VICTIM ASSISTANCE AND SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC REINTEGRATION
ICBL will work to ensure that mine-affected States Parties:
- Present the status of development or implementation of their plans of action to address the needs and rights of mine survivors using specific actions and quantifiable objectives.
- Put in place adequate and effective data collection systems.
- Improve emergency care for survivors, making sure that emergency vehicles and care facilities are available in affected areas.
- Make a special effort to ensure that survivors in isolated areas have access to rehabilitation and ptosthetic and orthopedic services.
- Increase the availability of trauma recovery, counseling and peer support for survivors and their families, and include counselors and social workers in rehabilitation teams.
- Ensure equal opportunities for survivors and people with disabilities in mainstreamed development projects (e.g. micro-credit) and other employment creation programmes.
- Facilitate access to vocation training and opportunities for income generation for survivors and other persons with disabilities.
- Educate community members about the rights and needs of persons with disabilities to avoid discrimination and societal stigma.
- Work to adopt and/or fully implement disability rights legislation.
- Recognize that landmine survivors have a right to access medical and rehabilitation services and to protection from discrimination.
- Institutionalize participation of landmine survivors in the work of the Convention (i.e. intersessional work, Meetings of States Parties, national planning, etc.).
Below is a list of 24 mine affected countries which were identified by the SC on VA as the most “victim assistance needy” countries (known as the "VA24"):
AFRICA - Angola, Burundi, Chad, DR Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Senegal,
Sudan and Uganda
AMERICAS – Colombia, El Salvador, Nicaragua; Peru
ASIA - Afghanistan, Cambodia and Thailand
EUROPE - Albania, Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia Montenegro
CIS - Tajikistan
MENA - Yemen
Message:
I) For mine-affected states, encourage the government:
- To elaborate national planning for victim assistance, including using the Questionnaire developed by the Co-chairs of the VA Standing Committee as a planning tool. The questionnaire should be treated as a process, not a result in itself, and responses to it should be turned into concrete plans of action with measurable indicators and targets that will produce lasting and meaningful changes for survivors.
- To include survivors as a resource
- To set up a national disability coordination body if it hasn't done so already
- To assure victim assistance to ALL landmine survivors within state boundaries
- To set up a National Mine Information System that provides among others:
a) Focal point for VA in the country
b) Location of existing orthopaedic centres.- are mine-affected areas covered?
c) Information as to the reach and quality of services for landmine survivors--are they of good quality and free or low cost to survivors?
- To use Form J to report on victim assistance
- To address the issue of compensation for landmine survivors
- To sign and ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
II) For donor States, encourage your government to:
- Keep up high levels of assistance to survivors
- Earmark part of all mine action funding for victim assistance. (An excellent example is Norway, which earmarks 25% for victim assistance)
- When survivor assistance is mainstreamed, make sure that specialised services are kept alongside the general programmes to ensure that survivors' particular needs are met.
- Fund a range of VA activities based on the national priorities for people with disabilities, among which landmine survivors will be included.
- Urge mine-affected countries, where they provide assistance, to include landmine victim assistance programmes in their national development and health plans and priorities.
- Continue to monitor the implementation of the Nairobi action plan in the VA24
- Do not forget the victims in States Parties beyond the VA24 and in States not Parties
- Support and participate in the process toward a new Convention on the human rights of persons with disabilities currently underway within the UN system.
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