Autism and Social State-1

Whenever someone I haven’t spoken to in a long time leaves me an urgent note saying, “I need to reach you”, I know that this is either about a newly diagnosed autistic child or the serious problems of an adult autistic person who cannot get the support they need despite their advanced age. Because I have experienced this many times in the last fifteen years.

The situation the country is in today has become even more severe compared to previous years. No one can deny this anymore. Many of society is in a deep poverty crisis that has gone beyond the financial difficulty. The current economic situation affects many people, and it is said that things will become even more difficult starting in the fall. Most of the time, disabled people and their families are lost in this economic chaos, they are not even seen.

According to studies conducted by economists, the cost of living for a disabled individual is around 30-40% more expensive than an ordinary life. This is a general and average calculation. Today, the cost of a qualified education that an autistic child should receive in the world varies between 50 and 100 thousand TL per month in our country. Even if you pay these prices in our country, it may not be possible to reach the qualification. Because the infrastructure for the subject is not there and the issue has now turned into an “autism sector” in private enterprises.

Despite the fact that the Constitution states that it is a democratic, secular social state, the education provided by the state for a newly diagnosed autistic child is two sessions per week. The duration of the education does not exceed half an hour when those sessions start and end. In other words, as a family with a newly diagnosed child, you are faced with a public approach that assumes that the necessary educational support can be provided to an autistic child in a total of one hour per week. When this is the case, the task falls to you, you have to visit private centers and cover the cost of all the remaining education.

You may think that the rest of the education is provided at school, but I suggest you go to a nursery with your three-year-old child and say that you have come to register your child as autistic. Don't be surprised by the answers you will get, they will not want to accept you. In fact, not only the state-owned nurseries but also the nurseries of opposition municipalities today experience autistic children to the fullest extent.

On top of that, you as a family need to get speech therapy, sensory integration, sports, music therapy, occupational therapy, and if possible, counseling. The session fees for each of these are around one thousand five hundred and two thousand. In short, if your child is diagnosed with autism tomorrow, the monthly education fee you will have to pay is no less than five times the minimum wage.

This picture I am describing is just the beginning of what happened, the first photo you will encounter when you first receive a diagnosis. I will explain the rest in the following articles. Today I am telling these just to get to the SCT issue.

A rumor emerged recently. The SCT exemption that disabled people can obtain with extremely limited criteria has been turned into a big issue in all this chaos. Moreover, the relevant minister came out and said, "This right is being abused; we cannot allow it."

He is the minister of a country where those with a disability rate between 40-69 percent are paid 2,797 lira. Those with a disability rate of 70 percent and above are paid 4,196 lira, and that is only possible if you are below the poverty line. Moreover, the number of disabled people has reached 10 million, the number of people who can receive a salary is 500 thousand, and 80 percent of the disabled are unemployed.

Now the ministry is after this. It has been said that families who can no longer care for their autistic child and are forced to give him/her to a care center should not benefit from the Special Consumption Tax. It has no direct benefit to the disabled person.

I will continue this topic in the next article. There is much to say about these, but right now I have only one request from these authorities.

Please go and breathe in the strong urine smell of those care centers first. Live the lives of the children living there 24 hours a day. Put yourself in their families' shoes for a moment. Let's talk about all this later...