The UN General Assembly proclaimed 23 September as the International Day of Sign Languages in order to raise awareness of the importance of sign language in the full realization of the human rights of people who are deaf.

The proposal for the Day came from the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD), a federation of 140 national member organizations representing more than 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. In 2026, the date also marks the WFD’s 75th anniversary, celebrating three-quarters of a century of work to advance the human rights of deaf people worldwide.