BCIFV home > Media Releases > July 11, 2000

For Immediate Release

July 11, 2000
(604) 669-7055 or www.bcifv.org

Media Release:

Disabled-Child Group Joins
Chorus of Voices Calling for Repeal of Section 43

Criminal Code fails most vulnerable children
most often and most significantly,
says program director

Staff at a BC organization that fights abuse of children with disabilities are concerned about last week's decision in Ontario Superior Court to uphold Section 43 of the Criminal Code, which protects the rights of adults to use hitting as a form of discipline against children.

"If children are the most vulnerable members of our society, children with disabilities are the most vulnerable of children, says Sally Rogow, program director of The Person Within. "Children with disabilities have very little protection against abuse. And a good deal of the abuse they experience begins as attempts at discipline."

Far too many caregivers attend diligently to a child's disability-related needs - providing medication on schedule, for example - but forget that this small person is a child first, with the same needs for affection and interaction as any other child, says Rogow.

Feeling neglected, the child can begin to act out. But if it's difficult to assess what the problem is for a child without disabilities, it can be many times more so with a child whose communication skills are impaired by disability.

"I can't count the number of times I've seen children acting out their frustration and despair, only to have their behaviours dismissed as part of their disability, or to be subjected to some sort of 'behaviour-management' technique," says Rogow.

"Yet if a parent or teacher tried to 'manage' the behaviour of a child without disabilities by tying him or her to a chair, walking away, and not coming back for an hour, that certainly would be considered abuse.

"Naturally, when children are treated this way their desperation deepens and their behaviour deteriorates further. Worse, by virtue of the very fact that they have disabilities, they often lack the ability to seek help.

The law should not shelter adults who have not taken the responsibility of learning to do their work properly, or social systems that are not seeing to it that caregivers are adequately trained and supervised, says Rogow.

"The law should shelter children. Currently it does not, and as long as Section 43 stands, it will not."

The Person Within is an award-winning 30-minute video and deeply moving two-day workshop about abuse of children with disabilities. Although the video and workshop focus on emotional abuse, those interviewed in the video - including adults with lifelong disabilities and adults whose life's work has been with people with disabilities - make numerous references to the physical and sexual abuse often endured by children with disabilities.

For more information on The Person Within or to arrange to speak with Sally Rogow, call the BC Institute Against Family Violence at (604) 669-7055 or visit the BCIFV website at www.bcifv.org.

To build this story using local sources, contact the BC Coalition of People with Disabilities at 1 800 663-1278 and request information on member organizations in your area. Or for a list of member organizations serving people with developmental (and in some cases other) disabilities in communities throughout BC, visit the BC Association for Community Living website at www.vcn.bc.ca/bcacl.