The Forum for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (The Forum)

In the year 1986, the issue of disability brought together a group of persons with disabilities and their friends, who believed that a decent and decent living is the right of every human being, and that the rule of rights and duties should be the most correct. Accordingly, the Forum launched its human rights journey to demand that people with disabilities be given what they have a right to. The Forum has adopted a set of goals and means that guarantee the inclusion of persons with disabilities in society. The forum influenced itself to correct everyone's view of persons with disabilities, so that dealing with them is not based on the factor of compassion, but on the basis that they are a natural part of any society that has rights and duties. That is why the Forum worked on issuing Law 220/2000 related to the rights of persons with disabilities in Lebanon, which was approved in the Parliament in 2000. This law, which considers the forum itself responsible for paying for the issuance of its executive decrees, is one of the most prominent victories of the forum in its long journey. The legal march of the forum did not stop at the point of demanding the rights of persons with disabilities only, but exceeded it in more than one era and in more than one event so that the forum participated in many activities in order to stop wars and activate human rights, since the eighties of the last century, it had many contributions either at work With other sectors of civil society in order to resist violence or to contribute to providing services during major crises. The forum cry was very loud in the recent events that struck Tripoli. The Forum worked on marches to stop the depletion of the human factor in particular and the life in general in Tripoli. Hence the principle of the forum is clear in advocating any demanding human rights work, and it places itself for this purpose at the disposal of all human rights associations and forums. This forum is managed and supervised by a nine-member administrative body, the majority of persons with disabilities make up this body, which is elected through the public body which is also composed of a majority of persons with disabilities. Objectives so that the forum does not deviate from the first frameworks it set in mind, setting its goals very precisely, in line with the requirements of persons with disabilities, no matter how or when conditions change. Accordingly, the forum set a set of goals that are interrelated so that they are not removed from each other, but he has worked on tabulating them so that each of them sets a program that works through it to reach this goal. With regard to the rights of persons with disabilities, the Forum defends these rights and works to enhance their personality as citizens who have rights and duties, while observing the right of persons with disabilities to benefit from some of the privileges that facilitate their life and overcome the difficulties they face, in order to facilitate their independence, as is the rest of the citizens. Hence, the Forum took upon itself the issue of social inclusion of persons with disabilities in their environment and surroundings, within their families and in all sectors that need and need them. This consolidation works resolutely to eliminate the logic of care, isolation and accommodation and to end all kinds of discrimination towards them. In order to reinforce this independence and emphasize the issue of inclusion, the Forum works to rehabilitate persons with disabilities in all dimensions of this qualification, intellectual, physical, educational, and professional, through the programs it established to achieve its goals. However, the rehabilitation of persons with disabilities can only be completed by spreading collective awareness of the issue of disability among all segments of society, through awareness campaigns that aim to embrace these segments of the disability issue and make it the axis on which they unite. These privileges are guaranteed to them by the Law on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, No. 220/2000, as well as the International Convention for Persons with Disabilities, issued by the United Nations, which binds the obligation of those who have ratified it. From here, the vigorous demand and serious follow-up of the forum through networking with all sectors of civil society, to apply this law by issuing decrees for implementation from the competent Lebanese government agencies on the one hand and on the other hand by requiring the state to sign the international agreement.