Car­o­line C Rav­el­lo

The head­line said: "Newal­lo-Ho­sein promis­es bet­ter days for dis­abled...com­pre­hen­sive ap­proach in hous­ing, trans­port, em­ploy­ment, ed­u­ca­tion." The sto­ry is one of pos­si­bil­i­ties ex­cept for the fact that it main­ly ad­dressed phys­i­cal dis­abil­i­ties.

It was the fol­low-on head­line to Ramp­ing Up Ser­vices For The Dis­abled, on Ju­ly 5, af­ter T&T rat­i­fied the Con­ven­tion for the Rights of Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties (CR­PD), pub­lished with a pho­to high­light­ing wheel­chair users. In­tent aside, the sto­ry is bi­ased and in the spir­it and let­ter of the CR­PD, is in­cal­cu­la­bly dis­en­gaged.

I warned that this slant­ed con­ver­sa­tion could/would skew the dis­abil­i­ty dis­course to on­ly what some recog­nise, ac­cept, or are com­fort­able en­dors­ing about dis­abil­i­ties. I wrote that ar­ti­cle be­cause I'm aware that an en­tire school of thought does not con­sid­er men­tal ill­ness­es as dis­abil­i­ties. I ap­pre­ci­ate too, that his­tor­i­cal stig­ma and dis­crim­i­na­tion ac­count for the men­tal­ly ill ex­pe­ri­enc­ing greater prej­u­dice. And, if ac­cord­ing to the Ju­ly 5 ar­ti­cle, "dis­abled peo­ple are an af­ter­thought in this coun­try," those with men­tal dis­abil­i­ties haven't yet en­tered T&T's mind­scape.

Of course, we get at­ten­tion. We're most­ly mocked in that dread­ful equat­ing of gen­uine pathol­o­gy to the mis­con­duct and in the den­i­gra­tion of oth­ers, as in Sel­wyn Ryan's last Sun­day col­umn, Pol­i­tics and men­tal health.

War­i­ly, my May 13 col­umn said: "His­tor­i­cal­ly, when we speak/think of dis­abil­i­ty, is­sues such as wheel­chairs, para­ple­gia, blind­ness, and so on come to mind. For a long time and still in the minds of most peo­ple there re­mains a per­cep­tion of (and with­in) the dis­abil­i­ty com­mu­ni­ty and it of­ten ex­cludes hid­den/in­vis­i­ble dis­abil­i­ties."

Our Con­sti­tu­tion be­gins with the re­as­sur­ing premise of equal­i­ty and en­shrined pro­tec­tion of rights and free­dom for all. Then for us, it quick­ly di­vides that equal­i­ty with the dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion, first, as a mem­ber of the Sen­ate then, the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, at Sec­tion 42.d and 48.c, dis­al­low­ing from ser­vice an "in­di­vid­ual who is men­tal­ly ill, with­in the mean­ing of the Men­tal Health Act, 1975; No 30 of 1975."

That Act, writ­ten in the ear­ly 1970s, was dat­ed at procla­ma­tion. And be­ing still the law on which our Con­sti­tu­tion hinges this an­ti­quat­ed chap­ter, it con­tin­ues to give no con­sid­er­a­tion for how ad­vanced the world is in the de­f­i­n­i­tion and clas­si­fi­ca­tion of men­tal ill­ness. It ig­nores the ef­fec­tu­al pop­u­la­tion of men­tal­ly ill who live lives wor­thy of em­u­la­tion glob­al­ly.

No­tably, in 2012, four British MPs, Charles Walk­er, Ke­van Jones, Dr Sarah Wol­las­ton, and An­drea Lead­som, all spoke of their men­tal health strug­gles for the first time in Par­lia­ment. The UK was on its way to right­ing the wrong of dis­crim­i­na­tion against the men­tal­ly ill in re­vis­ing its Men­tal Health Act (1983).

In this coun­try, in­di­vid­u­als liv­ing with phys­i­cal dis­abil­i­ties serve in our Par­lia­ment. Yet, here the men­tal­ly ill do not get even one men­tion in a sweep­ing in­ter­view with a min­is­ter of the peo­ple and so­cial de­vel­op­ment, who high­lights "im­prove­ments" and "pro­pos­als."

The Con­sti­tu­tion, the law, and the pol­i­cy­mak­ing here per­pet­u­ate in­di­rect and di­rect dis­crim­i­na­tion, ad­vanc­ing in prin­ci­ple the deep-root­ed prej­u­dice of men­tal ill­ness be­ing ab­nor­mal ag­gres­sion and ir­re­spon­si­ble or un­con­trol­lable be­hav­iour. There's no oth­er dis­abil­i­ty here where in law the State is the source of stig­ma, prej­u­dice and sys­temic dis­crim­i­na­tion.

It's long ac­cept­ed though, that most peo­ple re­cov­er ful­ly from men­tal ill­ness and are able to live pro­duc­tive lives. It's al­so recog­nised that we're amongst those least like­ly to be em­ployed, to be af­ford­ed de­cent hous­ing, and to be ac­cept­ed so­cial­ly or to find mean­ing­ful in­ti­mate re­la­tion­ships. And this sit­u­a­tion is ex­ac­er­bat­ed by the me­dia. "Re­search has al­so shown that ig­no­rance, fear and stereo­types pre­sent­ed in the news­pa­pers, on the TV and at the cin­e­ma all con­tribute to neg­a­tive at­ti­tudes to­wards men­tal ill health. Most peo­ple have lit­tle knowl­edge about men­tal ill­ness and their opin­ions are of­ten fac­tu­al­ly in­cor­rect (men­tal­health­care.org.uk).

So the Con­sti­tu­tion is in­equitable, hinged on an in­tol­er­ant law, but you hope that those in con­sul­ta­tions seek­ing the rights of peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties are more au courant with our dilem­ma. Sure­ly, they (or the me­dia/re­porter) must recog­nise the CR­PD is al­so spe­cif­ic about dis­abil­i­ty be­ing de­fined to in­clude all dis­abil­i­ties: phys­i­cal, men­tal, in­tel­lec­tu­al or sen­so­ry im­pair­ments!

The ar­ti­cle be­gins: "Mak­ing gov­ern­ment build­ings ac­ces­si­ble to ser­vice dogs used by the vi­su­al­ly im­paired and dis­abled is a wel­come move, but many peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties still can­not ac­cess build­ings such as banks and restau­rants be­cause of stairs and the lack of lifts and ramps."

My first thought was, some peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties have no dif­fi­cul­ty in ac­cess­ing the bank but may have dif­fi­cul­ty in ac­cess­ing em­ploy­ment to have rea­son to go to the bank.

And I delved ex­pec­tant­ly, tak­ing note of the top­ics cov­ered: ramps, stairs, wheel­chairs, park­ing spaces, ser­vice dogs, lifts, able-bod­ied cit­i­zens, pave­ments, user-friend­ly hous­ing, build­ing codes, restau­rant ac­cess, park­ing per­mits, fa­cil­i­ties, frame­works for build­ings, vi­su­al­ly im­paired, phys­i­cal­ly chal­lenged, ad nau­se­um.

This week, as the Gov­ern­ment cel­e­brates the rat­i­fi­ca­tion of the CR­PD, my hope is that Ms Akiko Ito, sec­re­tari­at head for the CR­PD at the UN, brings her ex­pe­ri­ence to bear on the cor­rect fo­cus and em­pha­sis which must be placed on the in­clu­siv­i­ty of all dis­abil­i­ties un­der the con­ven­tion.

ihavewrites@ya­hoo.com

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MHIsUn­der­stood