To celebrate Sign Language Week, GHITA, together with the BSLActnow campaign, led by British Deaf Association, will be holding a BSL rally on Friday 18th March in par with events held in the  UK.

A statement from the GDRF follows below:

The Gibraltar Hearing Issues Tinnitus Associate (GHITA) has been promoting and  encouraging the use of British Sign Language (BSL) since 2012 in Gibraltar. To celebrate  Sign Language Week, GHITA, together with the BSLActnow campaign, led by British Deaf  Association, will be holding a BSL rally on Friday 18th March in par with events held in the  UK. This rally is in support of Deaf people in the British Family of Nations. All those wanting  to offer their support can join, opposite the Convent, from 12:30pm to 3:30pm. 

The GDRF is campaigning for the full implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of  Persons with Disabilities into Gibraltar Law. 

The UN Convention recognises and promotes the use of sign languages. It makes it clear  that sign languages are equal in status to spoken languages and obligates state parties to  facilitate the learning of such sign language and therefore promotes the linguistic identity of  the deaf community. 

The Preamble of the Convention quotes: 

the importance of accessibility to the physical, social, economic and cultural environment, to  health and education and to information and communication, in enabling persons with  disabilities to fully enjoy all human rights and fundamental freedoms 

Article 21(b): 

Accepting and facilitating the use of sign languages, Braille, augmentative and alternative  communication, and all other accessible means, modes and formats of communication of  their choice by persons with disabilities in official interactions 

Article 30: 

Persons with disabilities shall be entitled, on an equal basis with others, to recognition and  support of their specific cultural and linguistic identity, including sign languages and deaf  culture. 

For these reasons, The GDRF supports both GHITA and BDAs campaigns for British Sign  Language (BSL) not only to be recognised as an official language in Gibraltar but for BSL to  be given full legal status too.