Dick Thornburgh and Paul Steven Miller, writing in the Seattle Times, urge that the U.S. sign the UN International Treaty on the Rights of People with Disabilities. The treaty could benefit one-quarter of humanity, they say: the 650 million people, as well as their families, who live with disabilities.

As former officials of two different presidential administrations, one Republican and one Democratic, we strongly believe that this treaty is consistent with American law.

… The treaty enshrines important principles that Americans hold dear: nondiscrimination, equal protection under the law and the right to autonomy and independent living in integrated, community settings.

The U.S. reluctance to sign this treaty has been painful and puzzling to us. The treaty provides important protections, beyond the specific protections of the American law, which level the playing field for people with disabilities. And we should not be so proud as to think we cannot learn from other countries about even better opportunities for people with disabilities.

(more…)

Writing in the Boston Globe, former U.S. ambassador Jean Kennedy Smith calls for an international effort to support refugees who have disabilities. These people are neglected, marginalized and largely invisible, she says, and have long been excluded from care programs because there was little reliable data on their numbers.

An upcoming report by the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children documents that there are up to 3.5 million refugees with disabilities around the world.

We know from witnessing many examples of remarkable people who have overcome the barriers surrounding disabilities that they, too, possess skills, knowledge, and experience that can help them remake their lives and rebuild their communities. Yet for much of the world, displaced people who are disabled simply do not exist.

Because their situation is widely viewed as peripheral to that of the overall refugee population, they rarely figure in tallies of the displaced. And there is usually little or no provision for them in mainstream assistance programs, let alone services tailored to their specific needs. Leaders of such programs should provide services and end this squandering of human potential.

… if we care enough to do enough, anything is possible.

From the New York Times:

People with albinism, a rare genetic condition, have long faced discrimination and stigma in sub-Saharan Africa. But recently, in Tanzania, at least 19 people have been been killed in what authorities say is a growing criminal trade in albino body parts. Albinism rates vary throughout the world; about 1 person in 20,000 is an albino in the United States.

Many people in Tanzania — and across Africa, for that matter — believe albinos have magical powers. They stand out, often the lone white face in a black crowd, a result of a genetic condition that impairs normal skin pigmentation and strikes about 1 in 3,000 people here. Tanzanian officials say witch doctors are now marketing albino skin, bones and hair as ingredients in potions that are promised to make people rich.

Los Angeles Daily News, Los Angeles Times:

Civil and disability rights attorneys Thursday filed a federal lawsuit against Los Angeles County alleging that “egregious” jail conditions amounted to illegal discrimination against people with disabilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Sheriff Lee Baca said the lawsuit was “unreasonable and unfair.”

The lawsuit alleges people with disabilities face inhumane treatment and are illegally discriminated against because the jail system routinely fails to accommodate their basic needs.

In interviews with 70 inmates, the attorneys cited inmate accounts of having to lie in their own waste for hours because wheelchair-accessible toilets and showers were not available or because their catheter bags were taken away.

Others said they had to drag themselves on the floor because they had no access to their wheelchairs or bathroom doors weren’t wide enough to accommodate them.

From the [UK] Times, the New Zealand Herald:

Groups representing people with disabilities reacted in outrage to an official guide for the Beijing Olympic Games that describes them as unsocial, stubborn, controlling, defensive and possessing a strong sense of inferiority.

… “I’m stunned,” said Simone Aspis, a parliamentary campaigner at the UK Disabled People’s Council. “It’s not just the language but the perception that in 2008 we are considered a race apart. Disabled people are introverted and stubborn the same way anyone else is.”

And from the Australia Daily Telegraph: Australian Olympic swimming legend Dawn Fraser (above) says she is boycotting the Beijing Olympic Games because she believes China discriminates against people with disabilities, as well as women and ethnic minorities.

Fraser, who won eight Olympic medals in the 1950s and 60s, said she had witnessed Chinese people spitting on disabled athletes in the streets of Beijing during university games in the 1990s.

From the Washington Post:

Nearly 18 months into Mayor Adrian M. Fenty’s administration, a court monitor has found continued “serious deficits” in the care of mentally and physically disabled residents of the District’s group homes.

The District’s performance is worse than it was a year ago on more than half of 13 health-care indicators, including effective tracking of residents’ food consumption and the supervision of mind-altering medications, according to the latest report by federal court monitor Elizabeth Jones.

“The findings overall are very troubling. Our monitoring concludes that the health care provided . . . fails to meet minimally acceptable standards of care,” Jones wrote. Residents “remain at very serious risk.”

… The monitor’s report is the latest in a series of dismal evaluations in recent years that are part of a three-decade-long lawsuit … In previous reports, Jones has said the care by some providers was so deficient that people have died.

Associated Press story in the Houston Chronicle:

More than 800 employees at Texas’ 13 large facilities for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities have been suspended or fired for abusing residents since fiscal year 2004, state officials said Tuesday in response to an open records request from the Associated Press.

… The revelations come a month after Gov. Rick Perry’s office confirmed that the civil rights department at the U.S. Department of Justice is investigating allegations of abuse and neglect at the Denton State School, the state’s largest with about 650 residents. It’s at least the second such investigation into state facilities, including one at the Lubbock State School in 2006 that revealed widespread abuse.

An advocate for people with disabilities called the number of employees disciplined “stunning.”

“It indicates to me that there is clearly a culture of abuse or neglect in these facilities,” said Jeff Garrison-Tate, president of San Antonio-based Community Now. “The bottom line is people are getting really injured, and they are not safe,” he said.