Bulletin Insert:
Women with Disabilities: From Invisible to Visible
Citizens
Disability Awareness Badge of Honor
EU
Mexico
New Zealand
For their model collaborative work in seeking a resolution to the
working group discussion
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"The LSN-Jordan Outreach Worker was walking with a normal,
steady step so that you could never tell he was wearing a prosthesis. We conversed about
his injury and mine. I was so eager to speak to someone like me."
— Younes Srour Wardat, Landmine Disabled, Jordan
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Equitable Distribution?
Arab Representation Encouraged
At yesterday afternoon’s plenary, a number of participants spoke to the issue of
equitable geographical distribution of representatives, both governmental and
non-governmental, on the proposed Working Group to the Ad Hoc Committee. Equitable
geographical distribution refers to how membership is allocated to the various subgroups
that are necessary to create to manage the UN's enormous workload. The concerns raised
stem from the UN's outdated five regional groups, which are based on a Cold
War-constructed geographical system. For instance, the reality that a fair number of
Eastern European Member States are now applicants to or associates with substantially
Western European institutions; or the awkwardness of including everything between the Red
Sea and Pacific Ocean in the Asia-Pacific group. To cope with this the UN has devised
various formulae – for ECOSOC or the Commission on Human Rights, for example –
to achieve a more equitable distribution. And yet these formulae may fit less easily for
an assembly the size of the proposed Working Group, twenty-five governments and twelve
NGOs.
The old five-bloc regional structure does not work particularly well in the disability
world either. Consider, for a moment, how unrealistic it is to encompass the dynamism,
experience and important work of disability organizations in Northeast Asia (China, Japan,
South Korea), the ASEAN 10, the Sub-Continent with its huge and varied populations, and
the large group of Arabic speaking states of the Mid-East all within the Asia-Pacific
group (except for the Maghreb States of North Africa), which are joined with the hugely
diverse Member States of Sub-Saharan Africa.
A number of regional groups and sub-groups are short-shrifted by the antiquated
five-bloc system, but probably few more so than the 25 Arabic speaking nations, whose
importance is recognized linguistically but not within the forced construct of the
five-bloc system.
For purposes of the ongoing work of the Ad Hoc Committee, the case is clear for Arabic
speaking representation in the Working Group, at both the government and NGO level.
As many delegates and other participants have pointed out, equitable geographical
representation is critical for the process to be considered legitimate. We would therefore
urge the delegates who have not spoken to consider that it is both culturally and
contextually appropriate for the Ad Hoc Committee to reflect the Arabic speaking
representation in the Working Group at both the governmental and the nongovernmental
organizations.
Two Days … and Counting
As these meetings come to an end, NGOs feel it is imperative to recall the text of
General Assembly Resolution 57/229 which:
Decides that the Ad Hoc Committee should hold, within existing resources, at
least one meeting in 2003 of a duration of ten working days, prior to the fifty-eighth
session of the General Assembly;
Thus far, discussions this week have focused on the establishment of the Working Group
to support the work of the Ad Hoc Committee. NGOs wish to express a concern that there has
yet to be discussion on the mechanism that we perceive to be necessary to ensure that the
Ad Hoc Committee meets again after 2003.
While NGOs welcome the references to a third meeting of the Ad Hoc Committee in the
draft decision regarding the establishment of a Working Group, we are unclear as to how
this will translate with surety into a meeting without a proper recommended resolution
being forwarded to the General Assembly.
As the leaders of the global disability movement, we represent 600 million people with
disabilities from around the world, 400 million of whom live in developing countries in
circumstances of the most extreme poverty. The situation of our membership and the
precarious nature of their existence lends urgency to this discussion.
While we are enthusiastic about the progress made here during these last eight working
days, we are aware that members of our organizations, and their families, are counting on
us to work with Member States to advance the recognition of disability as a human rights
issue. As we convene on this, the penultimate day of this session of the Ad Hoc Committee,
we implore delegates to move forward.
Who are the people in mental institutions?
Gabor Gombos, WNUSP, Hungary
All over the world millions of people live in long term mental institutions. Most of
them did not choose that way of living. Many of them are de facto and de jure arbitrarily
detained in those places. The living conditions may vary from place to place, nevertheless
the majority, if not all of the "residents" of these facilities face neglect,
physical, sexual and verbal abuse, forced drugging, inhuman and degrading treatment. The
conditions are often life-threatening. These institutions are generally located in the
middle of nowhere. People living there are the most invisible human beings on the Earth.
Many of them are, in fact, not citizens either, as inhuman guardianship laws deprive them
of exercising their citizens’ rights.
Who are they? The "lucky outsider" could think that they are insane, brain
diseased, dangerous or fully incapable. Campaigns led in the spirit of the medical model
could reinforce that view.
Nevertheless, if you are brave enough to visit such institutions, and if you are
allowed to enter and meet people there in private, you will change your mind. I did. I am
a psychiatric survivor and as an activist I regularly visit long-term mental institutions
in many countries, and those whom I meet there are just like me, and like you.
You can meet – among other deprived persons – refugees, trauma survivors,
homeless people, children, women and men who ended up there because of poverty. People
with physical disabilities, persons belonging to marginalized ethnic, racial, religious,
sexual or other minorities. Human beings who have had social, emotional, traumatic crises,
who faced social exclusion. And who have been offered a place in an institution and
coercive medical treatment to "fix" them, or rather, to make them invisible.
I could have easily ended up in such a place if I had not had the strong support
network around me.
The "lucky outsider" must be aware of all these. And help us have rights to
exercise our rights as other people can. A good way to help is to support the emerging new
Convention.
Nothing about us without us.
Psychiatric Disabilities: Myths and Realities
Judi Chamberlin, Co-Chair, World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry
MYTH: People with psychiatric disabilities don’t know what we
need, and can’t be trusted when we say what we do and don’t want.
REALITY: People who have been diagnosed as "mentally ill"
are more like other people than we are different. Like other people, what we want may be
different from what other people say we "need." Like everyone else, people with
psychiatric disabilities want to be free to make our own decisions about our lives. We
want to live in normal community settings, not institutions or facilities. We want the
opportunity to go to work or to school, to have friends and love relationships, to be
parents if we choose to be, and, in general, to live as full citizens of our countries.
MYTH: Psychiatric disability and intellectual disability are
interchangeable terms.
REALITY: Psychiatric disability refers to difficulties (or perceived
difficulties) with emotions, thoughts, and feelings. Intellectual disability refers to
difficulties (or perceived difficulties) with development and learning. Some people can
have both an intellectual and a psychiatric disability. Both groups of people want and
deserve self-determination and human rights, with whatever accommodations they may need to
live fully integrated lives.
MYTH: There are reliable medical and physiological tests that can
distinguish people with psychiatric disabilities from "normal" people.
REALITY: There is NO test—no blood test, X-ray, genetic test,
etc.—that can be used to diagnose any so-called "mental illness." Diagnosis
is made by clinical impression, and those doing the diagnosing are using a white, western,
male, upper class standard that does not apply to women, children, old people, people of
different ethnic groups, etc. Further, there is no drug or other psychiatric treatment
that can restore "normal" brain function, because not enough is known about the
brain to define normality. Psychiatric drugs blunt all emotions, and can have devastating
permanent physical effects.
MYTH: People with psychiatric disabilities need to live in
institutions or in specialized facilities, and be cared for by "experts."
REALITY: Like other people with disabilities, we find living in
institutions to be harmful and against our interests. Further, despite their often being
described as places where we can get expert care, in fact most institutions are places of
neglect and abuse.
Even when we are given the opportunity to live in the community, we often continue to be
segregated in group homes and other residential institutions. In fact, we can live
independently, utilizing peer support and other natural supports.
MYTH: People with psychiatric disabilities are dangerous, and are a
threat to the community.
REALITY: Although we are frequently portrayed in the media as
uncontrollable, dangerous, and violent, research shows that we are no more dangerous than
so-called "normal" people. When a person with a psychiatric disability commits a
crime, the media often describes it in the most derogatory terms, and imply that we are
all dangerous. Further, television programs and movies often "explain" criminal
behavior by using psychiatric terminology. These are examples of the prejudice and
discrimination that people with psychiatric disabilities face as we try to live our lives.
Our perceived dangerousness is used as a justification for involuntary commitment to
institutions, and for forced drugging, both in institutions and in the community. Although
research shows that psychiatrists cannot accurately predict future dangerousness, such
supposedly scientific predictions are used to deprive us of our liberty and our rights.
MYTH: People with psychiatric disabilities can’t form
organizations and represent our own interests, because of the nature of the disability.
REALITY: For more than thirty years, organizations of psychiatric
survivors have existed in many parts of the world. We have protested institutionalization,
forced drugging, electroshock, segregation, stigma and discrimination, negative media
images, and other impediments to our rights. We have promoted self-help and peer support,
and have developed numerous programs which we run and control, for social support, work,
housing, recreation, and other areas. Self-help and peer support programs are designed to
meet our self-defined needs, rather than being designed to control and isolate us, as
professionally-run programs often do.
MYTH: Psychiatrists and other mental health professionals, and
parents’ organizations, can speak "for" us.
REALITY: Just like people with other kinds of disabilities, no one can
represent us better than we can represent ourselves.
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American Association of People with Disabilities