Mockery in the street, the impossibility of reaching certain shelves in the supermarket, the difficulty of finding one’s place at school or business… These are some of the difficulties encountered by small people on a daily basis, beyond sometimes severe medical complications from which they suffer. Today in France, 8,000 to 10,000 people are affected by one of the 500 identified pathologies likely to cause bone dwarfism.
On the occasion of the International Day of Dwarfism this Monday, the Association of Small People (APPT) wants society’s view to change and publishes a plea for the public authorities. “Because even today, dwarfism carries clichés in the collective unconscious. And there is even a kind of handiphobia that is expressed: small people are photographed on the fly in the street and their image is posted on social networks to make fun of them, ”notes Othmane El Jamali, president of the APPT. To stop this, the association wants social networks to become more involved in the regulation of hateful content online and to participate in an awareness campaign on the issue of street harassment..
“Teasing is very frequent on a daily basis”
“The term ‘dwarf’ always sounds pejorative. Because it is too often used as an insult in the media or films. Teasing is very common on a daily basis. Apart from Mimie Mathy and the character of Passe-Partout in the show Fort Boyard, people of short stature are not represented in the public space. And when they are, they are in situations that are not very rewarding ”, completes Violette Viannay, administrator of the APPT, member of the National Consultative Council for People with Disabilities.
If small children go to school, everything is not always rosy in their daily life: “Some are excluded from school trips, or they are offered to put them in strollers to take them there, it is stigmatizing. . Achondroplasia, the most common form of dwarfism, requires adapting certain sports to people who have it, in order to prevent their practice from being too painful. However, the teachers of PE do not know it. Or some children are exempt from sport, for lack of facilities ”, notes Cecile Rilhac LREM deputy for Val-d’Oise. According to her, there should be “training with the intervention of experts in the school environment” for education personnel. And systematize the personalized schooling project, in order to facilitate the procedures for families.
Unequal treatment by MDPHs
Another concern: the processing by the Departmental Houses for the Disabled (MDPH) of the files of people with dwarfism. According to a survey * carried out by the APPT among its members, 96% of short people affirm that the MDPH do not recognize dwarfism as a handicap, and 40% attest that the services obtained are obtained after at least one appeal. “According to the MDPH, there is an inequality in the granting of the disability compensation benefit of aid to fit out his vehicle or his home. And the deadlines for processing a file are very variable, ”notes the LR deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes Laurence Trastour-Isnart.
“We want the criteria for awarding financial aid to be harmonized, or for small people to be systematically eligible for the disability compensation service (PCH), the disability compensation service (PCH). In addition, the administrative procedures should be simplified, because some people are unable to carry them out without the help of a social worker and end up giving it up, ”continues the deputy. Demands that will have more echo in this presidential year, hopes the APPT …