First Meeting of States Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munition
CMC Statement on Victim Assistance – Wednesday 10 November
Vientiane, Lao PDR

By Firoz Ali ALIZADA, Treaty Implementation Officer, ICBL, Geneva

On behalf of the Cluster Munition Coalition, thank you for giving us this opportunity to speak about the groundbreaking element of the Convention on Cluster Munition, namely victim assistance.

First of all, I want to pay tribute to my fellow survivors from Laos as well as other survivors who have joined us here from over 30 countries to participate and contribute to this landmark meeting. This Convention means a lot to us and we are here with lots of expectations. We hope this meeting is a point of change in our and our families’ lives.

The CMC thanks the President of the meeting as well as the friends of the president for the constructive collaboration and consultation in the drafting of the Vientiane Action Plan. We believe the action plan provides an excellent basis to translate the legal obligations of the CCM into concrete actions. The time-bound victim assistance actions 20 to 32 provide an outstanding mechanism for implementing the obligations of Article 5 of the Convention.

Actions 20 to 33 of the Vientiane Action Plan give clear guidance to States Parties with cluster munition victims (Albania, Croatia, [Montenegro] Laos), as well as for Bosnia and Herzegovina, which ratified the CCM more recently, to pursue in the course of 2011 the following elements required by Article 5:
- designate a focal point within the government to coordinate victim assistance
- collect all necessary data and asses the needs and priorities of cluster munition victims
- ensure a coordination mechanism is in place
- review national laws and policies with a view to meeting the needs and protecting the human rights of cluster munition victims
- ensure that comprehensive a national plan is in place
- identify resources to meet the obligations, including by making clear requests for international cooperation and assistance when needed.
Five of the seven actions, which need to be achieved by the Second Meeting of States Parties for current States Parties, are about structure, policy and process issues. But ultimately what is important is how states make use of these measures to respond to the daily needs of survivors and their family members. Most importantly, states should focus on economic inclusion, income generation, physical accessibility, literacy and education and skill building. To fulfil the most basic daily needs, survivors and their family members need timely and efficient access to basic services such as schools, hospitals, transportation, jobs, vocational trainings, micro-credit, quality physical rehabilitation, peer support, and so on. The Vientiane Action Plan provides guidance on concrete actions states can take in that regard as well, for example, in Action 25, 28 and 29. While these provisions do not include a time-bound element, we expect States Parties to do all they can to put them into place with an urgency that matches the survivors’ urgent needs.
Beyond these broad actions, I would like to draw your attention to a number of specific issues that need your consideration when providing assistance to cluster munition victims.

- Availability of adequate financial, technical and human resources are the most important factor in providing appropriate assistance to survivors and their family members. States Parties have the obligation to allocate resources under the CCM. Both the Convention and the action plan emphasize the importance of resource mobilization. Therefore we call on states with responsibility for cluster munition victims to immediately begin mobilizing increased national resources to meet their obligations. And all States in a position to do so, to increase financial assistance to address the rights and needs of survivors.

- The Convention defines “victims” as the individual survivors, their families and communities. So states should make sure that services they provide to survivors are also available to their family members and community as a whole. For example: By providing psychosocial support, awareness and economic support, you directly can assist family members of cluster munition victim and others in need of those services. By making a school accessible, you can make sure that all members of the affected community with disabilities have better access to education.

- It is important to consider the specific needs of cluster munition survivors. Unlike most landmine survivors, cluster munition survivors may have injuries not only to limbs, but also to many other parts of body, such as eyes and ears.. Assistance measures must therefore respond to the specific situation survivors face, and may include brail, sign language, plastic surgery services, and long-term medical, physical and psychological support.

- Survivors have a right to be involved in the development activities in their communities and to benefit from them. In order to include survivors and other persons with disabilities in development, States Parties must ensure that all phases of the development cycle, from design, to implementation, to monitoring and evaluation, include a disability dimension and that persons with disabilities participate in a meaningful way. Examples of inclusive development include designing schools so that all children, including children blinded or disabled by cluster munition, can learn. Or developing micro-credit programs in rural areas where survivors live and making sure that survivors can access credit on an equal basis with other beneficiaries. It also means including survivors within governance structures and development committees so that the design of development programs can benefit from their perspective.

- Access to available public services is one of the crucial needs of survivors and persons with disabilities. But in most of the countries with survivors, public services are not accessible, and it is due to physical barriers, long distance, unaffordable costs, lack or limited transportation and so on. For example in entire Vientiane city, only one hotel “Salana” this just being built is accessible for wheelchair users. Lack of access to public services hampers survivors and persons with disabilities’ economic and asocial inclusion and empowerment. States Parties must ensure that all survivors and persons with disabilities can access public services including schools, hospitals, banks, hotels, public markets, places of worships, public transports, information and so on. For example, ministry of health must make sure that all hospitals and clinics are accessible and affordable; ministry of transportation has to ensure that all public buses are accessible and affordable; ministry of education must make sure books and other materials are accessible. And they have to be informed and lobbied to do so. These should be guaranteed by national laws and policies.

In conclusion, we would like to call on representatives of the states present here to actively work to bridge the gap between the policy makers and service providers. Begin by disseminating the obligations of the CCM as well as its Vientiane Action Plan in accessible formats to all victim assistance and disability stakeholders upon your return to your respective countries. Make sure policy makers and service providers and practitioners are systematically coordinated.

Victim assistance is a clear legal obligation in the CCM and CMC will monitor compliance. We look forward to reviewing tangible progress when we meet next year.