A chainsaw to disability rights

Querida comunidad del Debrief,

Today I want to share what is happening in Argentina. 

President Javier Milei is a self-described “anarcho-capitalist”, pursuing “chainsaw” austerity policies. His government is one of the most far-right in Latin America, and closely aligned with Donald Trump’s authoritarian agenda. 

Radical cuts have already left more than 100,000 people without their monthly “invalidity” benefit. Essential services in health, education, and other areas are being reduced or stopped. And at the same time as undermining rights protections established over decades, the government is publicly vilifying people with disabilities.

But there is resistance. The disability movement has come together as one of the strongest voices defending human rights in Argentina. And lawmakers overturned the Presidential veto to establish an emergency law protecting people with disabilities. 

About this edition

We can commission original reporting thanks to support from readers. Thanks to Andrea, Anna, Beatriz and Minority Rights Group for new contributions.

Eduardo Quiroga is a human rights lawyer, with a special focus on disability.

Show us the future: the Debrief is doing an open call for disability science fiction from 2050.

Decades of progress

Before Javier Milei took office at the end of 2023, policies on disability had been improving through the years, but only some of the changes had been felt in people's lives.

Almost 30 years ago, significant steps were made towards access to rights. For example, it was established by law that health insurance providers—or the State if the person has none—must fully cover transport, therapies, medications, assistance services, and educational provisions for persons with disabilities. A 4% quota in public employment was implemented, and public benefits expanded year after year.

Building on this progress, in 2008, Argentina ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which gained constitutional status in 2014. 

Following this, legislative advances were also made in deinstitutionalization, requiring the closure of asylums and replacing them with community-based, humane, and rights-respecting approaches. Forced sterilizations were banned, and social protection systems were reformed, moving away from the concept of “work incapacity” and enabling benefits alongside employment.

These advances in policy did not translate into a totally barrier-free society though. Access to basic rights—such as education, healthcare, and employment—remained marked by inequality and the absence of comprehensive federal policies. Many children and adolescents continued to be segregated from the general education system, and most people with disabilities lacked the Disability Certificate, essential for accessing benefits. Accessibility remained a pending issue, progress in deinstitutionalisation was limited and legal capacity restrictions also persisted. 

But there was at least a way to build new public policies and a growing consensus on the need for an active state to reduce these inequalities. And in recent years, the disability movement also grew stronger. New groups have sprung up across the country, and places were set up for civil society to raise their demands and ideas.

Not with bullets, but with cuts

The path was abruptly interrupted in December 2023. The Milei government came in with what they themselves called “chainsaw” austerity and deregulation policies.

A President is shrinking the state and its institution regardless of the consequences, something never seen before on this scale in our country's recent democratic history. People with disabilities—and other historically excluded groups such as LGBTQ people, women, migrants, children and adolescents, and older adults—are among the first to feel the impact, while budgets benefiting powerful economic conglomerates remain largely untouched.

Far from resolving inefficiencies, these decisions are creating a genuine emergency marked by legal rollbacks, heightened vulnerability, a return to outdated medical perspectives, and stigmatizing public discourse. 

Public policies on disability are being rapidly dismantled. An already-fragile set of supports is weakened: benefits are being cut, services are being interrupted, and there’s reduced access to healthcare. As Gonzalo Giles, a journalist with disability, told Discasta:  

“They're killing us, not with bullets, but with decisions, with cuts, with decrees, with technical excuses disguised as necessity and urgency. Because making cuts on people with disabilities, pensioners, children who need a doctor's appointment or food, isn't governing, it's condemning.” (These and other quotes are translated from Spanish.)

Vilification campaign

Brutal austerity measures are being accompanied by a campaign of vilification against those denouncing its effects. Even children, like 12-year-old autistic activist Ian Moche, face public attacks. 

Ian and his mother recounted how the then-director of the National Agency of Disability (ANDIS) told her that the costs of disability could not be covered by the government, but had to be met by the family. Government-aligned accounts responded by publishing hate messages, including Ian’s home address and school name. 

These attacks were amplified on social media by President Milei himself, associating Ian with an opposition party. The family went on to sue the President, but the posts were not taken down. 

Other officials have publicly questioned the number of people with disabilities, supposedly fraudulent claims on benefits, and the cost of disability policies. These political attacks lay the groundwork for the sweeping cuts. As Laura Alcaide of Asamblea Discas en Lucha told Latfem: 

“First, this government criminalizes people with disabilities; then it removes their rights. Disability is considered synonymous with lack of productivity.” 

Cuts to benefits 

One of the hardest hits to the disability community under Argentina’s new political cycle was the reform of disability-related benefits. 

Over 1.1 million people received a monthly “invalidity” benefit valuing around $200 USD. (“Invalidity” is a term used in Argentine law.) For many, this is their only source of income to cover food, housing, clothing, transport, or therapies. What is more, receiving the benefit also gives access to a national health coverage program. 

In recent years the “invalidity” benefit has moved away from judging people by “capacity or incapacity to work” and instead looked at the real barriers people with disabilities face to be included socially, alongside an analysis of their income. Reforms in 2023 even allowed people to work while receiving the pension, helping break the trap of labour exclusion and opening the benefit to thousands more.

But Milei’s government has taken a step backwards, returning to the “capacity to work” criteria. A resolution from ANDIS earlier this year presented the medicalised criteria for evaluating work capacity. The language was shocking, outdated and discriminatory – terms like “idiot,” “imbecile,” and “mentally retarded” were included. Public outrage was immediate, and social pressure forced the resolution’s repeal.

Revictimizing persons with disabilities

ANDIS followed this by launching an audit of every single active “invalidity” benefit. It was chaotic, opaque, and caused extreme anxiety and uncertainty. 

People got notifications with barely any information about what would happen. Some individuals were forced to travel up to 500 kilometres with no accessible options. Others were sent to addresses that didn’t exist. 

Local organizations like Hablemos de Autismo en Quilmes and Quilmes Sin Barreras denounced the process: 

“Over 1,500 people with disabilities were summoned on the same day, at the same time, in a place without accessibility, with not enough seats, and only four professionals to attend them. This procedure, apart from being inhumane, causes anxiety, distress, and revictimizes people who have already overcome countless obstacles to access their rights.” 

Together with the legal reforms, these benefit reassessments were part of a plan to reduce the number of beneficiaries and limit future access. By this August, over 100,000 people had lost their “invalidity” benefits, and there were reports that ANDIS had a bonus system for staff that could terminate even more benefits.  

The pace of cuts continues to accelerate. Alongside heartbreaking testimonies, long lines form every day outside ANDIS offices, where people demand their benefits back. 

Losing therapy, supports, transport and other services

Since 1997, the law has guaranteed access to health, education and social services for people with disabilities. But this system of support is now on the edge of collapse.

In order to provide these services, the government sets a value for how much providers will receive for therapies, transport, assistants or day centres. The problem arises when these rates are not updated to keep up with inflation—a long-standing issue in Argentina’s economy. 

While this issue is not new, it has worsened in recent months. The value of services has not been updated since December 2024, deepening the gap between their real cost and the official rate. The rate paid to service providers has fallen 50% in real terms since 2017, with nearly half of that fall since 2023. 

Services that were once guaranteed are starting to disappear. Centers that offered full-day programs are reducing hours; some have stopped providing meals; others have closed entirely. There are delays in delivery of medications. Many families are forced to cover costs themselves that were previously guaranteed by the state or their health insurance. Those who cannot pay are left without.

This situation led to massive protests in different parts of Argentina, and the pushback continues to this day.

“Not inclusion, but abandonment”

In a context of glaring inequality — with people with disabilities overrepresented among the poorest — the combination of these attacks only deepens their vulnerability. It pushes many closer to destitution and makes the prospect of a dignified life ever more remote. 

Research points to, for example, the way rolling back inclusion policies particularly affects women with disabilities and exacerbates the inequalities they face, leaving them even more exposed to violence and social exclusion.

The impact of the Milei government on people with disabilities was summed up by Iván Davidovich, an activist for the rights of persons with disabilities:

“This is not inclusion, it’s abandonment. […] It’s not a mistake: it’s a choice. They are leaving us without support, without resources, without a voice”.

Legislative pushback to the presidency

The Argentine lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, has pushed back on Milei’s attack on disability rights. Faced with the alarming deterioration of living conditions, they proposed a National Disability Emergency Law.

The law declares a disability emergency until December 31, 2026. It proposes the creation of a new disability benefit based on social vulnerability and also permitting employment. It also focuses on strengthening the system of services. Opposition lawmakers united to approve the bill in the Chamber of Deputies and then the Senate. 

The Presidency responded swiftly by vetoing the law at the beginning of August. The official argument boiled down to resource scarcity and the need to “preserve fiscal balance.” The veto came without any alternative proposal from the government, leaving the urgent demands of people with disabilities – once again – unanswered. 

People with disabilities and allies protested to demand that Congress overturn the veto. The state responded by activating anti-protest protocols that would put demonstrators at risk. In this way, the state is not only ignoring the demands but also actively repressing them.

Both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate have rejected the Presidential veto, with the Senate voting 63-7, far more than the two-thirds majority needed to do so. It’s the first time in over twenty years that a Presidential veto has been overridden. The Argentine political system was able to prioritize the protection of rights over the logic of fiscal adjustment. 

However, an equally challenging stage now begins: ensuring its effective implementation. The government is determined to use every measure at its disposal to avoid complying with the law, and it recently suspended its application until Congress specifies where to find the budget to implement it. The disability movement is responding with continued mobilization.

Corruption and dismantling protections

As well as the direct impact on benefits and services for people with disabilities, there are practices and policies that are picking these institutions apart.

Even as people with disabilities are accused of fraudulently receiving disability benefits, a corruption scandal implicates Milei’s family in profiting from plundering from disability services. 

Leaked audio recordings have alleged that Milei’s sister receives massive kickbacks from a deal between ANDIS and a pharmaceuticals company.  

And at the same time the agencies responsible for protecting rights are being dismantled.  These measures quietly—and sometimes irreversibly—reshape the network of public policies built over decades to ensure inclusion.

While previously reporting to the Cabinet Chief, ANDIS itself has now been moved to the Ministry of Health. At first glance, this might seem like an administrative decision, but it marked a return to a medical and rehabilitative perspective, as well as limiting its autonomy. 

In addition, the agency — like many others — suffered the loss of a large part of its staff due to state downsizing policies. Reports indicate that more than 500 workers have been laid off. The agency also lost territorial presence across much of Argentina, becoming an increasingly unreachable institution.

The so-called “cultural battle” promoted by the government also includes the downgrading and elimination of other rights promotion and protection bodies. 

One of the most emblematic cases is the National Institute Against Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Racism (INADI), established in 1995. For nearly three decades, this agency played a key role in reporting and raising awareness about discriminatory practices against historically excluded groups, including people with disabilities. INADI’s own reports show that between 2008 and 2019, disability was by far the main reason for complaints received. 

Eliminating the agency leaves a critical question unanswered: where will discrimination cases affecting this community be documented and addressed from now on?

The response from the disability movement

The disability movement has become one of the clearest and most persistent voices defending human rights in Argentina. This is not the first time the community has mobilized, but this time it does so with renewed strength, visibility, and the capacity to forge alliances.

Every cut, program closure, or regulatory rollback has been met with action and country-wide protests. People with disabilities, their families, service providers and other organisations have demonstrated, confronted lawmakers, and exposed the violence of these policies in the media. 

Activists are asserting a political identity rooted in autonomy and dignity. As one person told indisciplinadxs: “We are here to exist, to resist, but above all to speak with pride and from a political identity”. 

The disability movement makes clear that it is not a passive recipient of state assistance, but capable of shaping public debates, challenging structural ableism, and linking its struggle to other social causes. As Guadalupe Bargiela put it:

“We must show the world that people with disabilities have rights that are not guaranteed by this starvation-inducing government.”

For example the Assembly of Discas en Lucha conducted manifestations for the Emergency Disability Law, rejecting that the lives of people with disabilities become reduced to a variable of fiscal adjustment. 

Through these protests, statements, and social media, the disability movement has managed to make its voice resonate with ever broader sectors of society. The inhuman results of austerity policies has made the struggle impossible to ignore, bringing unprecedented visibility in the media. 

The question now is whether this attention can be sustained long enough to drive real change. This struggle is not only about preserving benefits, therapies, or specific rights, but what is at stake is the model of society we want to build. Will we be mere spectators of these setbacks, or part of those who step up for a fairer, more inclusive country?

Working on rights as they are cut away

This is, without a doubt, the most challenging and distressing period I have ever experienced working on disability rights. 

Daily I get profoundly painful testimonies from people with disabilities and their families. And the tools we once relied on to advocate for rights have been greatly weakened. 

Communication channels with government officials are largely closed, legal processes have become increasingly restrictive and complex to pursue. The appeal to international human rights bodies has been made less relevant by the government’s disregard for them.

We’re forced to rethink our advocacy strategies and develop new ones. On some issues we’ve had to pause work to address the urgent needs of subsistence and survival. And there’s a sense of actively building a connected network towards the same goal, including with new allies with whom we once had disagreements.

The work is demanding, requires constant effort, yet it is profoundly meaningful. It reminds us why defending rights matters, and why advocacy, even in the toughest circumstances, cannot stop.

Abrazos,

Eduardo

Outro

For more from Eduardo: find him on Linkedin.

For more about disability in Argentina: see the Debrief library curated links on Argentina.

Let your friends know. Sharing the newsletter is how people find it!

Connect. Get in touch.

Help us do more. The Debrief is free thanks to reader support.

Acknowledgements

This article was translated from Spanish using DeepL.com, and the text was subsequently reviewed and edited by Peter and me.

The photograph is by Emiliano Lasalvia / AFP via Getty Images.

Peter for his interest in the situation in Argentina and his editing of the document. The working sessions with him have been very enriching for me.

Thanks to Celestine Fraser for selecting the photograph, and to the readers and organisations that support the Disability Debrief.