A new UN report on Thursday revealed how recent junta violence in Myanmar has devastated the lives and rights of disabled persons living within the country.
UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, Tom Andrews, said that discriminatory barriers for disabled persons have grown since the nation’s military coup in 2021.
The group has been particularly affected by the violence, not only because of an inability to flee when warning of attacks are heard, but also from imbedded cultural stigma. Andrews reported:
The primary drivers of exclusion for persons with disabilities are not their impairments but the social, cultural, political, and physical barriers pervasive throughout Myanmar society…
The widespread belief that impairments result from misdeeds in a past life not only fuels discrimination but is also internalized by persons with disabilities, leading many to withdraw from community life out of shame and an erosion of personal dignity.
The country had enjoyed slow progress towards establishing and upholding disabled persons-rights before the 2021 coup. The report highlighted several organizations, many of which are led by persons with disabilities, that have continuously worked to provide those with disabilities in Myanmar essential services.
In 2023, Amnesty International submitted a report to the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on Article 11 which detailed reports they have received about the conditions of disabled persons in Myanmar.
The submission detailed “how soldiers have subjected persons with psychosocial and intellectual disabilities to extrajudicial executions or arbitrary detention and torture because of the person’s perceived ‘failure’ to comply with a soldier’s order.”
Some citizens have banded together to create the Federal Democracy Charter following the coup.
The Charter’s aim is to create a new constitution and democratic institutions to help better protect every citizen’s rights.
(Jurist)
