Disability at a Glance 2010: a Profile of 36 Countries and Areas in Asia and the Pacific

The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) has been at the forefront of promoting a rights-based approach to disability issues since 1993 through two consecutive disability-specific regional decade initiatives (ESCAP 2007a). The current Asian and Pacific Decade of Disabled Persons, 2003-2012 promotes the creation of an inclusive, barrier-free and rights-based society with its policy guideline, the Biwako Millennium Framework for Action towards an Inclusive, Barrier-free and Rights-based Society for Persons with Disabilities in Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP 2003), and its supplement, the Biwako Plus Five: Further Efforts towards an Inclusive, Barrier-free and Rights-based Society for Persons with Disabilities in Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP 2007b). At the global level, the latest achievement is the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the first legally binding disability-specific human rights convention; it is aimed at promoting, protecting and ensuring the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by persons with disabilities (United Nations 2008).1 With the entry into force of the Convention on 3 May 2008, a new era was ushered in. All stakeholders are now legally obligated to realize the shift from a charity-based approach to a rights-based approach to disability, a new perspective that was enshrined in the Biwako Millennium Framework for Action and Biwako Plus Five. Together, the Convention, the Biwako Millennium Framework or Action and the Biwako Plus Five provide an estimated 400 million persons with disabilities in the region with strong support which they can use to claim their ights and enjoy equal opportunities in terms of development and participation in society.