The proposal for the Day came from the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD), a federation of 135 national associations of deaf people, representing approximately 70 million deaf people’s human rights worldwide.

The resolution A/RES/72/161 was sponsored by the Permanent Mission of Antigua and Barbuda to the United Nations, co-sponsored by 97 United Nations Member States and adopted by consensus on 19 December 2017. The choice of 23 September commemorates the date that the WFD was established in 1951. This day marks the birth of an advocacy organization, which has as one of its main goals, the preservation of sign languages and Deaf culture as pre-requisites to the realization of the human rights of deaf people. The International Day of Sign Languages was first celebrated in 2018 as part of the International Week of the Deaf. The International Week of the Deaf was first celebrated in September 1958 and has since evolved into a global movement of Deaf unity and concerted advocacy to raise awareness of the issues deaf people face in their everyday lives.

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We Sign for Human Rights