Convention of Rights 20: Living independently in the community

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities (CRPD) forms the foundation of disability rights laws in Uganda and is the model for the Persons With Disabilities Act (PWDA) 2006. The CRPD underlines and recognizes that persons with disabilities (PWDs) are entitled to all the human rights enunciated in the The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. If you are a PWD the rights in the CRPD are your rights, if you do not have a disability it is your duty to uphold and promote these rights.

Article 19 of the CRPD says PWDs have equal rights to live in the community with choices equal to others. All effective measures should be taken to ensure full inclusion and participation in the community through:

• The opportunity to choose any place of residence with whoever they want, in any living arrangement.
• Access to a range of services either residential or at home and other support services like personal assistants. These services should prevent isolation and segregation from the community.
• Community services and facilities that are available to the general being available on an equal basis to PWDs.

Article 19 is about treating PWDs as equal members of the community and including them in the community in which they live. The CRPD shifts the emphasis of access away from the PWD, to the community that does not accommodate human diversity. PWDs do not need to lead lives isolated from the community, there is no need for them to be institutionalized but rather they should be free to live supported lives in the community in their own homes (see Article 19 [Living Independently and Being Included in the Community]).

People with mental disabilities are often institutionalized and isolated from the community in Uganda. The Mental Disability Advocacy Centre (MDAC) seeks to end these practices. The following are the conclusions to their 2 reports They don't consider me as a person and Psychiatric hospitals in Uganda:

I’m a person

Under this campaign, MDAC seeks an end to systems of guardianship, both formal and informal, and advocates for people with mental disabilities to receive the support they need to make decisions about their lives.

• Finding: national law allows for stripping of decision-making rights solely on the basis of an individual having an intellectual and/or psychosocial disability. De facto guardianship still exists.

• Recommendation: eliminate all forms of substituted decision making—whether formal or informal— and replace these with regimes of supported decision-making.

My home, my choice

Under this campaign, MDAC advocates in favour of support for people with mental disabilities to live in the community, and an end to institutitionalisation and the abuses therein

• Finding: people with mental disabilities are marginalised, excluded from the community by being put in institutions.

• Recommendation: along with committing to the process to deinstitutionalisation, develop community-based services giving individuals access to health and employment, and personal assistance in order to live an independent life in the community.

Schools for all

Under this campaign, MDAC calls for inclusive education for all children, regardless of their disabilities, and an end to segregation and the denial of education to children with mental disabilities.

• Finding: the government promotes segregated education over inclusive education for children with disabilities. There is a distinct lack of adequately trained teachers to forward the cause of inclusive education.

• Recommendation: create a time frame for the transition of inclusive education to inclusive education, making sure budgets, and the necessary services are allocated to facilitate this process. Undertake a rigorous review of the curriculum, and provide training to teachers and relevant educational professionals on inclusive education.

If you are a PWD or a child with a disability (CWD), you have the right to supported education with people your age in your community.

Children with disabilities 'invisible', marginalised: UN
Disabled children are at greater risk of being poor, are least likely to receive an education and healthcare, and in many countries face abandonment or institutionalisation.

This is written in Article 19 of the CRPD in the following way:

Article 19

Living independently and being included in the community

States Parties to the present Convention recognize the equal right of all persons with disabilities to live in the community, with choices equal to others, and shall take effective and appropriate measures to facilitate full enjoyment by persons with disabilities of this right and their full inclusion and participation in the community, including by ensuring that:

(a) Persons with disabilities have the opportunity to choose their place of residence and where and with whom they live on an equal basis with others and are not obliged to live in a particular living arrangement;

(b) Persons with disabilities have access to a range of in-home, residential and other community support services, including personal assistance necessary to support living and inclusion in the community, and to prevent isolation or segregation from the community;

(c) Community services and facilities for the general population are available on an equal basis to persons with disabilities and are responsive to their needs.