Loomio
Tue 9 Jun 2015 4:56AM

Disabled people from refugee backgrounds

AG Alexia Garbutt Public Seen by 218

More disaggregated data on Disabled people in NZ needs to be collected. This is one of the findings of the United Nations when they reviewed NZ’s implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities in 2014. See: http://www.odi.govt.nz/what-we-do/un-convention/monitoring-implementation/2014-review.html
There are many groups of data that would be beneficial to the disability and other sectors to have, however a group I am connected with needs data on Disabled people from refugee backgrounds living in NZ. Stats NZ tells us the group is too small as it would make people identifiable, however this is a group falling through the cracks between services and without knowing how many people and what types of disabilities we are talking about we are struggling to know how to help them. I think if Stats NZ took the UNCRPD definition of disability (which includes Mental Health - anxiety, depression, PTSD etc.) you would find that the group is not that small/ identifiable.