We know that children with disabilities are often denied access to the most basic primary education.

Due to pervasive cultural stigma and marginalization of people with disabilities, children with disabilities are left behind even by highly-touted “education for all” schemes. The global literacyrate for women with disabilities is estimated to be amere one percent. This has dire consequences on ourability, as people with disabilities, to function on equal terms within our communities.

A lack of education continues the vicious cycle of social and economic marginalization, with its range of consequences. One of these is exclusion from sexual health education and information. In places grappling with an AIDS pandemic this exclusion is life-threatening. Because of a lack of education, youth with HIV/AIDS in Africa are less likely to be literate, more likely to be economically marginalized, and less likely to be able to negotiate safe sexual eequate health care services.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child has been in force since 1990 guaranteeing all children, including children with disabilities, a basic education. However, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities gives us a new tool with which to fight. We now must use these resources effectively to end the routine neglect of disabled children’s right to education. We must pressure AIDS agencies, donors and governments to include people with disabilities in all of their programmes, just as we must compel global education efforts to stop the exclusion of children with disabilities. 

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 Disability International 2009-1

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