Disability and Children

Disabled children experience double discrimination - by virtue of both their disability and their status as a child.

On 13 December 2006, the UN General Assembly adopted a new Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities, which seeks to introduce new obligations on governments and other duty bearers to take all the measures necessary to ensure that all their rights are fulfilled, protected and respected.

Find out how much you know about children and disabilites with CRIN's quiz!

1. Which is the only country to have so far ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (by 13 April 2007)?

A: Jordan
B: Japan
C: Jamaica

2. In which country was it discovered that 87 percent of children needing special care were being sexually abused, while more than half of them were found to be HIV-positive, and 47 percent were mentally challenged.

A: USA
B: Azerbaijan
C: Zimbabwe

3. What has been happening to mentally handicapped children in Iraq?

A: They are being confined to cages by their families
B: They are being used in suicide attacks and warfare
C: They are being used as slave labour on farms

4. What percentage of disabled children in developing countries receive an education?

A: 2 per cent
B: 12 per cent
C: 22 per cent

5. Who, in 1999, was quoted as saying: "You and I have been physically given two hands and two legs and half-decent brains. Some people have not been born like that for a reason. The karma is working from another lifetime. I have nothing to hide about that. It is not only people with disabilities. What you sow, you have to reap."

A: England football manager Glenn Hoddle
B: George W.Bush
C: The Dalai Lama

6. How many articles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child deal with disability?

A: Two
B: Four
C: One

7. Why has the disability Convention made the record books?

A: More countries signed up to the Convention on its first day than ever before
B: The text of the Convention has more vowels than any other UN document
C: The first country to ratify the Convention did so in the fastest ever time

8. Ten per cent of the world's population live with a disability - the "world's largest minority", according to the UN - but how many countries have legislation dealing specifically with disabled people?

A: Less than 50
B: Less than 60
C: Less than 70

9. Approximately what percentage of disabled people live below the poverty line in developing countries?

A: 82 per cent
B: 72 per cent
C: 62 per cent

10. At the 4th Session of the UN Human Rights Council in March, what did Vernor Muñoz Villalobos, Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education, say education for disabled children usually involves?

A: Exclusion
B: Inclusion
C: Too much money