When the United Nations (UN) was founded from the rubble of World War II, it would have been unthinkable that someone like me – a young black man who is gay and uses a wheelchair – would have been considered for a high-ranking position. It is incredible testament to the distance humanity has come since 1945 that I am among the candidates the UN will be evaluating to succeed Michelle Bachelet when she leaves her post as the organization’s High Commissioner for Human Rights next month.
If elected, I would be the highest-ranking international civil servant with disabilities since the UN was founded and the appointment would be a historic victory for the 1.3 billion people with disabilities who, according to the UN, form the most densely populated minority on the planet.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, signed in 2007, helped drive inclusion across the board, but seeing someone in a wheelchair in a position of power is still very rare. Today, in many parts of the world, the face of ostracism is still a disabled, brown-skinned boy.
I could easily have been that boy. You could say that my experience as a human rights activist began when I was six years old and with tears on my face said to my mother, “I want to go to school”.
The life of a boy in a wheelchair in Namibia, where I spent the first nine years of my life, is extremely limited, as in much of the developing world. According to the UN, between 90% and 98% of children with disabilities in the Global South have no opportunity to go to school.
According to the UN, between 90% and 98% of children with disabilities in the Global South have no opportunity to go to school
At that time, he was already going against all odds just for being alive. Two years later, I was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy, a fatal degenerative disease that affects the nervous system. The doctors had told my mother that she probably wouldn’t live to be more than five years old. Today I am 31.
When I told her I wanted to go to school, my mother wiped away my tears and made up her mind. He found someone willing to take me. On my first day of school, they put me in the back of the classroom. It was obvious that little was expected of me. I surprised the teacher by only writing my name, which most of my classmates couldn’t do. A smile spread across his face as he saw that he could learn as much or faster than the others.
This experience taught me to aim high, no matter what obstacles came my way. My candidacy to succeed Bachelet aims to push the boundaries of what is possible, not just for people with disabilities, but for everyone who has ever felt devalued, undervalued and marginalized.
If selected, he would be the youngest leader at a senior level. In view of the challenges ahead, the United Nations often emphasizes the importance of youth participation. And yet we remain an underrepresented population in the institution. The selection of a young man for this position would bring new impetus and authority to the work of the High Commissioner.
Achieving human rights for all too often feels out of reach, especially today when everything seems impossible. But, as Nelson Mandela pointed out, it always seems impossible until it’s done.
I had to recall those words some time ago, when I was still working at Amnesty International and had an impossible assignment to bridge the positions of two groups notoriously distrusting each other: business leaders and human rights defenders. I persuaded her to listen as part of a campaign to hold the extractive industries accountable for human rights abuses in Africa.
For the first time since 2001, the majority of the world’s population lives under undemocratic governments that violate rights
At a time when the world is increasingly fragmented and it feels like we’ve just stopped listening to one another, I think the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights is uniquely qualified to address today’s most pressing challenges . For the first time since 2001, the majority of the world’s population lives under undemocratic governments that violate rights. We face heightened nationalism, a looming economic crisis and a global pandemic, a health crisis to which too many governments have responded by demanding emergency powers and enacting restrictions that often violate rights. And, of course, the conflicts in Ukraine, the Sahel, Myanmar, and various other places around the world generate their own big red flags.
The UN High Commissioner plays a crucial role at times like these, serving as a beacon for the principles that guide human rights and standing up for those who boldly speak up when they see human rights abuses around the world. As United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said, human rights underpin the entire UN system. “They are essential to addressing the far-reaching causes and effects of complex crises and building sustainable, secure and peaceful societies.”
If chosen by the Secretary-General for this role, my job would be to relentlessly identify and uncover rights abuses, no matter how powerful the interests that stand in the way, and work with civil society actors to make the UN’s work better participatory and relevant to drive the necessary changes.
I am undoubtedly an unusual candidate for this position; some would say an impossible option. But I believe that this is exactly what the world needs in these times: fresh thinking, new energy and the ability to overcome seemingly unreachable barriers.
Eddie Ndopua human rights activist, is an Advisor on the Sustainable Development Goals to the UN Secretary-General.
Translated from English by David Meléndez Tormen.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2022.
You can follow PLANETA FUTURO at TwitterFacebook and Instagram and subscribe to our “Newsletter” here.