Institutions and abuse - but the funding goes on

Image Source: United Nations

We have learned of yet another instance of abuse against a person with disabilities living in an institution. Once again, it has received no media coverage and laconic police attention. 

The victim's mother reported to the police that upon visiting her son the day after the alleged attack, he had a broken elbow, blue marks, and hemorrhaging on his face and in his eye. The employee "simply beat him up with blows".  

It is truly incomprehensible that Israel remains stuck in its backward attitudes toward institutionalization. Doling out mass cash gifts, for instance, to institutions as it just did several weeks ago. And it did so despite the outcry of Bizchut, the Israeli organization dedicated to defending the human rights of people with disabilities.

In its end-of-year report, Bizchut summarized [see my unofficial translation into English that follows] that now infamous cabinet meeting which authorized the handover of millions of shekels to ADI Negev, the large, closed and isolated institution founded and headed by Major General (Res.) Doron Almog - the darling of Israel's elite and powerful. 

No to Funding for Institutions!

Our first initiative relates to Adi Negev, an institution in the Negev where 150 people with disabilities reside.

A month ago we learned that in a closed  meeting the government will decide whether  or not to allot millions of shekels to its development. 

We do not have and never have had anything specific against Adi Negev, only against the very idea of institutions. 

When people with disabilities live, work and receive services in one place which is designated for them alone - they are isolated/cut off  from the community outside, which deepens their separation from the society. This harms equality. This harms their quality of life. In such a place, they have no control over the most basic decisions in life. 

The State of Israel understood this as well when in 2012 it ratified the international Convention for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities which, according to its official interpretation by the United Nations, orders the closure of all institutions.

We Received Word of the Government Meeting only 24 Hours Beforehand and We Understood We Had to Act Immediately

In no time (from one day to the next) we embarked on a campaign which called on ministers to oppose reaching a decision without first holding a communal, transparent, open debate, with the participation of people with disabilities in line with the principle of "Nothing about us without us", which views people with disabilities as an inseparable part of the decision making process. 

We said that it cannot be that the State will allocate millions of shekels to a policy that affects people with disabilities - without hearing them and their representative organizations. We also said that in light of the Convention and in light of the demand that arises on the ground - from people with disabilities and from their families - it is impossible to allocate millions of shekels to institutions. The budget must be allocated toward the development of responses within the community.

700 emails calling for in community living were sent

True, the government ultimately decided to approve the budget increase of several millions of shekels to expand ADI Negev. But we are not discouraged. We will continue to fight with all our strength to advance the right of every person to live within the community. 

One of our goals this year is to anchor in legislation the right to autonomous life in the community with personal aid. 

We will be sharing further details soon.

I'm glad that Bizchut is not discouraged. 

But as I wrote in an earlier post [Actually, zero steps forward, January 3, 2022], the failure of our protests to prevent that cash gift of millions of shekels to ADI Negev, truly demoralized me.