The #DAI #Hello #WAM2018 blog series have been very popular, hence we intend to continue them at least weekly for some time to come. We have many new members joining DAI each week now, and want to continue to give everyone with dementia a platform to have a voice, if they want one.
As is it important to talk about progress (or not), today, therefore we begin October with an article by DAI member Professor Peter Mittler. Peter says #Hello with a reflections on our human rights.
Peter has worked tirelessly for most of his professional life for the rights for people with disabilities, and for the last few years has devoted his attention to the rights of people with dementia, sharing his extensive expertise and knowledge, and is friendship and commitment to the 50 million people currently living with dementia. Thank you Peter. We are humbled and honoured to have Peter as a member, and thank him for his continued focus on the rights of us all; DAI is deeply indebted to you.
Hello, my name is Peter Mittler
MY REFLECTIONS ON OUR HUMAN RIGHTS
My human rights journey began shortly before my 7thbirthday when Hitler’s army marched into Austria and street thugs wearing brown shirts and swastikas arrested thousands of Jews, closed their shops and businesses and stopped me and other Jewish children going to school.
My story is told at length in a memoior, Think Global Act Local: A Personal Journey (2010). It now needs a new title: Act Local Think Global because the responsibility for taking action on human rights rests with each and every one of us.
The United Nations Organisation was founded in the wake of the Holocaust and the loss of hundreds of million lives in World War 2. Under the inspirational leadership of Eleonor Roosevelt, the UN produced the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 for everyone on the planet. That Declaration provides firm foundations for the legally binding Conventions on the rights of specific groups who were experiencing inequalities and discrimination: women, children, ethnic minorities and last but not least disabled people.
Although the UN has officially recognised people living with dementia as persons with cognitive disabilities, governments have not included us in the implementation of the CRPD or other Conventions. This is nothing short of systemic discrimination which will only end if we insist and persist in the demand for our human rights on the same basis as people with other disabilities.
- What can be more important than our human rights?
- What is worse than decisions about us without us?
- Why do governments and decision makers ignore us?
Since March 2015 when Kate Swaffer first demanded access to the CRPD at the World Health Organisation, I have worked with her and many others to secure our rights but we have very little to show for our efforts.
The UN supports us but our governments continue to ignore us. Dementia Alliance International and Alzheimer’s Disease International helped inform the World Health Organisation’s Global Action Plan for a Public Health Policy in Dementia (2017). It is a good plan but it is not clearly based on the General Principles and substantive Articles of the CRPD. Furthermore, very few governments have acted on it.
There now needs to be a campaign to use the CRPD in planning supports and services in the wider context of the UN’s Action 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
Will it happen?
Over to you!!
Peter Mittler © 2018
DAI’s vision: “A World where people with dementia are fully valued and included.”
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