The lack of policies to include people with disabilities persists in Mexico: UN

Fernando Camacho Servin

Newspaper La Jornada
Wednesday, March 30, 2022, p. 8

After concluding the periodic reports submitted by Mexico to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), the body warned that the country still does not have policies and strategies to include those who live in this condition, which which is especially serious in the case of women and indigenous people.

In announcing its final observations on the way in which the authorities have applied the convention on the matter, the CRPD noted the lack of a strategy to include such individuals, both at the state and federal levels.

For this reason, the agency recommended to the government adopt administrative and financial policies to support them to live independently and in the communityas well as take expeditious measures to end the institutionalization of that sector.

Similarly, he emphasized that women with disabilities, particularly those who live in indigenous communities and are under guardianship or in institutions, have limited access to justice in cases of gender-based violence.

For all of the above, he called on Mexico to provide them with legal assistance and advice when they need to file complaints, since eradicate stereotypes based on gender and disability from the justice system, to guarantee that all trials are carried out taking into account both items.

Asked about the observations of the CRPD, Ernesto Rosas, director of inter-institutional liaison of the Mexican Confederation of Organizations in Favor of Persons with Intellectual Disabilities, estimated that the accusations show the almost total lack of progress in this area by the State.

“The issue of deinstitutionalization is an observation that has already existed since 2014. It is not about saying ‘tomorrow everyone will stop being in hospitals or shelters’, but about doing everything necessary so that whoever leaves and does not have family can be in a suitable environment, and nothing has been done of that work”, he lamented.

Subject to seeing it more calmly, I get the impression that the CRPD itself did not review the previous observations and that there should have been a more severe appeal to the Mexican State. Eight years have been lost, since no significant progress has been madebeyond enacting laws that are not put into practice.