Lynn Lau
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Jun 22/01) - A children's rights advocate says failure to do more to deal with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome represents a breach of human rights.
Yude Henteleff was in Yellowknife recently to speak with members of the Learning Disabilities Association of the Northwest Territories. The Winnipeg human rights lawyer is a member of the Order of Canada and a part-time commissioner with the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
He has spent the last 30 years as a children's rights advocate and took direct aim at the federal and territorial governments for not doing more to help children with FAS.
"FAS does brain damage," Henteleff said. "It does brain damage which is irreversible. And the failure to carry out appropriate intervention programs and early assessment and remediation programs -- I can't think of a more fundamental breach of human rights than the failure to do that."
He said the education system doesn't do enough to recognize and treat fetal alcohol children and adults.
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is a condition caused by the consumption of alcohol during pregnancy.
Learning disabilities, developmental delays and behaviour problems are among the symptoms of children born with FAS, identified by Health Canada as one of the leading causes of brain injury in the country.
"There are some that predict that 30 to 40 per cent of children born on reserves will have FAS," Henteleff said. "And it's not just the children. It's the mothers who are FAS who continue this perpetual situation repeating itself."
Henteleff also spoke generally about the need to identify and accommodate the needs of people with disabilities because equality is mandated by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
"Every child should have access to those resources which enable them to fully access what is available to all other children.
"Once a government provides a service, it cannot discriminate in the provision of those services. And what discrimination means is equal access. It does not mean simply ... that they let you in the front door."
For disabled people to have equal access, their needs must be identified, and that isn't happening most of the time, Henteleff said.
Quoting statistics from a recent government survey of disabilities in aboriginal communities, he said that among children up to the age of 14, 70 per cent had a learning disability, 56 per cent have an intellectual disability, and 50 per cent have a speech disability, figures that are as much as 10 times higher among the non-aboriginal population.
"The report also notes that persons with these disabilities are highly unlikely to ever have the disability assessed, named and, of course, to receive any programs."
