I think they're focusing on the wrong problem here...

[mahogany]

I was reading this article on how mentally disabled people aren't really able to testify, and thus help prosecute their attackers, and all I can really think about is this line:

During their lifetimes, research suggests, 83 per cent of women with disabilities are sexually abused; 80 per cent of female psychiatric in-patients will be physically or sexually assaulted.


What??? How is it that this is still allowed to happen? What is someone with a mentally ill relative that is either a danger to herself or others supposed to do? Have her committed, so she can be raped? Clearly, we need female only hospitals staffed exclusively by females.

Evidence rules leave disabled Canadian girls open to sex abuse

Comments

[mahogany.livejournal.com]

I think the question is really what can people do in order to better screen people working with people with disabilities or people with mental illnesses.

Yes, that is indeed the question. How do we screen for those things? Getting rid of the no-brainer things such as ensuring ALL staff including those that don't necessarily have interaction with the patients have criminal records that are free of any charges, or even allegations of abuse. Yes, I know it's probably illegal to deny someone based on allegations if they were not convicted, so this is obviously not a viable proposal, but man! 80%. 80 fucking percent. There is something really wrong here.

Then, there are the people that have never been charged - whose victims have yet to come forward, for whatever reason. How do we screen for those?

I know that having an all female facility isn't an ideal answer, but as an immediate knee jerk reaction, it strikes me as a way of eliminating a good chunk of the perpetrators and creating a safer environement.

[garpu.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's insane, no question.

But I think a lot of it is rooted in how we relate to people with disabilities and people with mental illness. (Going back to discussions of abelism, like blauteufelin brought up.) If we can combat that, then we can also reduce instances of other kinds of abuse. (physical, emotional, and psychological abuse are just as insidious.)

[mahogany.livejournal.com]

I'm impressed that you even sense of my reply. I was so fired up, when I wrote it, I didn't even check it over. Oi! What a jumble! :p

I think there are two separate issues. The treatment and abuse of people with disabilities, which can and does occur in institutions, at home, and in the community at large, forms one issue in my mind. The scope of addressing that particular issue is huge, and as you and blaueteufelin pointed out needs to begin with awareness and education of the public at large.

The second issue is the one of in-patient safety within institutions. That issue should theoretically be easier to address because the institutions are a controlled environment, and we should be able to more easily rectify who has access to the patients, and implement measures to ensure patient safety. Of course, what I think should be easy to fix, and reality are often quite different.

[garpu.livejournal.com]

That, and in this country, there's often a huge difference in care in facilities where people can pay for it and where people can't. If I ruled the world, there wouldn't be such a difference.