Blind People: Information Needs and the Necessity of Joining the Marrakesh Treaty

October 15th, International White Cane Safety Day, is an opportunity to remember the rights of blind people and pay attention to their issues and needs; However, the importance of this occasion should not be summed up only in holding a ceremony, publishing congratulatory messages or recounting the problems and limitations of blind people's lives. One of the important functions of this day is to provide a context for the demands of the blind to be heard, to attract the attention of public opinion and to put their issues on the agenda of decision-making institutions. Demands that, despite their importance and necessity, have been distanced from the policy and legislative agenda among the multitude of public issues and priorities.

One of these demands in Iran is determining the task of the accession bill of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the Morocco Treaty; An international treaty designed to facilitate access to published works for the blind, visually impaired, and people with reading disabilities. Iran signed this treaty in 2014, but the completion of the legal process of joining it is still pending the decision of the legislature. The relevant bill, after going through various stages of review and approval in the Judicial and Legal Commission of the Islamic Council, was placed on the order of public meetings in 1404, and its title was even announced during the reading of the agenda of the parliament; However, the approval process has not yet been completed.

The importance of this issue becomes clearer when we examine the Moroccan treaty not only in the context of an international obligation, but in relation to one of the most fundamental needs of the blind, namely their informational needs.

Information needs and the issue of inequality in access

Access to information is one of the basic human needs and a prerequisite for the effective use of many opportunities and individual and social rights. Education, research, employment, social participation, decision-making and even doing many daily tasks depend on the possibility of obtaining, receiving and using information. Therefore, informational needs cannot simply be classified as cultural or secondary needs; Because providing these needs in many situations is the basis for responding to other individual and social needs.

This issue is especially important for blind people. A significant part of information and knowledge resources in the world are produced and offered based on visual reading. In such circumstances, blind access to these resources requires the provision of accessible formats, including Braille, audio and electronic text compatible with assistive technologies. The lack or limitation of these facilities can create a gap between the information opportunities of blind and sighted people; A distance that is not limited to the possibility of reading a book or using a source, but also includes the scope of choice, independence in study, timely access and the possibility of using information.

In the literature of information science, concepts such as "information gap" and "information poverty" are used to examine different dimensions of information inequality and deprivation. Information poverty does not only refer to the lack of resources, but also includes the limitation in effective access to information and the opportunities to use it. Of course, blindness by itself does not mean lack of information; The information needs of blind people are not fundamentally different from the needs of sighted people, but environmental, technological, legal and institutional barriers can make the opportunities to respond to these needs unequal. The lack of accessible resources is one of the important manifestations of this inequality; The issue that the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has mentioned in explaining the necessity of the Morocco Treaty is the "Global Book Famine". Such inequalities, in addition to limiting study opportunities, can also affect the possibility of education, research and effective participation of the blind in various fields of life.

In Iran, the lack of accessible information sources is one of the significant issues in this field. This lack, along with other barriers to access, highlights the need to pay attention to mechanisms that can expand the possibility of providing and using resources. From this point of view, reducing the information gap of the blind is not only an issue related to library services or the activities of support institutions, but can be considered as one of the issues that require attention and political intervention.

The necessity of equal access to information is emphasized in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, to which the Islamic Republic of Iran has also joined. Article 21 of this convention emphasizes the access of people with disabilities to information under equal conditions with others. Also, Article 30, while recognizing the right to participate in cultural life and access to cultural works in accessible formats, obliges the member states to take measures to prevent intellectual property laws from turning into unjustified or discriminatory obstacles in the access of people with disabilities to cultural works.

Morocco Treaty; A legal capacity to expand access

The Morocco Treaty, which was approved in 2013 within the framework of the World Intellectual Property Organization, was formed with the aim of facilitating the access of the blind, partially sighted and other people with reading disabilities to published works. The importance of this treaty is that by predicting exceptions and limitations in the author's rights, it facilitates the possibility of preparing and supplying accessible versions of works and their cross-border exchange under the prescribed conditions.

According to the fourth, fifth and sixth articles of the treaty, the member states are obliged to provide the necessary legal mechanisms for the preparation of accessible copies and the possibility of transferring and receiving these copies among the member states. Thus, works that have previously been converted into a format suitable for use by the blind in one country can be made available to qualified audiences in other countries within the framework of the treaty provisions.

The expansion of membership in the Moroccan treaty and the capacity of resources available in international networks make its practical importance more obvious. According to the statistics of the World Intellectual Property Organization in September 2026, the number of contracting parties to this treaty has reached 106, which covers a total of 132 countries including the EU member states. On the other hand, the World List of Accessible Book Services (ABC), affiliated with this organization, includes more than one million and two hundred thousand titles in various accessible formats. These figures show, on the one hand, the international acceptance of the treaty and, on the other hand, the significant capacity that has been formed for the exchange of available resources.

This capacity is important for countries that are facing a lack of accessible resources; Because it can provide the possibility of exploiting the resources produced abroad and reduce the need to re-convert some works. Furthermore, the treaty is not limited to braille resources and covers a variety of accessible formats, including appropriate audio and electronic versions.

Accession to the Morocco Treaty alone will not address the lack of resources or all barriers to information access for the blind; Because its scope is limited to the works subject to copyright regulations and the mechanisms for preparing and exchanging accessible versions. The effective use of the capacity of the treaty requires internal legal arrangements, the cooperation of specialized institutions, and the necessary infrastructure to provide and supply resources. Therefore, accession to the treaty should be pursued alongside the development of domestic production of accessible resources and the strengthening of information and library services, not as a substitute for them. Despite these limitations, the treaty can reduce one of the existing legal obstacles in the path of expanding access to written sources, and in this sense, it has political importance.

From the signing of the treaty to the decision of the legislator

More than twelve years have passed since the signing of the Morocco Treaty by the Islamic Republic of Iran, the accession process of the country has not yet been completed. The continuation of this situation, considering the importance of the information needs of the blind and the lack of accessible resources, highlights the necessity of determining the task of the bill.

Placing the bill on the agenda of the parliament can be considered as an important step in the process of dealing with it; However, this does not necessarily mean that the time of approval is close. The developments and conditions that occurred in the following months and following it, the disruption in holding public meetings of the parliament, have affected the process of dealing with various bills and plans, including the accession bill to the Morocco Treaty. However, the main issue is that a bill related to one of the long-standing demands of the blind is still waiting to be determined.

In the public policy literature, entering an issue into the agenda of decision-making bodies is an important but distinct stage from making a decision and implementing it. Despite the recognition and acceptance of their importance, public issues may lose their place in the agenda of decision-makers in competition with other issues and priorities, or their consideration may be postponed. Therefore, continuous follow-up of demands and taking advantage of suitable opportunities to re-propose them is a part of the agenda-setting process and maintaining the status of issues in the policy arena.

In such a situation, the World White Cane Safety Day is an opportunity to draw attention again to a demand that, despite its importance for the information access of the blind, is still waiting for a legislative decision. When the limitation of access to information sources and its multifaceted consequences are known and the Morocco treaty also provides a legal capacity to reduce some of these restrictions, timely political intervention becomes more important. Therefore, speeding up the consideration and determination of the bill for the accession of the Islamic Republic of Iran to this treaty is a necessity that is expected to be paid attention to by the Islamic Council. Making a decision in this field can be one of the concrete examples of turning the demands of the blind into effective public decisions.