The Human Rights Abuse Next Door: The Judge Rotenberg Center

December 10, 2018 marks the seventieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and is also International Human Rights Day. Article 5 of the UDHR states that “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” However, right down the street in Canton sits the Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC), a school which has been torturing the autistic children and adults who live there for decades.

The term torture is not used glibly--the JRC is the only location in the USA to be approved to use a shock treatment as behavior modification. In 2013, the UN called this treatment “tantamount to torture”. Disability activists have been trying to #StopTheShock and end this torture for decades; however, there are some new actions being taken. The Guardian reported in the middle of last month that “A coalition of advocacy groups led by Disability Rights International have written this week to the human rights arm of the Organization of American States (OAS), based in Washington, to request urgent action. The coalition is calling on the pan-American authority to demand that the US, which is one of its 35 member states, impose a federal ban on the method.” The news piece also quotes Disability Rights International's President, Laurie Ahearn, as calling the JRC’s use of shock “state-sanctioned child abuse. It’s torture. That wasn’t acceptable in Guantánamo Bay, but it’s apparently acceptable in a special-needs school in Massachusetts.”

The fact that this torture continues to take place in our state, within spitting distance of our town is unconscionable and shameful. I encourage all Westwood residents to contact their representatives to urge the closure of the JRC. Additionally, Autism Speaks has offered the JRC as a resource before, adding yet another reason to boycott them and related events such as “light it up blue.” If you are looking for more information on the JRC’s history of torture, Lydia X. Z. Brown’s site is the best resource on this topic.

All opinions voiced in this article are those of myself and not Westwood Patch.