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05/12/2006

A Government that increases the disadvantages of disability

Disability is a chance in our lives, and environment may allow us to behave in a more or less efficient way. This will depend on the possibilities we are offered.

Let´s remember the equality principle, a general right that consists in the equation of opportunities. Equality of opportunities and equation of opportunities are not the same. They are different concepts.

Disadvantages caused by disability must be compensated, equating the opportunities of disabled persons to those of the rest of society in order to reach equality of opportunities.

Therefore, it is worth wondering whether people with disability enjoy the equality principle set forth in our National Constitution because they are not only entitled to general rights but also to the so-called specific rights.

According to INDEC estimates, about 7,1% of the Argentine population suffers from some type of disability.

Statutes establishing an integral protection system for people with disabilities have the purpose to promote positive action by both governmental authorities and the private sector in order to neutralize the disadvantages caused by disability.

In spite of having a laudable legal system to protect the rights of disabled people, the government, due to its omissions and failures, has become a disabling entity. However, this is not a problem of a particular government, because none of them has complied with the applicable legislation.

As a result, disability always seems to be something invisible for the government. It has no existence at all.

We affirm this because our legislation has removed physical and access hurdles in transport, and has made so for disabled persons to enjoy safety and independence in everyday activities.

Unluckily, we can affirm that the government increases the disadvantages of being disabled.

An appropriate legal framework is not enough if the principal obligor systematically fails to comply with its duty to guarantee the rights arising therefrom. For instance, the enforcement of the right to access to public transport.

Statutes and their amendments regulated and extended the terms of compliance, in order that public transport may be adapted to the needs of disabled people.

The National Executive, by different orders, has granted extensions that repeatedly benefited transport companies to the detriment of disabled citizens . Probably, because companies only apply the concept of "users".

Despite such benefits, companies have failed to comply with the law, its amendments or extensions. They have not incorporated the necessary number of units specially adapted to transport persons with disabilities. Concerning transport by train, the same problem exists: according to estimates, rules are complied with only in 5% of the cases.

Regarding short and mid- distance transport, only 25% of the units in use have been especially adapted to transport people with disability and/or reduced mobility.

Given the numerous and repeated complaints concerning this infringements, I have issued resolutions and requests addressed at different public bodies entrusted with the compliance or enforcement of the statutes.

Last year we went a step further, and filed complaints against the government and rail companies in four legal proceedings. Two of them have been decided favorably, recognizing, in one of them, an infringement of users’ human rights and, in the other, compelling rail companies to provide a transport alternative service for disabled persons or with a mobility reduction and to incorporate to the 2007 budget the necessary funds to carry out the works to make stations and trains accessible.

An important part of our role is to go to court, whenever necessary, to protect collective rights. Rights which, as pointed out before, in the case of people with disabilities are specific rights.

Notwithstanding the work that we have carried out so far, I would like to reaffirm our commitment to go on generating actions for the benefit of disabled people.

People working in the human rights field, must aspire to a world of inclusion. In order to achieve this, it is still necessary to generate many changes. Some of them are fostered with actions in public offices and through court proceedings.

Undoubtedly, to become a responsible society where diversity is respected from inclusion, it is necessary to produce a cultural change, a task that is not easy at all. However, this task is neither impossible nor entrusted to only a few.

This task is a government’s duty, no doubt, but it is also a duty of companies and of civil society.

We are all born with certain fundamental rights, but neither their enforcement nor their enjoyment is automatic.

We are not stating that citizenship’s actions must compensate the government and companies’ failures. However, citizens have the duty to inform the authorities and to initiate actions whenever necessary.

If we aspire to a democratic system, if we work for a participative democracy, we must take part actively in the defense of our rights. A way of doing it is by not surrendering the control that, as inhabitants of this country, we have the right to exercise on public policies of the governmental institutions that represent us.

Column published in La Nación Newspaper on December 6, 2006