Today, the Forum on Disarmament and Development (FDD) participated in a meeting organized by the Ministry of Justice on finalizing the Draft Bill on Disability Rights. Sri Lanka signed the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) on the 30th of March 2007, and ratified the same on the 8th of February 2016. At today's discussion, all the parties agreed that two draft documents by the Ministry of Social Services and Disability Organizations on the Draft Bill should amalgamated into one document and presented at the next meeting on the 9th of November.
During the discussion, FDD stressed the importance of mentioning in the introduction section of the Draft Bill that "This national law has been developed to domesticate the UN CRPD, Child Rights Convention (CRC) as well as International Humanitarian Law (IHL), especially the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention (APMBC).
Senior Officials of the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Social Services, Presidential Secretariat, Attorney General's Department, Legal Draftsman's Department and Disability Organizations participated in today’s meeting. The meeting was chaired by Member of Parliament Ajith Mannaperuma who was appointed by the Minister of Justice to this Committee. The FDD is hopeful that the Draft Disability Bill will be presented to Parliament soon.
