There are lots of situations where an awareness of
human rights can help improve the lives of people with mental
health problems; empowering people to make choices about
their lives, providing legal protections, and ensuring their
inclusion and participation in the
community.
SAMH has a programme of action on mental
health and human rights called Respect Protect
Fulfil. Over the next five years we will be
developing information, training and action on human rights to help
people with mental health problems make sure their human rights are
upheld. Contact us at
respectprotectfulfil@samh.org.uk to find out more. You can
also find out much more about human rights in the 'Know YOUR
Rights' section of our website.
The
UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was
adopted on 13 December 2006. It clarifies the
rights of disabled people and identifies areas where adaptations
must be made for disabled people to effectively exercise their
rights, areas where their rights have been violated, and areas
where protection of rights must be
reinforced.
The UK signed the Convention in June
2009. Following pressure from organisations including
SAMH, it has also signed the 'Optional Protocol' to the
Convention. This means that individuals or
groups will be able to bring petitions to the UN if they believe
that their Convention rights have been
breached.
Along with Amnesty International, the
Scottish Refugee Council and Scottish Women's Aid, SAMH
commissioned a report on local authorities' action on human
rights. The report, Delivering Human Rights in
Scotland, was based on Freedom of Information requests to 43
public sector bodies, asking them what steps they had taken to
comply with the Human Rights Act. The report
found limited understanding of human rights, with ten of the public
bodies contacted unable to provide any examples of steps taken to
comply with the Act.