Rights Initiative and Alert: Letter to Legislators and Decision Makers: Urgent Changes to Derogatory and Offensive Terminology for Persons with Disabilities and Children with Developmental Difficulties

We are tired of being addressed with derogatory, outdated and stigmatizing terms; we are persons like everyone else; we are not disabled people – we are persons with disabilities and/or difficulties.

We have sent a letter to authorities with jurisdiction, for an urgent amendment of the law, in which, more than 20 years since Croatia accepted the Sheraton Declaration, almost 20 years since 2003, in laws and regulations, in the media and public space alike, persists the use of derogatory, outdated and stigmatizing terms when talking about PWD.

We sent this letter to: the President of the Parliament, all clubs of representatives and ministries, and we sent a question about the same problem to the Office of the Ombudsman for Persons with Disabilities at the beginning of 2021. The office has done everything to change these terms in legal acts, which is evident from the recommendations: https://posi.hr/misljenja-preporuke-i-upozorenja/

LETTER:

To whom it may concern,

we ask you to urgently initiate the procedure to amend all laws in which inappropriate and stigmatizing terms are used to designate persons with disabilities and children with developmental difficulties.

We highlight the negative example of this law, despite the changes from 2003 and the Sheraton Declaration. After more than 20 years, stigmatizing terms are still used in the laws and regulations of the Republic of Croatia, which reinforce this stigmatizing and discriminatory attitude, both of the public and legislators, as well as of the state towards persons with disabilities: the Law on Privileges in Domestic Passenger Traffic, https://www.zakon.hr/z/1559/Zakon-o-povlasticama-u-unutarnje-putničko-prometu.

Society for Research and Support (DIP) is an association (www.dip.hr) that implements social service programs primarily for young people with disabilities/difficulties (with difficulties from the spectrum of autism, ADHD, intellectual disabilities and mental illness), we advocate the realization of the rights of persons with disabilities and we train different stakeholders for the actualization of a society of equal opportunities.

The goal of our activity is to improve the quality of life for groups that need support and care, especially persons with disabilities, but unfortunately, we hear these mocking and insulting and stigmatizing expressions every day, and that is why we ask you to urgently initiate the amendment of all legislature and subsidiary laws in which these are used, and especially of the law in question.

JLP(R)S, the authorities with jurisdiction for the implementation of this Act perpetuate the use of these offensive terms, so they continue to be used: for example, terms for exercising the right to benefits.

The Ministry of Science and Education and the Ministry of Labour, Pension System, Family and Social Policy changed the nomenclature, but this law did not take advantage of the opportunity for change.

Explanation:

Back in 2021, we appealed to the Office of the Ombudsperson for Persons with Disabilities to speed up the amendment of the Act on Privileges in Domestic Passenger Traffic, https://www.zakon.hr/z/1559/Zakon-o-povlasticama-u-unutarnjem- passenger traffic due to the use of stigmatizing and discriminatory names in the text of the law: “disabled person” is used instead of persons with disabilities, disabled children instead of children with developmental difficulties.

The Ombudsperson’s Office has warned and sent recommendations and opinions regarding the use of terminology on several occasions, in accordance with jurisdiction and laws. We are aware of the large number of laws that are in the process of amendment, but we believe that there is a real danger that the opportunity to make the necessary changes will again be missed. These changes must be made in the language used to describe PWDs, so they could also be made in terms of the perception and thus the social status of PWDs.

“Discrimination against persons with disabilities is any exclusion or restriction due to a person’s disability, the consequences that occurred due to the previous existence of a disability or the perception of a disability, whether past or present, which endangers or violates the recognition, enjoyment and use of human rights and fundamental freedoms of person with disability.” (Declaration on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (Point 5, 2005)).

That is why the countries of the world have agreed that the person should be put first, and not some external feature by which we distinguish one person from another. Therefore, observance of the Sheraton Declaration adopted by Croatia, according to which, precisely because of the stigmatizing effect that the use of outdated and stigmatizing terms has on the social status of PWDs, demands special attention to be paid to these and such terms in normative acts and everyday speech. The Sheraton Declaration, which at the Round Table “Contemporary approach to understanding and defining disability” held on July 27th, 2003, adopted the nomenclature: for adults – persons with disabilities; for children – children with developmental difficulties! https://posi.hr/pojmovnik/ From the recommendation of the Office of the Ombudsman for Persons with Disabilities:

“Because of all this, we believe that it is not unimportant to use the accepted term persons with disabilities for adults, and for children, to use children with developmental difficulties, instead of children with special needs. When we want to describe a person with a disability in more detail, it is recommended to use the following terms: person who moves with the help of a wheelchair, person with mobility difficulties, instead of disabled person confined to a wheelchair; to use visually impaired person, hearing impaired person, person with muscular dystrophy, person with multiple sclerosis, people with intellectual difficulties (instead of a person with mental retardation or a mentally retarded person, (since the term retarded has acquired an extremely derogatory meaning in colloquial speech); people with psycho-social difficulties instead of psychiatric patients/mental patients.”. Other recommendations of the Office of the Ombudsman for Persons with Disabilities also focus on this problem: https://posi.hr/misljenja-preporuke-i-upozorenja/

1. Why are these offensive terms still used, despite the changes in the mentioned Act, and why the legislators did not use the opportunity to change the terminology used in the Law, when they had the opportunity to do so several times since 2003?
2. Please let us know when you will start the procedure to amend this law, in order to apply the Sheraton Declaration and terminology for persons with disabilities and children with developmental difficulties, and other persons with disabilities, such as visually impaired persons instead of blind persons, etc., if you have not already started this process by now.
3. We ask of all relevant ministries and administrative bodies to support this initiative and initiate the change process.
4. Please, give us your support and/or guide us on how to start a civil initiative for an urgent amendment of this law, if you don’t want to do so yourselves.
5. Please, revise all other laws and related normative acts and do not fail to make appropriate changes, and send a request for changes to the authorities with jurisdiction, at the local, regional and governmental level, in order to replace the existing concepts with the newly adopted ones.

Please, answer all of our questions.

DIP and its members, young people with disabilities/difficulties (combined difficulties – people with intellectual disabilities/difficulties, from the spectrum of autism, ADHD, people with psycho-social difficulties and other difficulties in psychosocial functioning).

DIP