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I have written before in this blog that there seemed to be some extent of anxiety among officials in China with the upcoming UN CRPD review for the country’s progress – in many events that I have attended, people openly referred to this as one of the reasons for recent change in disability policy. After a long wait, on 30 August, China’s Disabled Persons’ Federation posted the draft of the CRPD progress report and a notice for seeking public comments on their website. The wording of the notice looks inviting enough, however, very soon you would notice something really odd going on: the due date of submitting your comments is 31 August. You might be thinking: Is this some kind of error? A joke? Nope. It really happened that only 24 hours were given to people to respond to the draft.
(The link to the draft is: http://www.cdpf.org.cn/ggtz/201808/t20180830_635847.shtml, however, you might not be able to open it. I was not able to access it directly on the day.)
After reading the draft, I quickly wrote up my comments in order to meet the deadline. Below are some of the main points in my email:
1. I first criticised the practice of only leaving a 24-hour window for public consultation, and not to mention that the only way of having one’s opinion heard was by emailing. The barriers for disabled people’s participation were significant, which had already violated the convention. It is perhaps hard to believe that the draft even states that this report has been through the process of public consultation.
2. The draft of the report says that the problems of a medical model of disability have been addressed, however, there is no sufficient evidence in policy and practice.
3. The draft only mentions the development of accessibility regulations, overlooking the implementation and monitoring of the relevant regulations in practice. For example, there are still new schools being built without accessible facilities.
4. The draft has not recognised the need to tackle violence against disabled children, although more and more incidents have been reported which happened domestically or in institutions.
5. Clearly the author(s) take proud of the revision of the education regulation, because the terminology ‘inclusive education’ is used explicitly. However, the draft has not provided any information about how inclusive education is implemented in daily practice – Where are the voices of disabled children and families? Interestingly, the draft also has not mentioned the model of resource classroom, which is being promoted across the country in mainstream schools and given recognition in the revised education policy. The opening of special schools also continues with supporting funding from the government. It seems that the rhetoric change in policy text about inclusion might risk being tokenistic.
6. The draft, while claiming that the problems of a medical model of disability have been recognised, has not mentioned how the dominance of this model affects approaches of education for disabled children.
7. The draft also has not mentioned how ‘home schooling’ is legitimised, which while being helpful for some children, might reinforce marginalisation and exclusion for others. Again, there is no information provided about how this is implemented.
Unfortunately, after a few hours of sending over my email, it was bounced back by crpd@cdpf.org.cn, for some technical problem with their server.
Overall, the draft of the report is disappointing. It tries to highlight the ‘progress’, either by saying something that the committee might want to hear (e.g. models of disability, inclusive education etc.) or referring to change in policy texts. Some issues that might be questioned by the committee are left out deliberately. And how about the ‘progress’ we have seen through the tireless work of grassroots communities? The online consultation that opened for 24 hours may help tick a box for China’s implementation of the CRPD, however, such practice has reflected exactly how disabled people’s voices continued to be marginalised.
