Costa Rican Public Agency Responsible for Disability Issues Has Not Yet Assumed its Directing Role
Luis Fernando Astorga Gatjens, IID (lferag@racsa.co.cr)
On May 29, 1996, when the Law of Equal Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities entered into force, it was thought that many things were going to change for the population of persons with disabilities in this Central American country.
This law establishes that the Costa Rican Council of Rehabilitation and Special Education must assume the directing responsibility on disability issues in the country. If it had done so, this collegiate body of government institutions and private organizations, would have been more efficient in supervising due compliance of the dispositions of Law 7600 and other pertinent disability related legal instruments. According to the law, the Council of Rehabilitation had to supervise the work performed by all Costa Rican public and private service organizations.
Unfortunately, the supervising role of the Council of Rehabilitation and Special Education has been so timid and halting that many of the agencies which had to be supervised, during the past six years and a half, to verify and demand their full compliance with disability related aspects such as accessibility to physical space right to information and communication, and equal opportunities to services, have not been met. In brief, because the Council of Rehabilitation and Special Education has not demanded compliance, particularly, from the other government agencies, there have not been relevant improvements on the living conditions of persons with disabilities in the country.
The representatives of the organizations of the social society to the Board of Directors of the Council of Rehabilitation and Special Education agree that, one of the causes for the repeated incompliance with the Law 7600, is that the Council of Rehabilitation has not played a major role at verifying which and how Costa Rican institutions are responding to the dispositions of the law. The emerging question is why?
Background
The Council of Rehabilitation was created by Law No. 5347, of September 3, 1973, and its Article 1, provides the institutional profile in the following manner: "The Council is the national agency responsible for orienting the general policy on Rehabilitation and Special Education, in coordination with the Ministries of Public Health, Public Education and Labor and Social Security, it is also responsible for planning, promoting, organizing, creating and supervising the rehabilitation and special education programs and services for the physically or mentally disabled in all sectors of the country."
Although the law that created the Council of Rehabilitation and Special Education oriented the execution of the institution toward directing and supervising actions, the Council began to grow by creating programs to provide services directly to persons with disabilities and their families.
In this way, the Council of Rehabilitation and Special Education became a combination of a directing and a service provider body. The problem here is that this institution dedicated more time and efforts to providing direct services than to supervising that the other public and private agencies assumed their part in complying with the law. In fact, from the date it was created to about the mid 1990s, the Institution centered most of its work on professional rehabilitation.
It is also worth mentioning that before 1995 most of the work done by the Council of Rehabilitation followed the medical model. Under that perspective, persons with disabilities were considered as patients and treated as objects of public assistance. In fact, and not by chance, before 1996 when the Law 7600 was passed, there were no permanent representatives of the organizations of persons with disabilities in the Board of the Directives of the Council of Rehabilitation. There was only one representative but without the right to vote.
The new approach
The Law 7600, Equal Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities, was approved 1 May 1996, three years after the United Nations Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with disabilities of 1993.
The Law is intended "to serve as an instrument to enable persons with disabilities to achieve heir maximum development, full participation and complete exercise of their rights and duties, as established on our legal system."
At the same time, our law defines the objectives of "eliminating every type of discrimination" and "to establish the judicial and material foundations to allow the Costa Rican society to adopt the necessary measurements to equalize opportunities and avoid any form of discrimination against persons with disabilities."
The law 7600 recognizes that there should be a directing body. This directing role was later ratified by the Costa Rican authorities as a function of the Council of Rehabilitation. The Council then, should perform the supervision of the dispositions established by the law and determining compliance by the other government agencies and by the private entities providing services to the public, with the purpose of ensuring accessibility and that there would be no discrimination against persons with disabilities.
From the moment that the Law 7600 entered into force, the Council of Rehabilitation should have had assumed this new directing role.
Why has the Council of Rehabilitation not fully assumed its directing role?
During its 29 years of existence, the Council of Rehabilitation and Special Education has not completely assumed its directing role because, it appears, it became involved in providing services. In fact, providing services, instead of supervising the other institutions to make sure that they would undertake these tasks, became the seal of identity of the Council of Rehabilitation.
The fact that the Council of Rehabilitation has stopped providing direct services, as in the case of selective employment for persons with disabilities, does not mean that the Council of Rehabilitation has assumed a more efficient and expanded directing role on verifying compliance of the Law 7600, on all areas of the public activity.
There are also some employees of the Council of Rehabilitation who support the traditional role. They resist the movement of the Council of Rehabilitation toward a full directing role.
Those who have accepted the traditional position argue that: it is not convenient for the Council of Rehabilitation to stop proving services because there is no warranty that the institutions that should provide said services will do so, and if the Council of Rehabilitation discontinues providing services, it would be creating additional problems for persons with disabilities living under difficult social conditions and poverty.
Such argument is discarded by the representatives of Non-Government Organizations in the Board of Directors of the Council of Rehabilitation. They insist that the Council of Rehabilitation has the legal obligation of exercising its directing role by supervising and making sure that the other public institutions complying with their own obligations, as is indicated in the law, and as demanded by the social movement of persons with disabilities and their families.
"We want an efficient, efficacious, strong and respected Council of Rehabilitation Council in the country, to oblige the public institutions of our country to comply with the laws that protect and foster human rights of persons with disabilities," said Mr. Francisco Villalta, President of the recently created Federation of Protected Workshops (Federación de Talleres Protegidos) and one of the four representatives of Non Government Organizations at the Board of Directors of the Council of Rehabilitation.
Then he added: "It is an unfounded fear, the services now being provided by the Council of Rehabilitation may continue to be provided there in order to warranty continuity. But there has to be a strong action, on the part of the Council of Rehabilitation, to oblige the corresponding public institutions to start providing these services in a responsible manner."
Another suggestion, expressed by the representatives of Non Government Organizations, is to increase institutional authority of the members of the Board of Directives to the Council of Rehabilitation representing government institutions. These representatives must have institutional authority to make decisions in the name of the public bodies they represent.
Institutional transformation
The Rehabilitation Council needs to become an institution capable of efficiently and strongly defending and promoting the rights of persons with disabilities. It must do so by supervising the programs and actions conducted by public and private service institutions of Costa Rica. The Council of Rehabilitation should make sure and demand compliance of the legal instruments pertaining persons with disabilities.
This directing role, should include the following actions:
-
Educational and communication actions to change the social environment, which presently discriminates, toward achieving equality and promoting the dignity of persons with disabilities.
-
Defining and promoting disability policies.
-
Providing orientation and training to all public institutions and private agencies regarding ways in which they must comply with the principles of accessibility and equal opportunities, as established by the Law 7600 and its by law, as part of their everyday work.
-
Verify effective performance, including the faculty investigating the progress made by the rest of the government institutions regarding if and how they are complying with the disposition of Law 7600 and its bylaws. This includes monitoring how these institutions have incorporated said disposition into their annual operation plans. In order to generate the desired changes, the results of these investigations must be made public. This is to exert pressure on institutions found defective in their compliance and, to promote the work of those agencies that are doing a good job at comply with the proved disability legislation.
-
Supervise that the programs and activities performed in the field of disability are duly conducted in accordance with the approved legislation.
-
Foster the participation of organizations, persons with disabilities and their families, both in disability issues for the definition of policies, and in their economic, social, political, and cultural strengthening.
-
Promote research in disability related topics to increase knowledge and to systematize available information.
During these last months, the Board of Directors of this Costa Rican institution has been reflecting on the above described situation, and the directing role issue has been the center of these process.
There seem to be positive changes ahead, characterized by a more efficient and stronger directing role on the part of the Council of Rehabilitation. We all hope that the result will be an improvement in the quality of life of the more than 350,000 persons with disabilities in Costa Rica.
|
