Blog archive for Campaigning articles

Closure of residential homes and villages - 17 April 2014

Residential homes are being closed all across the country.  Places that have been home to people with severe learning disabilties for decades.  Local Authorities are moving residents 'out into the community'.  On their own, away from the friends they have had for decades.  It is outrageous.  It must be stopped.

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Interview in the Guardian - May 2013

An interview with Amelia Gentleman, about my seminar and fighting for the rights of disabled people.

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Becoming an adult - April 2013

An article for the Daily Mail in response to news stories about discrimination against people with learning disabilities.

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Right to Care - April 2013

People with learning disabilities being moved out into the community without the necessary support, and the terrible things that can go wrong.   We need realisim, not idealism.

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Bulgaria - February 2013

Article in Feburary Spectator on institutionalised childen in Bulgaria

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'When will I be normal?': Heartbreaking question of Diana's Downs Syndrome goddaughter and her mother's fears of how she will cope alone - March 2012

Having been away for a few days, I walked into the house to be met by my 16-year-old daughter, Domenica, usually  so happy and bouncy.

‘Why am I a Down’s Syndrome?’ was her greeting. ‘Why can’t I do maths?’ Followed by the most heartbreaking question of all: ‘When will I be normal?’

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What makes the Government think the learning disabled have a 'right' to live in squalor, weigh 20 stone or have all their teeth removed? - March 2012

Last week, I wrote an article for this newspaper, immediately in advance of my BBC1 documentary Letting Go. When I logged on to my computer early on Sunday morning,  I was surprised to see that I had already received 20 emails from readers, and  by Tuesday morning, when I travelled to London to appear on Woman’s Hour to talk about the issue, I had received more than 300.

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Who will help them when we die? Huge response to Rosa Monckton's e-petition to ensure lifetime care for disabled people - March 2012

A host of celebrities, bestselling authors and entrepreneurs are backing a new campaign calling on the Government to ensure cradle-to-grave care for people with learning disabilities. 

Chef Nigella Lawson, authors P. D. James and Louis de Bernieres, playwright Sir Tom Stoppard, and businessman Sir David Tang are among those who have signed an e-petition launched by businesswoman and film-maker Rosa Monckton.

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Draft Green Paper on SEN - 27 June 2011

Observations on the shortcomings in the draft Green Paper, which in my view need addressing.

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It makes my blood boil that so many normal children are deemed to have special needs - 29 July 2010

The Daily Mail, 29 July 2010

 

More and more children, we were told this week, are being diagnosed with some sort of educational special needs. Little Johnny doesn't read well? Must be dyslexia. Sweet Sophie won't sit still? Must be attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Badly behaved? Could be conduct disorder or oppositional defiant disorder  -  syndromes I thought were made up until I read about them in this week's newspapers.

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Dr Rake should live on a sink estate for a year - 1 December 2009

Dr Rake should live on a sink estate for a year

Commentary by Rosa Monckton

 

Daily Mail, Tuesday 1 December 2009

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When love is not enough: The joy and hardship in caring for a disabled child - 9 November 2009

The Mail

 

It's the hardest job in the world, but parents caring for disabled children face a shameful lack of support.  And, says ROSA MONCKTON, whose daughter has Down's, it's driving some to breaking point - and even murder.

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The woman who is standing up to feral thugs - 4 October 2009

The Sunday Times, 4 October 2009 

 

The revelation of official ineptitude over the hounding to death of Fiona Pilkington and her profoundly disabled daughter came as no shock to me, because I have met Asher Nardone and her two sons.

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Exposing Europe's guilty secret: the incarcerated children of Bulgaria - 13 February 2009

The Times, 13 February 2009 

 

It is the smell that assaults you - filthy nappies, unwashed babies, rotting flesh. Then you are hit by the silence, an eerie, unnatural silence, the silence of babies who have given up hope of ever being consoled, cuddled or comforted. It is the dreadful quiet of starving, neglected, unloved children waiting to die.

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Why I'm haunted by these neglected orphans that Bulgaria and the world has forgotten - 6 November 2008

Daily Mail, 6 November 2008 

ROSA MONCKTON sends a heart-rending dispatch from the Bulgarian orphanages that shame Europe

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Yes, it was an evil act and she deserved to be punished. So why do I feel so sorry for the mother who drowned little Naomi? - 24 September 2008

The Daily Mail, 24 September 2008

 

Guilty: Joanne Hill was jailed for life for drowning her four-year-old daughter Naomi in the bath because she was ashamed of her disability.

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My Down's daughter changed my life - 14 November 2007

The other morning Rosa Monckton came downstairs to a scene of devastation in the kitchen.
Her 12-year-old daughter Domenica was covered in egg, cheese, milk, marmite and peanut butter which she'd tried to mix in a bowl to make a midnight snack.
"I have been like Auntie Nigella," Domenica triumphantly told her mother, "I couldn't sleep so I thought I should come downstairs and make myself something."


They'd watched Auntie Nigella - celebrity chef Nigella Lawson to you and me - on television the night before.

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