#WhatWENeed is full CRPD Compliance on the inclusion of persons with psychosocial disabilities.
Partners for reframing from Mental Health to Inclusion this International Mental Health Week, 2018[1]
Persons with psychosocial disabilities, users and survivors of psychiatry, people with \”mad\” identities and other identities thereof are herewith calling for support to have our voices amplified through this International Mental Health Week 2018 as we gear towards increasing our full and effective participation in communities that are inclusive. We also express our concerns over the spread of the medical model through the middle and low-income countries importing western models that we know have failed.
The medical model, proposed by the \”Global Mental Health Movement\”, since the first Lancet issue in 2007, has set ablaze through Low and Middle Income Countries of the world (LMICs) with its regressive approach towards mental health and persons with psychosocial disabilities contrary to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). This year, based on the non-compliant work of the Global Mental Health Movement, the \”Global Mental Health Ministerial Summit\” is being organized in London during the World Mental Health Week of 2018 by the UK Government, the WHO and several enabling agencies.
To our dismay, the summit is being designed and conducted without participation of persons with psychosocial disabilities and users and survivors of psychiatry, opposing the very tenet of the CRPD that requires of persons with disabilities in matters concerning them which in this case are persons with psychosocial disabilities. According to their website, a Lancet paper is promised to be released, which has aroused the ire of the movement of persons with psychosocial disabilities, their supporters and their allies worldwide but especially in the LMICs where such actions are predicted to have maximum impact.
We feel that the summit will undo the significant development that has happened towards a rights based perspective for persons with psychosocial disabilities by the Reports from Special Rapporteur (Disabilities), statements from the Special Rapporteur (Health), the mental health and human rights report (2018) from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the General Comments on Legal Capacity, Women Living independently.
Most recently, allied UN bodies have also issued very strong statements supporting moves to realize all human rights for persons with psychosocial disabilities. All these positive efforts have also been supported by far reaching policy changes worldwide, on enabling CRPD compliance.
In a deliberate response to these complex new developments worldwide, a \”Bali Declaration\” was issued by TCI Asia Pacific in August, 2018 affirming once again a call to CRPD commitment and reframing mental health in the direction of inclusion. The \”North driving the South\” phenomenon has evoked strong counter response from TCI Asia Pacific and allied organizations from Africa and Latin America especially when we know that the western model of psychiatry based on colonial practices of isolation and coercion and offering little more than medication is a failure. The Declaration expresses alarm at the import of models and the impending violations in human rights that need more universal visibility and advocacy worldwide.
TCI AP is concerned that the GMH movement is influencing the world in setting the lowest standard of the CRPD for persons with psychosocial disabilities. What we need instead is to be engaged in constructive actions of community development and not medicalisation as the solution. Our movement is thus creating new and continuing critical messaging and advocacy with member states reiterating our advocacy for full CRPD compliance and our right to live in the community. We believe that the answers are to be found in promoting policies of practices that have inclusion across services in line with article 19 as core principle, process and outcomes.
Therefore, to counter the detrimental impact of the medical focused discussions that we see happening at the Global Mental Health Ministerial Summit, TCI Asia Pacific will run an online campaign to have our voices heard from 1st October – 30th November 2018
We invite you to join us across regions and boundaries to express ourselves collectively.
- You may link the campaign with your programmes for the International Mental Health Week by keeping us in the loop so that we can partner with your efforts and synergise.
- Or you may partner with the campaign by sharing your organisation\’s name, logo, or let us know how you want to be visible on the public platforms.
- Or you may connect on:
- Tweet messages on the topic. Do not forget to add #WhatWENeed @TCIAsia to your messages. 2.
- We encourage a photo-campaign with messaging for Twitter which you can tweet yourself but if you do not have a twitter account or unable to open one, you may send your photos to us with a subject line ‘Twitter photo-campaign’
- Please keep retweeting the tweets on #WhatWENeed
- Like our Facebook page ‘What We Need\’
- Post messages on the page
- Share the messages from the page to your networks
Blog
- Our blog is https://tciasiapacific.blogspot.com/ do share with your networks
- You may share a blog post with us with a word limit between 500 – 1200 words
- You may share you blog in your national language
- Blog post may be shared on tciasia.secretariat@gmail.com. Please write ‘Blog post’ as the subject of your mail.
For any further details or doubt contact tciasia.secretariat@gmail.com