Advocating for children with disabilities

The Children Right's Information Network (CRIN) offers useful information on advocating for children with disabilities.


Their site also offers some facts on children with disabilities:



* Up to 150 million children globally have a disability and the numbers are rising
* Children with disabilities are disproportionately likely to live in poverty
* 50% of children who are deaf and 60% of those with an intellectual impairment are sexually abused
* Parents and medical professionals who murder children with disabilities often have reduced sentences and use mercy killing defences – the lives of children with disabilities are not treated as of equal value with others
* In some countries 90% of children with disabilities will not survive beyond the age of 20
* 98% of children with disabilities across the developing world have no access to education
* Discrimination in relation to life saving treatments, to health care, to child care services and education is endemic
* Access to justice is routinely denied because they are not considered credible witnesses

[Source: Draft version of 'Promoting the Rights of Children with Disabilities: A guide to using the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities with the Convention on the Rights of the Child,' produced on behalf of the Save the Children Alliance by Sweden and the UK]