Print

specialOlympics 05When the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were adopted in 2000, they did not explicitly address disability, but we know that the scourges of disease, poverty, inequality, and discrimination impact people with disabilities at alarming and disproportionate

rates. Numbering more than 200 million globally, people with intellectual disabilities are the largest disability group in the world. To tackle the problem of extreme poverty without taking into account this population is to disregard their rights and limit the chance of successfully fighting disease, poverty, intolerance, and injustice. If MDG targets are to be met, our efforts must focus on those who need them met the most — people with intellectual disabilities.

Consider just one story. Aaron is a nine-year-old boy from sub-Saharan Africa. Last year, Special Olympics volunteers found him tied to a tree like an animal outside his family’s home, held there because there was nowhere for him to go and no one to help his impoverished mother. He had been “tied” by his parents for seven years. It was their only method for managing the demands of their child while also raising four other children. Aaron’s parents did not tie him out of malice; they tied him out of desperation. For too many parents across the Global South, this is the only standard of care they can offer to their children. The impacts on Aaron’s health, development, and social skills — essentially his future — are chilling.

Aaron is not alone. People with intellectual and developmental disabilities are disproportionally represented on virtually every indicator of hardship, disease and discrimination. The vast majority of children with disabilities do not attend school. While this is obviously detrimental to their ability to function and grow academically, the negative impact goes far beyond education. Schools are often the primary venues for immunization drives and health education initiatives. If people with disabilities are not in school, they are highly unlikely to receive these services and the broader networks of services are not equipped to handle the gap in access. When they do access medical services in the wider community, people with intellectual disabilities are routinely denied care or given substandard treatment due to the lack of training of healthcare professionals.

People with disabilities are also much more likely to be abused both physically and sexually, leading to a multitude of problems. As many as 83 percent of women with intellectual disabilities have been the victims of sexual assault; 68 percent have been abused before the age of 18.(2) In addition to the psychological and social consequences, this abuse also puts them at increased risk of severe health problems including HIV/AIDS.

Disability is both a cause and an effect of poverty and disease, creating a cycle of poor health, poor opportunities, and poor understanding among policy leaders. Generally, people with intellectual disabilities are simply ignored, left to endure more physical pain, more social isolation, and ultimately premature death.

Leaders of government, society, business and culture must confess that together we have failed to understand the pervasive inequality facing people with intellectual disabilities — economic, social, and cultural. Subsequently, we must commit to correcting this failure and bringing about the more just world that the architects of the MDGs had in mind.

Reaching the Goals

Reversing the age-old prejudice and inequality faced by people with intellectual disability will be an arduous journey, but there are specific actions that leaders can and must take now as the first steps.

Fully Embrace the U.N. Convention on the Right of Persons with Disabilities: Ratified in 2006, this convention marked significant progress in recognizing that people with disabilities have the same inalienable rights as all other members of the human family. It calls for all nations to utilize all the tools available, including legislation, budgets, and social tools, to mainstream disability issues as an integral part of development plans and push for inclusion of people with disabilities into all aspects of society. I urge all leaders at all levels and across all sectors to embrace both the spirit and the letter of this groundbreaking document.

Make people with disabilities “count”: When the data is examined, it can be seen that our statistical outlooks mask moral and practical failures. How many people in a particular developing country have intellectual disability? How many of them are left without education? How many of them are infected with the “big three” — HIV, Tuberculosis, and Malaria? The answer to these questions, tragically, is we don’t know, we don’t know, and we don’t know. I urge leaders around the world to include people with disabilities in censuses, research efforts, and tracking mechanisms. I urge global leaders to encourage and support countries to gather and use good, disaggregated data, to better track the status and accelerate the progress for those still being denied the help and the care that they need.

Partner with organizations that stand ready to help: Special Olympics offers extensive health programming, providing free health screenings and follow-up care in more than 100 countries. Since the inception of its “Healthy Athletes” program, Special Olympics has become the world’s largest public health organization specifically for people with intellectual disabilities and maintains the largest database anywhere on the health status and needs of this population. And Special Olympics represents just one organization with the willpower and resources to help — there are many others. I urge leaders to reach out to and accept the assistance offered by others.

Integrate people with disabilities into future benchmarks: When the new Millennium Development Goals are written, I hope a fearless team will insist that they focus not just on general targets, but rather on how to reach the hardest to reach, the poorest of the poor. I hope the team will succeed in demanding a focus on the excluded and demand that a proportionate share of the world’s effort be for those with intellectual disabilities. I urge leaders to use whatever influence they have to ensure that the next goals are more inclusive of people with disabilities.

Help people with disabilities be heard: Whether it be a UN committee helping draft the post-2015 MDG framework, or a social justice or health-related committee advising on the national or regional level, I urge all leaders to use their influence to ensure that people with intellectual disabilities have a seat at the table. Perhaps we will need to slow down the meetings a bit so that the voice of those at the bottom can be heard but the benefits will be glorious. I am sure that people with intellectual disabilities will shame the powerful with their wisdom and silence the wise with their spirit. We must demand at least a proportionately equal share of voice for people with intellectual disabilities.

The task of reaching the most disadvantaged is a daunting one. To untie the shackles of millions will be a painful and deep one. Despite the difficulty, however, I am optimistic that together we can muster the ideas and the grit to change the course of human history. In this quest, we ask not that you be perfect in all that you do but rather that you be faithful to the belief that we can all do something.

Take that first small step. It is larger than we think for a population paralyzed by global inaction. GHD