DRPI-Canada: St. John's Monitoring Site Fact-sheet

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Disability Rights Promotion International Canada (DRPI-Canada) would like to share with you a fact sheet from its monitoring project in St. John's. The fact sheet presents a summary of the findings of disability rights monitoring focusing on the individual experiences of persons with disabilities. The monitoring project in St. John's was led by our partner, the Independent Living Resource Centre (ILRC).

People with disabilities participated fully in all aspects of the project as coordinators and monitors.


Accessible versions in both languages are available on the DRPI-Canada
website:
-English version at http://www.yorku.ca/drpi/CanadaFactStJohnsEn.html
-French version athttp://www.yorku.ca/drpi/CanadaFactStJohnsFr.html

Key Findings

Reports of denials and violations of human rights were in general more prevalent than reports of people being able to access and exercise their rights. This was true for all the areas examined in this study- education, work, income security and supports, privacy and family life, social participation, information and communication, health, habilitation and rehabilitation, access to justice.

Rights related to Social Participation were the most discussed. Human rights violations reported in this area most often involved denial of dignity (88%), disrespect (58%), as well as disability-based discrimination and unequal treatment (50%).

In the areas of social participation and access to supports, the human rights experiences of women and men were very similar. In the area of work, however, more women reported experiences of exclusion while more men reported facing discrimination. This may indicate greater barriers for women in access to work altogether.

One third of the interviewees (31%) reported or took legal action when faced with disability-based discrimination. This outcome indicates that this group is well aware of their rights and is ready to take action when needed.