Every year on December 3, the International Day of Persons with Disabilities is marked worldwide. The celebration of this day serves the purpose of raising public awareness of the rights of persons with disabilities and ensuring their equal participation in all spheres of society.

Every year, on December 3, the world community tries to focus on a specific goal, which will further promote the equal protection of the rights of persons with disabilities and their inclusion in society. “Amplifying the Leadership of Persons with Disabilities for an Inclusive and Sustainable Future” has been selected as this year’s theme. States should place particular emphasis on strengthening the participation of persons with disabilities in decision-making processes, promoting their inclusion in all areas of life, raising public awareness of their issues, and celebrating and showcasing their achievements and contributions.

Persons with disabilities have the right to express their opinions, to participate in peaceful protests, and to engage in political processes on an equal basis. These rights are essential to ensuring an inclusive society, where diversity is valued and each person’s voice serves to create the common good.

The Public Defender condemns the beating of a deaf person participating in a protest in Tbilisi on the morning of December 3 and calls on the State to ensure the realization of the right to peaceful expression of opinion for persons with disabilities on an equal basis with others and to take into account the individual needs of persons with all types of disabilities when planning or implementing response measures against protesters.

Ten years after the ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, equal participation of persons with disabilities in public life remains unattainable in Georgia due to systemic problems that have not been resolved for years. In particular, the current flawed medical model of determining disability status still fails to see people with relevant needs and, accordingly, leaves many of them beyond the State's attention, which indicates the need to promptly implement a biopsychosocial model of assessment. Accessibility of the physical environment, services, information and communication remains a problem in the country. A national accessibility plan has not been approved to date, and there is no standard to ensure access to information and communication for persons with disabilities, which is naturally an obstacle to the proper realization of other rights by persons with disabilities.

Among the main systemic challenges in practice are the adequate access to inclusive education at all levels of education in the country, the proper realization of the right to employment. The scarcity of measures to promote independent living and the inaccessibility of necessary habilitation/rehabilitation services for persons with disabilities remain problematic due to problems with the geographical coverage of services, insufficient funding and/or provision of qualified specialists. Adult persons with disabilities, including those with autism, are still deprived of the necessary rehabilitation. Access to medical services for persons with disabilities is also problematic. The situation has worsened further in inpatient psychiatric institutions, where the existing therapeutic, infrastructural and sanitary-hygienic conditions do not comply with national or internationally established standards and in many cases make it impossible to treat patients in conditions that protect their dignity. The implementation of the 2022-2024 Action Plan of the 2022-2030 Mental Health Strategy is being delayed.

It should be emphasized that persons with disabilities are still the most frequently targeted by stigma, unequal treatment and hate speech, which complicates their full integration into society, exacerbates the problem of social inequality and prevents positive steps towards equality for persons with disabilities. The activities provided for by the 2024-2026 Human Rights Action Plan to reduce stigma and stereotypical attitudes towards persons with disabilities do not even minimally respond to the existing challenges.

In addition, the Public Defender emphasizes the difficulties in ensuring the substantive participation of persons with disabilities at all levels of decision-making.

Considering this year's theme of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, the Public Defender once again calls on the responsible agencies to unite their efforts to eliminate the systemic problems facing persons with disabilities that have not been resolved for years, to make special efforts to raise awareness of the public and target groups about persons with disabilities, to promote the protection of equal rights of persons with disabilities and their inclusion in society, to present the role and achievements of persons with disabilities and to provide information to the public about it, as well as to improve the substantive participation of persons with disabilities in the decision-making process and to ensure the creation of new mechanisms of participation, if necessary, and the strengthening of existing mechanisms and their effective implementation in practice.