Seven years after the United Nations Convention on Rights of People with Disabilities was signed by countries around the world, there is still a long way to go, according to Michael Stein, Executive Director, Harvard Law School, Harvard Law School Project on Disability.
“While it would be wonderful if there was a huge change, slow progress is to be expected,” he said, explaining that the treaty was introduced to countries with decades, and even hundreds of years of legal exclusion. “It also came in the wake of millennia of stereotyping the disabled,” he said.
However, there are still some countries that have retrogressive laws, which need to change.
“In many former British colonies like Bangladesh, Kenya, Ghana and Uganda, there are Lunacy Acts, rather than a Mental Health Act. There are even some countries where there are vagrancy laws that prohibit some people from being out on the road,” he said, adding that there was no reason to think people with disabilities cannot manage their affairs as well, or as badly, as anybody else.
On the other hand, there are some countries that are doing exceptionally well. “Although nobody measures the actual improvements the UNCRDP has brought about, there are some sector specific markers: Ethiopia, for example, has done exceptionally well with inclusive education, Turkey has done well with physical access,” he said.
Inclusive education
in Bhutan
He added that their team was now working with Bhutan on inclusive education.
Prof. Stein is in Chennai as part of the Banyan Academy of Leadership in Mental Health (BALM) Masters in Research, Management and Entrepreneurship in Health, which is being offered along with TISS and VU University Amsterdam.
“We are currently talking to Ethiraj College, MCC, and Stella Maris to introduce a holistic approach to problems in healthcare and social work,” Joske G.F. Bunder-Aelen, Section Head of Biology and Society Studies, Vu University Amsterdam said.
