Universal human rights implemented through a CRPD lens Article 19 of the UNCRPD guarantees the full and effective inclusion of disabled people in the wider community. This means: A profound shift of values in the context of disability, away from treating people with disabilities as objects of pity, to be managed or taken care of, towards treating them as human subjects and ‘equal citizens,’ deserving equal respect for equal rights.170 To uphold this article and achieve free and equitable participation in all parts of society requires many other intersecting rights to also be respected. A cross cutting right is that of disabled people’s leadership, voice and meaningful participation. This is critical to ensuring that prevention measures protect from violence and abuse at all levels of interaction (interpersonal, community, work and leisure, and political). o properly resourcing Tāngata whaikaha Māori and their organisations, and disabled people and disabled people’s organisations, to lead any initiatives for disabled people o ensuring disabled-person-led governance and accountability processes need to be established, and organisations, including existing governance to be fully resourced for success and sustainability o promoting peer leadership. This is the identification, support and resourcing of tāngata whaikaha Māori and disabled leaders o facilitating participation. Disabled people must be actively involved in the development of policy, strategies and service initiatives that address violence, to ensure that they are fully inclusive and accessible. Disabled people have identified a number of rights-based approaches and actions key to developing a constructive response to violence against disabled people. These include: The participation of disabled people in recent government agency work to address violence has identified the following elements for systemic change. • • embedding UNCRPD principles into all programmes, services and policies to ensure accessibility and the adoption of specific measures that will empower disabled people and enable them to live independently in the community.171 The intent of the CRPD in its entirety and the general comments of the CRPD committee support an approach that includes: o recognising ableism as one of the contextual factors for violence alongside colonisation, patriarchy, and other discriminatory systems o working to equalise the social power of disabled people. This is pivotal to addressing the risks that arise from disabled people’s ongoing disempowered social position Naming disability and making it visible in any strategy to prevent and respond to violence. This means ensuring that all legislation, strategy and policies contain a description of violence against disabled people and tāngata whaikaha Māori so they are visible, recognises the different dynamics and specific ways that disabled people are abused, how abuse impacts disabled people, plus detailed outcomes expected to occur for disabled people. These need to be linked to government programmes including Enabling Good Lives and the Disability Action Plan. Enabling Good Lives is a partnership between the disability sector and government agencies aimed at long term transformation of how disabled people and families are supported to live everyday lives. Acting now for a violence and abuse free future 49