In the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, the specific needs of children living with some type of disability have been practically invisible, and their treatment has fallen entirely on their families, which don’t always have the resources to take proper care of them, specialists in the subject pointed out during a virtual forum.
Lisbet Brizuela, director for Mexico of the organization Disability Rights International, pointed out that it is not convenient to “institutionalize” minors living with disabilities, and even less in a situation such as that of the coronavirus, but to make children sheltered by their closest relatives.
However, at the same time she made it clear that these care tasks are almost always carried out by women, so she called for diversifying this model and expanding family support networks, as well as making visible the needs of minors with disability, which have always been invisible.
Carlos Ríos, former vice-president of the Committee of Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, stated that although Covid-19 appears to be less aggressive towards children, its effects on children living with compromised children immune or respiratory system have not been studied.
Jorge Cardona, lawyer and former member of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, regretted that the differences between a child in a wheelchair and another with autism are not even considered, noting that after the closure of schools and other public institutions, their families must take over of all the care work, often without adequate conditions for it.
