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Key stakeholders in Mozambique optimistic on submitting the UNCRPD state party report
09 October, 2019
On 9 October 2019, key disability stakeholders in Mozambique expressed optimism on the submission of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) State Party Report to the UN by March 2020.
The optimism was expressed at a meeting organized by Southern Africa Federation of the Disabled (SAFOD) at Kaya Kwanga Resort, in Maputo.
SAFOD met with strategic representatives from the Ministry of Gender and Social Welfare, Ministry of Justice, Office of the Ombudsman, Office of the Speaker of Parliament, Westminster Foundation for Democracy, Disability Mainstreaming Focal Point at Human Rights Commission, and Forum of Associations of Disabled People in Mozambique (FAMOD)
The aim of the meeting was for SAFOD to follow up on the workshop that was organized in September 2018, on the National Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism of the UNCRPD.
The Ministry assured all participants that the reporting process for the State Party report was well on course, as several consultation meetings with various stakeholders were held until the draft was completed, ready for submission by March 2020.
The first version of the report was completed in 2013, but the cabinet did not approve it, then.
“We ratified the UNCRPD in 2010. This is the second report. There was a delay in reporting for the first term due to delays affected by the domestication processes in 2012,” he said.
On its part, FAMOD reported that the organization has been promoting the UNCRPD with a grant from Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA).
In 2019, FAMOD was actively working with the Westminster Foundation for Democracy to hold consultation workshops on Shadow Report.
On its part, the office of the Ombudsman said they were involved in monitoring the violations of rights of persons with disabilities by receiving, recording and acting upon their complaints by way of investigations and taking the perpetrators to book.
The violations that the office of Ombudsman dealt with ranged from rights related to voting to rights of persons with hearing impairment in prisons.
However, it was noted that there was lack of coordination between the office of the Ombudsman and other key stakeholders involved in the drafting of the State Party report. Due to the legal complications, there was no proper system in place to ensure that the violations recorded by the office fed into the State Party.
The SAFOD’s UNCRPD programme in currently being implemented in other countries, including Namibia, and Malawi. Following a regional training workshops on monitoring and reporting held in South Africa in June 2017, where participants from various countries in the region recommended the need for strengthening national monitoring and reporting mechanisms or systems. It is this event that led to the training workshops at country-levels in 2018 in Malawi, Namibia and Mozambique.