The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) represented by its Commissioner for Disability Rights and Rights of Older Persons, Rigbe Gebrehawaria, participated in The Thirteenth Session of the United Nations Open-ended Working Group on Ageing (UN OEWG) held from April 3 – 6, 2023 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.
This is the second time EHRC has engaged in the Working Group after it obtained “A” status accreditation from The Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI) in 2021.
The two focus areas of this year’s meeting were “Right to Health and Access to Health Services” and “Social Inclusion”. EHRC submitted a statement on access to health rights which highlighted the major challenges older people in Ethiopia face to access health services and exercise their right to health.
“The journey does not end when we have a convention, but it will resume with a very fertile ground. It’s my greatest hope that we will see the fruition of our conversations and interventions during this session and that we will not come back to discuss the need to have a dedicated international instrument on the 14th session.” Commissioner Rigbe said in her concluding remarks.
Watch the interactive expert panel discussion on normative inputs (‘14:35 – 19:20)
Watch the intervention on the way forward (‘01:12:05 – 01:16:17)
