Disability Buzz
News from 26 countries
In this issue of Disability World, for the first time since we began publication, news and articles about developing or poor countries (19) far outnumber those emanating from the wealthier countries (7).
Coincidentally, in the last month, the United Nations Economic and Social Council for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) released a report pointing out that more than two-thirds of the world's disabled people live in the Southern part of Asia (www.unescap.org); and the World Bank hired its first disability adviser, who will be exploring ways to mainstream assistance to people with disabilities within its development programs.
Civil Disobedience, Protests, Presidential Debates and the Courts
This issue also features an upsurge in reports of negotiations and confrontations by disability rights groups with their governments, including: a 77 day sit-in in Israel to increase benefits; demonstrations in Peru to remind the President of his promises to disabled voters; presidential debates on disability issues in Colombia; a successful court suit in India to force New Delhi schools to begin integrated education; a protest to the Cuban government about the safety of a blind man imprisoned for demonstrating; and court challenges regarding accessibility in the Philippines.
In the USA, following a series of Supreme Court rulings that sided with employers against employees with disabilities, the Los Angeles Times published a unusual opinion piece on June 2, "Supreme Court Upsetting a Rights Movement," by Charles Lindner, past president of the Los Angeles Criminal Bar Association. Lindner takes a historic look back at the significant role of the Supreme Court in civil rights movements in the U.S., and concludes that the Court "helped to ignite the campaign to give African Americans full equality... greatly bolstered the women's movement... (but) seems determined to reverse the disabled rights movement."
Developments in China
The news from the world's most populous nation is often complex and seemingly contradictory and perhaps even more so when it comes to disability. Last year China bid successfully to host the 2008 Olympics and Paralympics in Beijing, and this May it was announced that Shanghai would host the International Special Olympics in 2007. Deng Pufang, President of the Chinese Federation of Disabled Persons, supported the bid, noting that they expect to involve about 7000 participants, 3500 event officials and 40,000 volunteers. Particularly over the last 15 years, the increasingly high profile of international disability sports events has served as a sort of litmus test of the host country's accessibility and overall treatment of its disabled citizens.
Economists today often warn us a lot about "unintended consequences" of various new policies and experiments. The dearth of brides in China, reported on in depth by Hannah Beech Nanliang in the June 3 issue of Time Asia, would probably fit into this category. This problem is just one of the outcomes of two decades of family-planning policies that led to a drastic gender imbalance: "The country is missing 50 million girls who would have been born if not for sex-based abortions and female infanticide." Nanliang details some of the results, most visible in the Chinese countryside: brothers sharing one wife, men marrying close relatives and "wedding women who once had little hope of marrying, such as those with physical or mental disabilities."
Human Rights for Who?
The next stage of the deliberations about the proposed UN Convention on Rights of Disabled Persons begins in the international disability community in June with seminars in Washington, D.C., and Mexico City. Scanning the news during just the last couple months, it is an interesting exercise to try to ascertain how or if a UN Convention could address the following situations, as examples:
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"McNamara's Moron Corps," is the focus of an expose by Myra MacPherson in the May 29 issue of Salon.com. The article describes a little known project of the late U.S. Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, who, running out of new soldiers for the Vietnam conflict, decided to recruit hundreds of thousands of young men who had previously been rejected for failing to meet physical or mental standards.
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In May the UN Committee Against Torture clashed with Saudi Arabian diplomats over whether flogging and the amputation of limbs are violations of the 1987 Convention Against Torture. In a May 18 New York Times article, Elizabeth Olsen reported that the Saudi delegates said this Convention had no jurisdiction over Shariah, the Islamic legal code derived from the Koran, that allows amputations for theft.
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According to the United Nations, more than 80 million girls between the ages of 10 and 17 are married, "too often with devastating consequences on their physical and mental health," reported Harmonie Toros for the Associated Press on May 10. As an example, the article stated that an estimated 2 million girls and women have developed fistula, a serious and sometime fatal condition that can result from the effects of pregnancy while too young. Additionally, many married young girls cannot "negotiate" the use of condoms to protect themselves from sexually transmitted diseases, and this powerlessness can be tracked in the rising incidence of HIV/AIDS among girls in many countries.
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Also in May, the New York Times ran a shocking series of articles on the deplorable and sometimes fatal housing conditions for mentally ill people in New York State. The series described many inhumane situations, but its central finding was that while these smaller homes and residences were established in reaction to the deplorable conditions in large institutions, these may in fact not constitute an improvement.
Call for Papers
Finally, as we posted this issue, we received an amusing Call for Papers:
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Humor & Disability issue of Disability Studies Quarterly. Both scholarly articles and essay welcome, focusing on any aspect of humor - interpersonal communication, stand-up comedy, comics, cartoons, television, film, theater, humor magazines, jokes etc. Submit articles by August 1 to the Symposium Editor: Beth A. Haller, Ph.D., via email: bhaller@towson.edu
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