04.04.2016 Week 3 of the Geneva marathon of Spring 2016

The marathon continues on Monday, 4 April with a morning briefing by Autism International followed by a discussion of the draft General Comment on article 6 (women and girls with disabilities).  During our lunch break we will be briefed by organisations of persons with disabilities from Slovakia, for whom I am Country Rapporteur. The afternoon sees the first leg of the three-hour consideration of the initial report of Slovakia.

On Tuesday, 5 April we will have a morning briefing by DPOs from Serbia, followed by the remainder of the three-hour exam of Slovakia.   After a pit stop we’ll start the constructive dialogue of Serbia in the capable hands of Laszlo Lovaszy, the Committee member from Hungary.

Wednesday, 6 April starts with a briefing by the Mental Disability Advocacy Centre (MDAC), Mental Health Uganda, Human Rights Watch and the Slovak National Disability Council: on the “provision of community based services, article 19”. This will be followed by another three-hour session of Serbia. We’ll have a lunch briefing by DPOs of Lithuania before going straight into the consideration of the initial report of Lithuania, led by Stig Langvad, Committee member from Denmark.

On Thursday, 7 April we have morning briefing by the Mental Disability Initiative of SerbiaMDRI-S, the National Mechanism for the Prevention of Torture, and the Commissioner for Protection of Equality on “the situation of persons with mental disabilities in residential and psychiatric institutions in Serbia” swiftly followed by the last three-hour leg of the exam of Lithuania. At lunch we’ll be briefed by DPOs of Uganda, and then straight into the first part of the six-hour dialogue with Uganda led by Danlami Basharu Committee member from Nigeria.

Friday, 8 April starts the day with the final three-hours dialogue with Uganda. A lunch briefing on the “Human rights of older persons and long term care” will be provided by the European Network of National Human Rights Institutions .  No rest yet….In the afternoon we will have a private session to review the draft guidelines of the new simplified reporting procedure; the draft guidelines for monitoring mechanisms, and inquiries proceedings.

Thanks to the International Disability Alliance (IDA), you can watch all the examinations live at: www.treatybodywebcast.org

I will be tweeting from @Diane_CBM with precise timings to tune in. You can also see the work via twitter using #CRPD15  Enjoy!

You can also read summaries of the examinations on the UN media website in Geneva.