A new controversy has hit the Argentine Government of Javier Milei, which has been forced to rectify on Thursday and has announced that it will modify the "outdated terminology" used in an official document to refer to people with intellectual disabilities with terms such as "idiot," "imbecile," and "mentally weak," as reported by Afp after a statement from the disability agency.
In January, the National Disability Agency (ANDIS) published a resolution establishing the parameters by which individuals will be evaluated to obtain or continue receiving a disability subsidy. In its annex, it describes the levels of intellectual development of "mental disabilities."
According to this text, first is the "idiot," who "did not go through the verbal stage, does not read or write, does not know money..."; then the "imbecile," who "does not read or write, (but) attends to their basic needs"; and finally the "profoundly mentally disabled," who "performs rudimentary tasks," the "moderate" and the "mild," who "can perform more complex tasks."
"Pensions are granted to those with profound mental weakness or greater," the text continues in the Official Gazette, published within the framework of a broad audit implemented by the government of the ultraliberal Javier Milei to review the suitability of disability pensions.
After the repudiation of this content by human rights organizations and people with disabilities, ANDIS acknowledged in a statement on Thursday that the publication of such terms was "an error resulting from the use of concepts belonging to outdated terminology."
The resolution and the controversial annex "will be modified following current medical and regulatory standards, with the aim of ensuring that the terminology used is aligned with international references," the agency stated on X network, clarifying that these changes will not alter "its evaluation criteria."
Three weeks ago, seven organizations demanded the repeal of this norm, stating that its content "flagrantly violates" the convention on the rights of persons with disabilities, among other things because "the classification of individuals as 'valid' or 'invalid' for work is contrary to the social model and is inherently discriminatory."