we have been able to sign onto the Convention in 2013; then pass the
legislation in 2014 then in 2015 to be able to ratify the Convention. That is
extremely significant,” Mrs. Griffin added.
Acceding to the optional protocols associated with the
Convention on the Rights of the Child that the country signed onto more than 20
years ago. Mrs. Griffin will again “have the privilege to do that on behalf of
the Government and the people of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas.”
The two optional protocols associated with the Convention on
the Rights of the Child which The Bahamas signed onto more than 20 years ago,
speak to children involved in armed conflict as well as child prostitution and
child pornography.
“While we don’t have armed conflict involving children here,
acceding to the protocol strengthens our position here in our country as well
as the international community. The Office of the Attorney General has given
consideration to them and indicated that there is no impediment to The Bahamas
signing onto those two optional conventions,” Mrs. Griffin added.
