Article 31 Statistical Research and Collection of Data (in response to Paragraphs 300 to 301 of the State Report)
Issues concerning the “population” of people with disabilities
When conducting statistical surveys on PWDs, it is important to determine who the subjects are. As far as research purpose and application of results are concerned, selecting PWDs who hold a disability card or certificates as subjects can be very different from picking those targeted by WHO’s 6-question disability measure. Statistical results obtained with the latter group of subjects are useful in guiding the government to become aware of the disability prevalence among the total population, a figure that may serve as a reference for resource allocation. Moreover, judging from the relatively broad definition of PWDs stated in the CRPD, all the PWDs among the total population should be selected as a population to be longitudinally monitored with relevant indicators in the future, so as to determine whether the State is continuously fulfilling its duties stipulated in the CRPD. In contrast, the statistical results obtained with PWDs holding a disability card or certificates reflect the needs for and availability of government services and are thus helpful in knowing about the target groups of certain types of service. But it is worth noting that, despite the changeful nature of how disability is defined as well as the ten-year intervals between censuses, determining the number of the PWDs holding a disability card and certificates among all PWDs is essential. Only with such work are we able to identify the differences in terms of category or degree of disability between the PWDs with a disability card and those without, and to determine the reasons for not holding a disability card, such as finding it unnecessary, or having no access to or being incapable of filing applications for disability certificates and ensuing social services.
Statistical surveys that reflect the fulfillment of CRPD duties
With regard to the “Survey on living conditions and needs of PWDs” conducted every five years, the survey design does not, despite the choice of PWDs holding a disability card or certificates as survey subjects, reflect any awareness of rights or include all the rights safeguarded by the CRPD. It is therefore difficult to judge from the survey results whether rights of PWDs are increasingly protected, especially in terms of certain essential aspects of life related to social participation and dignity: autonomy of decision making, support of decisions, effective public participation, and so on.
When conducting major statistical surveys (on employment or income, for instance) for official use, the government should always include the question “Are you a person with disabilities?” for the subject being surveyed, so that it will be easier for the differences between PWDs and other social groups to be identified. Such measure, certainly, has been deemed by the government as an action likely to invade privacy or lower response rates. Nevertheless, these concerns should not be mere speculations or used as grounds for rejection; instead, the government should carefully assess them before deciding whether to adopt the measure or not.
Human rights budget is an important item in terms of human rights statistics. It is true that due to budget limit, social services available from the government are also limited to a certain degree. Nevertheless, whether or not these services are able to meet the basic needs of PWDs or implement the essential duties stated in the CRPD has never been evaluated in a comprehensive manner. Budget limit is a common reason used on the part of the Ministry of Health and Welfare to respond to requests from PWDs; however, there is a lack of convincing data also on the part of the Ministry for explaining to other government agencies how much budget and how many administrative resources should be increased.
In a number of general comments15, UN core human rights treaties mention the circular process of indicator-benchmark-scoping-assessment (IBSA) and recommends implementing it to longitudinally monitor the State regarding its implementation of human rights duties. Such process is all the more vital when it comes to the safeguarding of economic, social and cultural rights over time. To be more specific, the IBSA process comprises the following steps: select representative indicators suitable for monitoring the situations concerning one specific right, obtain quality disaggregated data through research design and surveys based on human rights statistics, produce benchmarks for improvement with regard to the indicators on the part of the State, conduct scoping reviews regarding these benchmarks through constructive dialogues between the International Review Committee and government representatives, and eventually, in four years’ time (the interval between two international reviews of the CRPD), start over the same assessment.
Both the collection of data and the IBSA tool mentioned in this article require competence in the field of human rights statistics. In fact, during the past few years, human rights groups repeatedly requested the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics to train the personnel from statistical offices on skills of human rights statistics. They also requested the office to make thorough investigations on the methods of categorization, collection and analysis for demographical data regarding official statistics and administrative surveys, in hopes of generating quality statistical data on human rights while respecting the privacy and dignity of citizens. The Directorate-General, however, never agreed to comply on the grounds of political obstacles. In view of the above, it is clear that the State lacks not only an integral human rights policy since the enactment of the Two Covenants in 2009, but also the political will to lay the foundations for human rights work.
Specific recommendations for the government regarding the abovementioned issues are as follows:
The government should conduct censuses to obtain disability prevalence, and to determine the reasons for not holding a disability card or any other certificates, while regarding all PWDs among the total population as the target population on which human rights statistics and indicators will be based.
The government should create new administrative surveys by selecting PWDs as main subjects to establish links and comparability with the past surveys, and, more importantly, respond to the CRPD duties with survey questions.
We sincerely invite the Review Committee to make use of the ISBA process in order to encourage the State to make improvements with regard to urgent disability issues following certain objectives and schedules.
We look forward to seeing the Review Committee state clearly in the Concluding Observations and Recommendations the foundations and training programs required for conducting statistical research on human rights issues.
- Such as General Comment 14 in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights regarding the right to health.