[governance] Access for Disabled Persons - [Access for All]

[Salanieta T. Tamanikaiwaimaro]

Dear All,

People take using the Internet for granted and we have persons in our
community who despite extraordinary challenges go to great lengths to
access the internet. One of the things that saddens me is how it continues
to remain an area least prioritised as far as Freedom of Expression goes.
Even when the UN Special Rapporteur Frank La Rue wrote about his , Report
on Freedom of Expression in relation to the Internet, Access for Disabled
Persons was relegated to the last paragraph in what I thought was a "By the
way...off handed comment", at least in my reading of the same.

Whilst there is a United Nations Convention on Rights of Persons with
Disabilities on this area, see:
http://www.un.org/disabilities/default.asp?id=150 , there  are 154
countries that have signed up and only 125 have ratified, you can check to
see which countries have ratified by going to the link.

*Accessibility*

 I know that the Australian Government have through various initiatives
made ICT accessible for disabled persons as has been reported to the
community from Gunela Astbrink, there is still a lot of room for
improvement. This includes things like handsets that can be easily used by
those who are visually challenged. I will never forget sitting in a
CommunicAsia meeting in Singapore and hearing Skype CEO back then talk
about how Skype had revolutionised communication.

*Website Accessibility*
*
*
Last year at the PACINET in American Samoa in a session organised by Gunela
Astbrink from ISOC Australia,in an extraordinary advocate who has been
pushing access for disabled persons for many years in Australia, within the
region and internationally,  Faaolo Utumapu from Samoa demonstrated how her
screen reading software with speech synthesis works and how she can
navigate through accessible websites. She also demonstrated how barriers
are placed in front of her when websites are not accessible.

For websites to be able to be completely accessible, there are various
standards developed to help cater for these. A good resource site is:
http://www.w3.org/TR/2012/WD-WCAG-EM-20120920/

*Hungary Proposal to the WCIT [8b on Access for Disabled Persons]*

Whilst there are Resolutions in place from the Plenipotentiaries which
resulted in the creation of a Fund, it was reported to the Caribbean WCIT
Preparation that only Cyprus had contributed to the same. There is a
proposal by Hungary to add 8(b) and it includes excellent Access provisions
for disabled persons and countries should support Hungary's Proposal.


Kind Regards,



-- 
Salanieta Tamanikaiwaimaro aka Sala
P.O. Box 17862
Suva
Fiji

Twitter: @SalanietaT
Skype:Salanieta.Tamanikaiwaimaro
Fiji Cell: +679 998 2851
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