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Aspendos
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30 Mar 2015, 10:28 am

Our NGO, Autistic Minority International (http://www.autisticminority.org),​ was asked to provide input for a joint statement on the human rights of autistic persons by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health and the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities for World Autism Awareness Day 2015. The statement has just been released. Please circulate it widely and use it during your own WAAD events. Thanks!
***
Media statement

For World Autism Awareness Day - Wednesday 2 April 2015

Discrimination against autistic persons, the rule rather than the exception – UN rights experts

GENEVA (30 March 2015) – Two United Nations human rights experts today called for an end to discrimination against autistic persons and a celebration of diversity. Speaking ahead of World Autism Awareness Day, the Special Rapporteurs on the rights of persons with disabilities, Catalina Devandas Aguilar, and on the right to health, Dainius Pūras, noted that about one per cent of the world’s population -some 70 million people- is estimated to be on the autism spectrum worldwide.

“As part of human diversity, autistic persons should be embraced, celebrated and respected. However, discrimination against autistic children and adults is more the rule rather than the exception.

In many countries, autistic persons lack access to services which would support, on an equal basis with others, their right to health, education, employment, and living in the community. When available, services are too often far from human rights friendly or evidence-based.

Autistic persons are particularly exposed to professional approaches and medical practices which are unacceptable from a human rights point of view. Such practices – justified many times as treatment or protection measures – violate their basic rights, undermine their dignity, and go against scientific evidence.

Autistic children and adults face the proliferation of medicalized approaches relying on the over-prescription of psychotropic medications, their placement in psychiatric hospitals and long-term care institutions, the use of physical or chemical restraint, electro-impulsive therapy, etc. This may be particularly harmful and lead to the deterioration of their condition. All too often, such practices amount to ill-treatment or torture.

The autism spectrum should be understood from a broader perspective, including in research. We call for caution about enthusiastic attempts to find the causes of autism and ways to ‘cure’ autism through sophisticated but not necessarily ethical research. Autism as a condition is a critical challenge for modern health systems, in which we need to ensure that the practice and science of medicine is never again used to cause the suffering of people.

More investment is needed in services and research into removing societal barriers and misconceptions about autism. Autistics persons should be recognized as the main experts on autism and on their own needs, and funding should be allocated to peer-support projects run by and for autistic persons.

It is about providing individuals and families with the necessary skills and support to have choice and control over their lives. It is also about equal opportunities, access to inclusive education and mainstream employment to achieve equality and rights enjoyment by autistic persons. It is about promoting their independence and respecting their dignity.

Autistic persons should be respected, accepted and valued in our societies, and this can only be achieved by respecting, protecting and fulfilling their basic rights and freedoms.”

ENDS

Ms. Catalina Devandas Aguilar (Costa Rica) was designated as the first Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities in December 2014 by the UN Human Rights Council. Ms. Devandas Aguilar has worked extensively on disability issues at the national, regional and international level with the Strategic Partnerships with the Disability Rights Advocacy Fund, the UN unit responsible for the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the World Bank. Her work has focused on the rights of women with disabilities and the rights of indigenous peoples with disabilities. Learn more, log on to: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Disabili ... Index.aspx

Mr. Dainius Pūras (Lithuania) was appointed as the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health by the UN Human Rights Council in June 2014. Mr Pûras is a Professor and the Head of the Centre for Child psychiatry social pediatrics at Vilnius University. He is also a human rights advocate who has been actively involved during the last 30 years in the process of transforming public health policies and services, with special focus on the rights of children, persons with mental disabilities, and other vulnerable groups. Learn more, visit: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Health/P ... Index.aspx

The UN Special Rapporteurs are part of what is known as the ‘Special Procedures’ of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system, is the general name of the Council’s independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms that address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world. Special Procedures’ experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are independent from any government or organization and serve in their individual capacity.

For more information and media requests, please contact Krista Orama (+41 22 928 9286 / [email protected]) or Dolores Infante-Cañibano (+ 41 22 917 9768 / [email protected])

For media inquiries related to other UN independent experts:
Xabier Celaya, UN Human Rights – Media Unit (+ 41 22 917 9383 / [email protected])

UN Human Rights, follow us on social media:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/unitednationshumanrights
Twitter: http://twitter.com/UNrightswire
Google+ gplus.to/unitednationshumanrights
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/UNOHCHR

Check the Universal Human Rights Index: http://uhri.ohchr.org/en



Alienhybrid
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30 Mar 2015, 2:22 pm

Very well said thank you.
I will today email various organisations in my country providing a link to these statements.

PS
I commend Switzerland on its stance in human rights and greatest level of social inclusion, its greatest global separation of state and religion, its highest global personal incomes, and greatest level of human longevity by nation.
I wish I lived in Switzerland!



Aspendos
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30 Mar 2015, 7:28 pm

Alienhybrid wrote:
Very well said thank you.
I will today email various organisations in my country providing a link to these statements.


Thanks ... where are you from?



Alienhybrid
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30 Mar 2015, 8:25 pm

New Zealand.
We live in the dark ages here with high cancer, suicide, alcoholism, obesity etc rankings.
Most people here have never even heard of aspergers and those that have, most think it is a fake diagnoses.

Kiwis love rugby, cricket, cars, meat and beer.



Protogenoi
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30 Mar 2015, 10:21 pm

Autism Speaks isn't going to like this :D


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31 Mar 2015, 3:35 pm

Wow. This is awesome!


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ASPartOfMe
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31 Mar 2015, 8:31 pm

They have to bring up a resolution sanctioning us for these human rights violations. It won't pass because America has veto power, but it sure would finally get the neurodioversity opinion out there worldwide and domestically.


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Aspendos
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31 Mar 2015, 9:58 pm

Protogenoi wrote:
Autism Speaks isn't going to like this :D


At the UN, Autism Speaks works most closely with Qatar and Bangladesh. They co-sponsor an an event at UN headquarters in NYC every year, supported by the wife of the UN Secretary-General (Mrs. Ban Soon-Taek).

We are in contact with the Qatari Permanent Mission to the United Nations European headquarters in Geneva, and they have told us that they will circulate the statement of the Special Rapporteurs during the Autism Speaks event in NYC. Not sure if that's ultimately going to happen, but if it does, Autism Speaks sure won't like it.



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31 Mar 2015, 10:32 pm

Aspendos wrote:
Protogenoi wrote:
Autism Speaks isn't going to like this :D


At the UN, Autism Speaks works most closely with Qatar and Bangladesh. They co-sponsor an an event at UN headquarters in NYC every year, supported by the wife of the UN Secretary-General (Mrs. Ban Soon-Taek).

We are in contact with the Qatari Permanent Mission to the United Nations European headquarters in Geneva, and they have told us that they will circulate the statement of the Special Rapporteurs during the Autism Speaks event in NYC. Not sure if that's ultimately going to happen, but if it does, Autism Speaks sure won't like it.


Hope you are successful so they can hear this line.
Quote:
We call for caution about enthusiastic attempts to find the causes of autism and ways to ‘cure’ autism through sophisticated but not necessarily ethical research.


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“My autism is not a superpower. It also isn’t some kind of god-forsaken, endless fountain of suffering inflicted on my family. It’s just part of who I am as a person”. - Sara Luterman


Orangez
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01 Apr 2015, 3:34 am

More useless human rights!



Jono
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01 Apr 2015, 7:35 am

Didn't Aspies for Freedom try to do this before?



izzeme
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01 Apr 2015, 9:15 am

For a second while i clicked, i was afraid that this would be a statement benefitting Autism Speaks.

I am pleasantly surprised, i do not know of any relevant instances nearby me, but should i find one, i shall forward this statement if applicable



Aspendos
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01 Apr 2015, 11:07 am

Jono wrote:
Didn't Aspies for Freedom try to do this before?


Aspies For Freedom had a petition for minority status, but I'm not sure it was ever even submitted to anyone at the UN.

Here's an official link to the statement now which was posted today on the website of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights:

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Page ... 7&LangID=E

Hopefully, it will be reported on by many media the world over.



Alienhybrid
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01 Apr 2015, 8:54 pm

Just checked our main national newspaper The New Zealand Herald,
no mention at all of World Autism Awareness Day 2015.
None zip nada zero nothing



Aspendos
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01 Apr 2015, 9:12 pm

Alienhybrid wrote:
Just checked our main national newspaper The New Zealand Herald,
no mention at all of World Autism Awareness Day 2015.
None zip nada zero nothing


The statement has been published in New Zealand, at least on scoop.co.nz:

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO1504/S ... ersons.htm



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01 Apr 2015, 9:29 pm

Guys, today is April 1.