Freeing our people: Updates from the long road to deinstitutionalization

An important article co-authored by a TDPM supporter

One of our march supporters co-authored this important article for The Monitor, and we think you should check it out.

Here’s a short piece of the article:

Imagine.

You are told when you will go to bed, when you will eat, and what you will eat.

You are denied a key to your own home, or to have visitors.

You are coerced or forced into sexual sterilization, for “your own protection.”

You’re informed the hours you spent shredding paper over 10 years are just a form of “training,” and that you don’t deserve even a minimum wage for this work.

You are told how to vote, or that someone else will vote in your place because you aren’t capable of making rational decisions.

You’re told you have “the mentality of a child.”

You are told you should never have been born.

It’s hard to imagine any adult being treated this way. But these are the insults faced every single day by people with intellectual disabilities. Under the guise of protecting them, many provinces practise intense forms of segregation that expose people with intellectual disabilities to degrading and abusive treatment.

Natalie Spagnuolo Kory Earle
JULY 4, 2017

A plain language version of the article is also available.