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The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 or ADA is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability. It affords similar protections against discrimination to Americans with disabilities as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which made discrimination based on race, religion, sex, national origin, and other characteristics illegal, and later sexual orientation and gender identity. In addition, unlike the Civil Rights Act, the ADA also requires covered employers to provide reasonable accommodations to employees with disabilities, and imposes accessibility requirements on public accommodations.
Disability is the experience of any condition that makes it more difficult for a person to do certain activities or have equitable access within a given society. Disabilities may be cognitive, developmental, intellectual, mental, physical, sensory, or a combination of multiple factors. Disabilities can be present from birth or can be acquired during a person's lifetime. Historically, disabilities have only been recognized based on a narrow set of criteria—however, disabilities are not binary and can be present in unique characteristics depending on the individual. A disability may be readily visible, or invisible in nature.
Accessibility is the design of products, devices, services, vehicles, or environments so as to be usable by people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design and practice of accessible development ensures both "direct access" and "indirect access" meaning compatibility with a person's assistive technology.
The disability rights movement is a global social movement that seeks to secure equal opportunities and equal rights for all people with disabilities.
Special education is the practice of educating students in a way that accommodates their individual differences, disabilities, and special needs. This involves the individually planned and systematically monitored arrangement of teaching procedures, adapted equipment and materials, and accessible settings. These interventions are designed to help individuals with special needs achieve a higher level of personal self-sufficiency and success in school and in their community, which may not be available if the student were only given access to a typical classroom education.
Judith Ellen Heumann was an American disability rights activist, known as the "Mother of the Disability Rights Movement". She was recognized internationally as a leader in the disability community. Heumann was a lifelong civil rights advocate for people with disabilities. Her work with governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), non-profits, and various other disability interest groups, produced significant contributions since the 1970s to the development of human rights legislation and policies benefiting children and adults with disabilities. Through her work in the World Bank and the State Department, Heumann led the mainstreaming of disability rights into international development. Her contributions extended the international reach of the independent living movement.
Disabled Peoples' International (DPI) is a cross disability, consumer controlled international non-governmental organization (INGO) headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and with regional offices in Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Latin America, and North America and the Caribbean. DPI is a network of national organizations or assemblies of disabled people, established in 1980–81 to promote the human rights of disabled people through full participation, equalization of opportunity and development. DPI assists organisations in over 152 nations with the day to day issues of helping disabled people. They also host assemblies and symposiums across the world with their different national branches.
The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is an international human rights treaty of the United Nations intended to protect the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities. Parties to the convention are required to promote, protect, and ensure the full enjoyment of human rights by persons with disabilities and ensure that persons with disabilities enjoy full equality under the law. The Convention serves as a major catalyst in the global disability rights movement enabling a shift from viewing persons with disabilities as objects of charity, medical treatment and social protection towards viewing them as full and equal members of society, with human rights. The convention was the first U.N. human rights treaty of the twenty-first century.
Light for the World is an international disability and development NGO aiming at an inclusive society. The organisation currently supports projects in Sub-Saharan Africa — including: Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, South Sudan and Uganda dedicated to the restoration of eyesight, prevention of blindness, rehabilitation of persons with disabilities, inclusive education and promotion of their human rights.
Ableism is discrimination and social prejudice against people with physical or mental disabilities. Ableism characterizes people as they are defined by their disabilities and it also classifies disabled people as people who are inferior to non-disabled people. On this basis, people are assigned or denied certain perceived abilities, skills, or character orientations.
The world's poor are significantly more likely to have or incur a disability within their lifetime compared to more financially privileged populations. The rate of disability within impoverished nations is notably higher than that found in more developed countries. Since the early 2010s there has been growing research in support of an association between disability and poverty and of a cycle by which poverty and disability are mutually reinforcing. Physical, cognitive, mental, emotional, sensory, or developmental impairments independently or in tandem with one another may increase one's likelihood of becoming impoverished, while living in poverty may increase one's potential of having or acquiring disability in some capacity.
South Africans with disabilities constitute a sizeable proportion of the population, and their status in society is extremely varied in a developing nation with socio-economic inequality and a history of apartheid. Wealthy city dwellers have access to a wide range of assistance, whereas the poor struggle for even the basic necessities of life.
Disability in China is common, and according to the United Nations, approximately 83 million people in China are estimated to have a disability.
People with disabilities in Pakistan are seen differently than in most Western countries due to cultural and religious beliefs. The lack of accurate epidemiological evidence on disabilities, insufficient resources, weak health care facilities and worker shortages are major obstacles to meeting the needs of disabled Pakistanis.
Lydia X. Z. Brown is an American autistic disability rights activist, writer, attorney, and public speaker who was honored by the White House in 2013. They are the chairperson of the American Bar Association Civil Rights & Social Justice Disability Rights Committee. They are also Policy Counsel for Privacy & Data at the Center for Democracy & Technology, and Director of Policy, Advocacy, & External Affairs at the Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network. In 2022, they unsuccessfully ran for the Maryland House of Delegates in District 7A, losing to state delegate Kathy Szeliga and delegate-elect Ryan Nawrocki.
The intersection of disability and religion concerns the manner in which disabled people are treated within religious communities, the religious texts of those religions, or the general input from religious discourse on matters relating to disability. Studies on the relationship between religion and disability vary widely, with some postulating the existence of ableism and others viewing religion as a primary medium through which to assist disabled people. Religious exhortation often prompts adherents to treat people with disabilities with deference, however when the disability constitutes a mental illness such an approach may be slanted with an acknowledgement of the latter's naivete. In religions with an eschatological belief in divine judgment, there are often traditions promulgating an exemption from judgement in the afterlife for mentally disabled people, as well as for children who die before reaching maturity due to both lacking an understanding of their actions in a manner analogous to the insanity defense. Regarding the rationale behind God's creation of disabled people, some religions maintain that their contrast with the non-disabled permits the non-disabled to reflect and God to subsequently assess the level of gratitude shown by each individual for their health.
People with disability in Luxembourg have some legal protections from discrimination and their needs can be provided through various government policies. Students with disabilities have a fairly good rate of completing school compared to peers without a disability. Luxembourg signed onto the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on March 30, 2007. Much of the country is accessible, however, there are no legal provisions for reasonable accommodations.
Individuals with disabilities are more susceptible to contracting COVID-19 and have higher mortality rates compared to those without disabilities. This is particularly true for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, those residing in care facilities, and women with disabilities. Individuals with disabilities face heightened risks of mental health issues related to the pandemic, such as increased feelings of loneliness and isolation. They may also be more vulnerable to domestic violence and abuse during the pandemic. People with disabilities are more likely to experience unemployment as a result of the pandemic and may require changes to the types of accommodations they require for work. Children with disabilities experience complications in their educational programming. Remote learning poses a host of challenges for children with disabilities, including disruptions to physical and occupational therapies and access to assistive technologies.
Climate change disproportionately affects individuals with disabilities, both directly and indirectly. Individuals with disabilities are more likely to experience the effects of climate change on humans more acutely compared to those without disabilities. Typically, disabled people are the most likely to be negatively affected by any form of emergency, whether it be an immediate emergency like a flood or tornado or a gradual emergency like rising sea levels, due to a lack of access to emergency resources and the difficulties imposed by limited mobility. Disabled people are also more adversely affected by climate change because a disproportionate number of disabled people live in poverty, and people living in poverty are inherently more at risk due to climate change. Despite this, and despite the fact that disabled people make up more than 15% of the global population, they have had minimal input and involvement in the decision-making process surrounding responses to climate change. A 2022 study by the Disability-Inclusive Climate Action Research Programme revealed that only 37 of 192 State Parties to the Paris Agreement currently refer to persons with disabilities in their nationally determined contributions, while only 46 State Parties refer to persons with disabilities in their domestic climate adaptation policies.
According to 2015 data, more than 1.87 million Iranians with disabilities, or about 4.2% of the total population, were registered with the government. Although the law requires the collection of data on the number of individuals with disabilities, as well as on the types of disabilities; however, following a low 2011 national census statistic — which purported a mere 1.35% of the population as having disabilities — the Iran Statistics Center removed all questions relating to disability from the 2016 census. In 2014, the director of the State Welfare Organization of Iran's "Disabled Persons Empowerment Office", Keivan Davatgaran, stated that approximately 11% of the population was disabled.
References
- 1 2 Glinski, Stefanie (31 May 2018). "Disabled are the hidden victims of South Sudan's long war". Arab News. AFP. Retrieved 20 May 2021.
- 1 2 "A first for South Sudan's disability movement". Light for the World. 15 September 2020. Retrieved 20 May 2021.
