Interview: Luis Gallegos of Ecuador, Chairman of UN Ad Hoc Committee on an International Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities
By Leonor Coello (l_coello@rehab-international.org)
On October 8, 2002 at the Permanent Mission of Ecuador I had the great pleasure of interviewing the Ambassador of Ecuador, Luis Gallegos, who is also serving as Chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee on an International Convention on the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities, which met for the first time in New York in July and August of 2002.
As an Ecuadorian and a disability activist, I was honored and proud to have had the opportunity to conduct this interview and I thank the Ambassador and his staff for adhering to it. As you will learn from the interview, Ambassador Gallegos is very much committed to protecting the rights of people with disabilities in Ecuador and worldwide.
Leonor Coello: Mr. Ambassador, first of all, let me congratulate you and the President of Ecuador, Mr. Gustavo Noboa Bejarano for receiving the Franklin Delano Roosevelt International Disability Award on behalf of Ecuador. In your opinion, what do you think was the main reason Ecuador received this award?
Disability work in Ecuador
Ambassador Gallegos: I think the recognition is a tribute to the work done in Ecuador during the last 15 years focusing on the reform of laws and legal statutes and the constitution of the Republic in order to support social change in this important area. For example, the work done under the auspices and guidance of the United Nations to create a national council on disabilities which coordinates the activities of all the government institutions toward making viable the requirements of the disability law. In addition, the intervention of the private and social sectors are very important in Ecuador toward this idea. Ecuador is a country that has limited possibilities economically; it is an underdeveloped country but has made a tremendous effort in this field.
LC: What are your personal feelings in taking part in the presentation of this award?
AG: Well, I was very proud that Ecuador received the Franklin Delano Roosevelt award. It's the first country in Latin America to receive it. I think that demonstrates a leadership role of Ecuador in Latin America. It also represents the worldwide attention to this subject. I think we have a joint vision between all of us who work in this field. We have to have a social change. Our societies must change in order to integrate people with disabilities into the mainstream of societies and make them active participants in our societies. We have to integrate our societies because if we do not do that, we exclude whole groups and no society is whole until all its components become part of it.
Impact of award
LC: How much of an impact has receiving this award made in Ecuador?
AG: Well, in Ecuador this was widely acknowledged and the President, Gustavo Naboa Bejarano, is not only informing the Ecuadorian public but also guiding the new activities toward this field. I know that for example there will be a ceremony in Ecuador in which the President will hand over the bust of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, which was given to him here in New York, to CONADIS, which is the National Council on Disabilities of Ecuado, and there is going to be a national recognition of people working in this field. Of course, as you know, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt prize was the bust and $50,000 to an NGO and FASINARM was the organization selected to receive this for its disability work. In addition there are 1000 wheelchairs that have to be distributed to different organizations and this will take place in the next two months. At the same time we are going to have two national meetings on the proposed UN Convention for the Protection of the Rights of Disabled Persons. So this next period will be a very active time for Ecuador on this theme.
LC: How much media coverage has this award been given in Ecuador?
AG: A very wide media coverage. The government had as we call it, a national chain of television --of all television and radio stations together-- and the press has covered it extensively.
New developments in Ecuador
LC: What are the new and important developments in disability in Ecuador that you would like to highlight?
AG: Well, I think that the most important part of the issue is how we can get people with disabilities either visible or invisible to participate actively in society. The exclusion of anyone with disabilities is what we want to address. Now, philosophically you can say a person is born with disabilities, a person can acquire disabilities during his life either by accident or during sickness, but certainly as he grows older most people will have some type of disability. That represents, according to the WHO almost 10 or more percent of the population of every country. Therefore, around 600 million people in this world have disabilities out of a total population of 6 billion. This means that approximately 40-45% of all households in the world have at least one person or a family member with disability. That is the most important indicator of how Ecuador will have to deal with this challenge -- both as a family structure, Ecuador has a society where the family has a very important role to play, and also as a government working hand in hand with active social groups.
How will the award funds be used?
LC: The President of Ecuador announced that the money awarded would be used towards prevention. That was one of the issues he said. Do you have any further details on that?
AG: The money was given to FASINARM which is an NGO which works in Ecuador on disabilities, on trying to educate people on disabilities, on working with disabled people." Prevention" in this sense means that they would work toward creating a social consciousness on how to prevent the violation of civil rights and human rights of disabled people. I think that we have also a new realization in the developing world that many of these disabilities are acquired by accidents, so safety standards of all types in the work place and home must be put into place.
Meeting of the Americas region in Quito
LC: What do you expect the main focus of the regional meeting in Ecuador would be? And how can NGOs from the region take part?
AG: We will have a regional meeting in Ecuador in April to discuss the proposed international convention for the protection and promotion of the human rights of disabled persons. During this meeting in Quito, experts and NGOs from the region of the Americas will have the opportunity to voice their experiences and concerns on what this convention should contain and how to orient this convention with the particularities of the Latin American region. Therefore I feel we have the opportunity in the meeting next year of having a very fruitful occasion of exchanging ideas and putting these ideas in written form for the worldwide negotiations.
LC: Are there strong disability rights groups in Ecuador? Can you describe the situation? In other words, what is the status of disability NGOs in Ecuador?
AG: I think that the NGO system is a relatively new system in the developing world. They've been around for 25-30 years so. I think there are NGOs at work in the disability field that are partners to NGOs worldwide: they have an association or guidelines or networks together. There are also groups that work, social groups, family groups, schools and also government institutions that work on these subjects. But I think that NGOs have a role to play in our growing democracy. It seems to me that the experience of disabilities visible and non-visible are so wide in different aspects, eventually you have to have organizations that deal almost on a singular basis with every disability. I don't think we've gotten to the point of NGOs working on all disabilities, but I do think that Ecuador is a country where civil society has had the opportunities to create these structures at least in the human rights field where I worked before. National programs on human rights comprise something like 650 NGOs and many of these groups may participate in the meeting.
Ambassador's outlook on the Convention
LC: Mr. Ambassador you had a very important role in the first UN Ad Hoc Committee meetings about the Convention that took place in August 2002. What did this role mean to you?
AG: I think from a personal point of view, I had the opportunity of meeting an extraordinary group of people who we call disabled, and learned they are capable of meeting the challenge, surpassing the challenge and giving us lessons of how to meet those challenges. I met these people both as members of national governmental delegations and as NGOs and I think it is the basis of a very noble cause.
The world as we know it now has to seize the opportunity to develop a legal system that will bring about a change in society-- where we will gain the acceptance in the world that disabled people should not be guarded or secluded or excluded from society as a whole. It is a complicated issue, it is not an easy issue, because with all due humility, I think that there are many of who don't understand, as we do not live integrated with the complexities of disabilities. But, I think we now have the opportunity of learning from negotiators and NGOs and expert the important need for a Convention on the Protection and Promotions of the Rights of Disabilities.
LC: How do you think we can advance the process of regional consultation in Latin America?
AG: I think the NGOs of the developed world have to create brotherhood with NGOs in Latin America and in the under developed world in order for this process to be inclusive. There is a certain element in which the NGOs from the developed world have the resources and can go to meetings in New York or wherever this will take place, but I think that we can't have an inclusive process if we do not have the participation of all. Now that is impossibility numerically, but I do think that NGOs of the developed and under developed world have to coordinate their activities and positions. There are different stances, there are different realities, there are different cultures and different aspects to this, but I do think this is an opportunity both to create bridges from one sector to another and to be able to work fruitfully on the subject.
LC: What do you think would be the result of a convention?
AG: My aspiration is that the convention will mean that we will have an international instrument signed by the majority of countries and ratified by the majority of countries that will give us the possibility to enforce legal standards in the disability field. This would mean that individuals or groups of individuals could take their cause to national jurisdictions or courts or international appeal courts - the recourse to which this person can make sure his rights are effectively respected. As you know in Ecuador, due to the constitution any international instrument that Ecuador signs and is ratified in the human rights field becomes automatically law in Ecuador. Therefore, I would hope that when the convention negotiations are finished and we have a document that can be signed by Ecuador and ratified by its Congress, it will immediately become law in Ecuador and therefore enforceable in its courts.
LC: Lastly Mr. Ambassador, in what timeframe do you think we will have a convention?
AG: I tend to be optimistic on this because I hope that the year 2003 will bring us to the very serious advancement of the convention. I hope that the work we will be doing on the convention will take us to the year 2003 with a document that can seriously be looked at and negotiated and finalized. I hope that by the year 2004 we will have a convention in which the state parties could sign and process of ratification can begin.
LC: Great. Thank you so much for your time. This has been very, very helpful.
AG: Always a pleasure.
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