Accessibility and Design

Overview

International News

Multiple-Stakeholder Perspectives on Accessibility Data and the Use of Socio-Technical Tools to Improve Sidewalk Accessibility (2023, Disabilities)

Chasing Rainbows: Designing for colorblindness. “Apparently, the very idea of colorblindness is hard to visualize. Take a shot at looking through my eyes.” (2023, The Verge)

Meghan Hussey on 4 ways to design a disability-friendly future (2022, TED Talk)

Co-creating Inclusive Public Spaces: Learnings from Four Global Case Studies on inclusive Cities. “Many public spaces are not regulated by conventional building standards, especially when constructed or formed within informal settlements or within privately-owned spaces. This requires broader advocacy and education to ensure clients and built environment practitioners uphold inclusive design standards in their work.” (2022, Journal of Public Space)

Accessibility Toolkit from UNICEF. Focus on accessibility of physical spaces and built environment. The checklists look particularly helpful. (2022, UNICEF)

The World Bank Technical Note on Accessibility a big resource providing strategic directions, guidance for the project cycle, thematic briefs and technical references. Thematic areas include WASH, ICT, Transportation, Urban Sector and Operations. Further, if you need accessibility standards for built environments, the technical references part of the guide looks like a good reference. (2022, World Bank) The primary audience for this is World Bank teams. Given the range and significance of the projects they fund, this is a useful resource that is trying to leverage the Bank's role to help countries take more substantial accessibility actions within those projects.

Global guide: Access for all Creating inclusive global built environments. (2022) See a summary of the contents on Fair Play Talks.

An interactive feature on Inaccessible Cities featuring disabled people, their lives, and the urban infrastructure that gets in their way, in New York, Lagos and Mumbai. (2022, Aljazeera)

The Zero Project 2022 Conference on Accessibility was held in Vienna and online. As well as the talks, including one by yours truly, see the 2022 report which describes the innovative practices and much more. (2022)

The Against List. Reflections for designers to engage with disability, and questions to ask to avoid this dynamic:

'We have realized that advocating for “more disabled people in design” without advocating structural changes to what design is, how it operates, and what problems it seeks to solve is just advocating for a select few people to gain more power within an unjust system, while allowing the marginalization of others by that system to become more entrenched.' (2022, Alex Haagaard)

Albania

Short video on accessibility to infrastructure, public services and information for persons with disabilities. (2022, Down Syndrome Albania)

Australia

How accessible is Melbourne for people with a disability? (2022, The Age)

Canada

Mapping Our Cities For All A Research Study on City Accessibility from the Perspective of People with Disabilities:

“nearly 60% of mapped buildings in each major city remain in the Not Accessible or Partially Accessible category.” (Jan, Access Now)

Ontario's accessibility legislation is failing. Advocates say lack of enforcement, complaints process to blame. (Jan, CBC News)

Vancouver wants to be the most accessible city in the world. The city staff told them it would be very expensive. (2023, Vancouver is Awesome)

New project tackles accessibility of heritage buildings (2021, Remi Network)

Colombia

Meet The Blind Birder Reimagining Accessibility In The Outdoors. See also part 2. (2023, Science Friday)

Egypt

Cairo sidewalks to be enhanced to enable access to persons with disabilities (2021, Egypt Today)

Europe

23 Member States are running late with the European Accessibility Act. (2022, EDF)

AccessibleEU centre: a first step towards an EU agency on accessibility. (2022, EDF)

The European Accessibility Act: came into effect in 2019 and “Member states must pass the necessary implementation laws by June 28, 2022” (2022, Forbes)

Iceland

Access all areas: Meet the man building a thousand wheelchair ramps. (2023, Euronews)

India

Design crusaders foster accessibility NCPEDP-Mphasis Universal Design Awards have spread awareness about universal design in the past 13 years. (2023, Sunday Guardian)

Centre overhauls accessibility mandate for disabled people, but uncertainty due to overlapping rules. “As multiple ministries work on specific rules, compliance and overlaps will be a challenge.” (2023, Scroll.in)

The daily struggles of Kashmir's Disabled Community in a World of Inaccessible Structures (2023, News Click)

India Has Made Progress in Improving Accessibility, But Needs To Up the Ante. (2023, The Wire)

Disability rights activist and doctor highlights unusable infrastructure in public places – “ramps made at many public properties are poorly made or inaccessible for disabled people.” (2023, Indian Express)

Disabled-friendly buildings rendered inaccessible: “Even as the government creates infrastructure for the differently-abled, the same is not being maintained or kept accessible to them” (2022, Herald Goa)

Uncertainty over Accessible India Campaign deadline seven years of work to increase accessibility of government buildings, public transport and websites. (2022, The Hindu)

Mumbai: Living with a disability in the megacity (2022, Aljazeera)

Lessons from Chennai on accessibility for the disabled (2022, New Indian Express)

Israel

Bnei Brak opens new accessible synagogue for disabled worshipers “Tailored with innovative features such as entrance and exit ramps, accessible elevators, a lowered Ark of the Covenant, the Accessible Synagogue sets a benchmark for religious inclusivity in Israel.” (2023, Jerusalem Post)

Jamaica

Jamaica Council for Persons with Disabilities (JCPD) has launched the Accessibility Checklist “which is designed to identify architectural and communication barriers encountered by persons with disabilities in private and public facilities.” (2023, Jamaica Information Service)

Kenya

Inclusive Infrastructure Case Study of Nairobi. (2022, AT2030)

The nightmare of living with a disability in Nairobi, discusses accessibility and transport. (2022, The Standard)

Latin America and the Caribbean

The Zero Project Latin America conference on Accessibility and ICT was held on 25th/26th May and sessions can be watched online. (2022, Zero Project)

Malaysia

This Malaysian Wants To Make KL Accessible For People With Disabilities IncluCity by NakSeni is an inclusive crowdsourced map for accessible, safe venues and spaces. (2023, Says)

Poor disabled-friendly facilities a bane for handicapped persons in Kedah. “I am unable to visit wet markets, grocery stores, hospitals, clinics, shops, restaurants, cafés, books stores and ATMs, when I'm in my wheelchair.” (2023, New Straits Times)

Myanmar

Disability and Place of Living: Experiences of Accessibility, and Inequality in Four Regions:

“This paper finds that people with disabilities lead more independent lives, were better supported in carrying out day-to-day activities, and had more accessible services and spaces in Yangon than in peripheries. Two notable findings are: (1) accessibility is not just infrastructural, but also attitudinal, more enabling in Yangon than peripheries, and (2) people with disabilities who live in peripheries feel “home-incarcerated” due to infrastructural exclusions experienced in those areas.” (2023, Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research)

Netherlands

The Netherlands is still lagging behind in accessibility for wheelchairs. (2023, NL Times)

New Zealand

The endless hunt, and fight for accessible home appliances. (2023, Blind Citizens NZ)

Government won't enforce accessibility, despite promising legislation to 'make NZ more accessible'. (2022, Stuff)

Nicaragua

Request for free movement of disabled people. Sidewalks and public spaces occupied by some businesses are making transit difficult. (In Spanish, Jan, El Canal del Orgullo Nicaragüense)

Nigeria

Nigeria ramps up efforts to improve accessibility of sustainable spaces. (2023, EnviroNews Nigeria)

Lagos: Life with a disability in the African megacity (2022, Aljazeera)

Philippines

The Accessibility Law: 40 years of disappointment (2022, The Manilla Times)

Singapore

Better accessibility for persons with disabilities set out in Enabling Masterplan for 2030. (2022, Channel News Asia)

South Africa

Forging a path to inclusive heritage and work by the District Six Museum. (2023, Daily Maverick)

Brief audio on How accessible is South Africa? (2022, EWN)

South East Asia

ASEAN countries continue to struggle with accessibility (2023, FairPlanet)

Spain

Spain's San Cristóbal wins EU Access City Award 2024 “For example, all vehicles and all stations of the city’s tram network are fully accessible, and the city centre has acoustic traffic lights and tactile paving to guide visually impaired people.” (2023, Disability Insider)

Meet the designers with learning disabilities: “La Casa de Carlota is a successful design agency in Barcelona. Their striking visual style comes from their designers, who have learning disabilities, autism and schizophrenia.” (2022, BBC)

Türkiye

How 'Accessible Everything' makes changes (2023, Daily Sabah)

Guide dogs change lives of Türkiye’s visually impaired citizens. (2022, Daily Sabah)

United Arab Emirates

Dubai buildings must now have ‘Wosool seal’ certifying accessibility for people of determination, a prerequisite for new building completion certificates. (2023, Gulf News)

United Kingdom

Accessibility of products and services to disabled people a government report. (Mar, UK Parliament)

Stop trying to recruit unicorns with acorns. Incisive description of how accessibility roles are undervalued, underfunded, and incorrectly designed:

“I've seen it time and time again. People hire an accessibility specialist because it's a hot topic and it's always good publicity. But then they just leave that person to drown in an environment and an organisation where they are not supported.” (Jan, Craig Abbott)

Choice is not an option The experiences of people with dwarfism using self-service technology. (2023, Alter)

United States

Philadelphia is the country’s first “sensory-inclusive city.” What does that mean for people with other disabilities? (2023, Philadelphia Inquirer)

The Future of Design Is Designing for Disability Accessibility should not be a grudging afterthought. With planning, it can lead to elegant, beautiful, and engaging art. “Accessibility should include something beyond accommodation and into a source of inspiration, a driver of creativity, and even something playful and fun.” (2023, The Nation)

Accessibility lawsuits bring slow wins for disabled city residents “Lawsuits over inaccessible sidewalks, transit, libraries, and other public infrastructure are costing cities millions. But for disabled people of color, they may be the only route to equity” (2023, Prism)

New York City Sues Queens Library Architects Over Lack of Accessibility City officials argued that the building was not compliant with the Americans With Disabilities Act and other laws. (2023, New York Times)

One Way to a Better City: Ask Disabled People to Design It. David Gissen on Designing Cities for Disability (2023, Curbed)

10 Ways Designers and Researchers Can Meaningfully Engage With Disabled People in 2023. Includes designing against ableism: “When I say Design Against, I mean: whatever social issue or group you want to design for, identify the structural factors that are really, materially shaping those problems and design against those instead.” (2022, Alex Haagaard)

Why Do People With Disabilities Have to Sue To Get Accessible Sidewalks? (2022, Streetsblog USA)

More than 30 years after ADA, cities fail to be accessible (2022, ABC 15)

‘Where the bats hung out’: How a basement hideaway at UC Berkeley nurtured a generation of blind innovators (2022, Stat)

New York: What is the megacity like for people with disabilities? “New York City, one of the world’s largest and most diverse cities, is considered by some to be one of the least accessible in the United States when it comes to public transportation.” (2022, Aljazeera)

Accessible NYC A summary of what the city authorities are doing for accessibility and inclusion. (links to pdf, 2022, NYC)

Housing

International News

Lawsuit Uncovers Chicago’s Failure to Provide Disability Protections in Housing. “Advocates say people with disabilities are suffering the worst consequences of the U.S.’s affordable housing crisis.” (2023, Truthout)

Australia

Uneven path to a decent home: Australians with a disability face battle for accessible housing. (2022, the Guardian)

One-size-fits-all model of accessible housing ‘a disaster’ for Australians with disability. “There should be an option for us to stay together as a family and not be forced to relinquish care just because we don’t have the funds to build an accessible house.” (2022, the Guardian)

Canada

Accessibility is the housing crisis no one is talking about Advocates call for adoption of universal design principles to ensure easy conversion of residential units for people with disabilities. (Mar, Financial Post)

This Ontario family has spent years looking for wheelchair accessible housing. “These parents carry their eight-year-old son up and down stairs everyday with no end in sight.” (2022, Toronto Star)

Woman with disabilities nears medically assisted death after a fruitless bid to secure an affordable apartment that doesn't worsen her chronic illnesses. (2022, CTV News)

Court Case on whether appopriate housing is a human right for people with disabilities Nova Scotia government argues that it isn't and they have the right to define the quality of social serices people receive, not the court. (2022, Halifax City News)

Chile

The homes of families of people with disabilities (2023, Latercera)

India

Wheelchair User Woman In Bengaluru Struggles To Find Accessible Apartment (2023, NDTV)

Accessible homes for disabled Indians is not a favour, it’s an obligation (2022, The Print)

New Zealand

The intersecting issues for disabled women experiencing homelessness “Disabled women experiencing homelessness often contend with heightened levels of social isolation, exacerbating the difficulties connecting with support services.” (2023, Coalition to end women's homelessness)

Another month, another report on disabled people's housing “but is the government listening?” (2022, RNZ News)

United Kingdom

Disability campaigners lose legal fight over Grenfell recommendation “Campaigners have lost their High Court battle with the government over its decision not to implement evacuation plans for disabled high-rise residents.” (2023, BBC)

‘We just want our homes not to hurt us’: “There are 104,000 people on the waiting list for an accessible or adaptable home. But not enough are being built, so many disabled people and families with disabled children are left in temporary accommodation for years” (2023, Big Issue)

Outrage as ministers reject post-Grenfell safety plans for disabled people “Personal fire evacuation plans were in public inquiry’s proposals, which ministers had said they would ‘accept in full’” (2022, the Guardian) See further detail on inside housing.

United States

The Cost of Being Disabled in New York City Housing “Some landlords are asking disabled people to foot the bill for accommodations, leaving even those with ample resources without an accessible place to live.” (2023, New York Times)

How to Make Your Home Accessible Tap into the resources available from states, nonprofits, developers and housing groups to make spaces work for families of all abilities. (2023, The New York Times)

Disabled people of color continue to fight for accessible housing Housing insecurity compounds intersecting marginalizations for disabled people of color. Affordable, comprehensively accessible housing can help (2023, Prism)

Disability Justice Isn’t Possible without Housing Justice (2023, Urban Institute)

Designing for Disabilities: How to Pair Luxury With Access (2022, House Beautiful)

Biden Administration Releases Millions For Disability Housing. (2022, Disability Scoop)

Back to top.

Ageing

International News

Global Report on Older People with Deafblindness (2023, WFDB)

Connecting generations: planning and implementing interventions for intergenerational contact. (2023, WHO)

As my disabled body ages: Stories from 6 disabled people: “time in a disabled body has nothing to do with age but all about the changes we notice over time.” (2023, Women Enabled International)

Rights of older persons in climate change-induced disasters and how to build forward more equally. (2023, Independent Expert on enjoyment of all human rights by older persons)

A guide to national programmes for age-friendly cities and communities. (2023, WHO)

Still Kicking a “workshop is designed to inform the emerging conversation around the intersection of ageism and ableism”. (2022, Old School)

A report from UN Independent Expert on Older persons deprived of liberty: “older persons are more likely to be de facto deprived of liberty in care facilities than in prisons” (2022, UN) See commentary from Human Rights Watch.

Older people left out as UN speeches repeatedly invoke young. “Older persons are pretty much missing, everybody thinks that the future is just something for younger persons.” (2022, AP News)

The Special Rapporteur on Disability on Making International Protection Of Adults Consistent with the Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities: “A similar revolution of ideas is now permeating the field concerning the rights of older persons. Any future treaty on the rights of older persons is also likely to be grounded on dignity and autonomy.” (2022, Gerard Quinn)

Book-review of the The Aging–Disability Nexus (2022, Disability Studies Community)

An easy-read version on how older people are treated very badly and what countries should do to make sure that older people get their human rights. (link to pdf, 2022, Independent Expert for UNHRC)

Five priorities to tackle abuse of older people (1) combat ageism; (2) generate more and better data on prevalence and on risk and protective factors; (3) develop and scale up cost–effective solutions; (4) make an investment case for addressing the issue; and (5) raise funds to tackle the issue. (2022, Decade of Healthy Ageing)

Low Income Puts Older People’s Rights at Risk. Brief recap on ageing issues, and international discussions to start a drafting a treaty protecting older people's rights. (2022, Human Rights Watch)

A meeting of the working group dedicated to strengthening the protection of the human rights of older persons. (2022, UNDESA)

As part of the Age with Rights campaign a Global Rally calling for the stronger protection and promotion of older people's human rights. (2022, Global Alliance for the Rights of Older People) See also from Human Rights Watch.

A background paper Measuring the Autonomy, Participation, and Contribution of Older People (link to pdf, 2022, Center for Inclusive Policy)

UN Advocacy Brief on Older Women: Inequality at the Intersection of Age and Gender (2022, Decade of Healthy Ageing)

Baseline Report for the Decade of Healthy Ageing. It's striking to see how this summary avoids mentioning disability when its first page is basically an illustration of an adapted social model of disability. (2022, WHO)

A policy brief on Better protecting the human rights in older age and the work of the UN group exploring this issue. (2022, BAGSO)

Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing Country Progress reports (2022, UNECE)

A guide on Bringing generations together for change: Learning from intergenerational approaches to address issues facing older and younger people. (2022, HelpAge)

Statement on Ageing with Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus

'Related – perhaps inseparable – from the physical health challenges faced by SBH adults and increased reports of mental health challenges. The lived experiences of many SBH adults involves increased isolation – in large part due to the changes in physical health described above, that can make it more difficult to enjoy a full social life. It is not surprising then that many people report an increase in anxiety and depression. This can result in a negative cycle, as people are less likely to make the effort to see others, which further increases the sense of isolation. ' (2021, IF Global)

Brazil

‘Our country is getting old’: the man changing how Brazil sees dementia. “Developing countries are getting old in a shorter period of time without resources and with poverty.” (2022, the Guardian)

Canada

Discussion guide on ageism in Canada. (2022, Government of Canada)

Eastern Europe and Central Asia

Loneliness and Social Isolation Among Older People (2022, UNFPA)

Europe

Disability rights at all ages. “In practice, the intersection of ageism and ableism translates to the fragmentation of policies for persons with disabilities of working age and older people.” (2023, EDF)

World Elder Abuse Awareness Day: ways forward. (2022, Age Platform)

Policy brief revisiting Mainstreaming Ageing: "A more effective integration of ageing into all policies at all levels will enhance societal preparedness for population ageing and benefit all age groups." (2022, UNECE)

India

Delhi Police to visit homes of senior citizens every evening (2022, Devdiscourse)

Ireland

How people live with intellectual disability has changed: “Increased life expectancy for those with an intellectual disability is a huge success story but there is a lack of preparedness for addressing the needs of this older population and the fears of their ageing parents and carers” (2023, Irish Examiner)

Disability Identity in Older Age? Exploring Social Processes that Influence Disability Identification with Ageing (2023, Disability Studies Quarterly)

Israel

“The Internal Police Officer Has Not Retired but Has Slowed Down”: Israeli Women Reframe Their Ageing Experiences in the Second Half of Life (2022, Journal of Applied Gerontology)

Japan

At Japan’s dementia cafes forgotten orders are all part of the service. (2023, Washington Post)

Middle East and North Africa

Can review of the Madrid Plan on Ageing (MIPPA) Benefit the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region? (2022, Population Ageing)

New Zealand

Riding the silver tsunami as a disabled New Zealander

“We are living longer than previous disabled generations. As activists, we worked for change then and still do now. Yet support systems for elders are unprepared for us.” (2023, The Spinoff)

United Kingdom

Disability and ageing – time to think outside our silos? (2022, Centre for Better Ageing)

United States

Ageist? Ableist? Who, Me? “Think what older people could learn from them about asking for help, adapting to impairment, and age pride! Think what younger people with disabilities could learn from olders about moving through life. Think how we’d all benefit if hearing and mobility aids were stripped of stigma. Let’s get interdependent!” (2023, Generations)

How America’s ageism hurts, shortens lives of elderly. (2022, Harvard Gazette)

America Was in an Early-Death Crisis Long Before COVID (2022, The Atlantic)

Are We Inadvertently Contributing to Discrimination Against Older Adults? “To avoid despair or paralysis, informing the public about pressing needs must be paired with concrete examples of what society can do differently.” (2022, Institute for Healthcare Improvement)

Back to top.

Assistive Technology

International News

Guidelines for assistive technology service provision – a scoping review. (Mar, AT2030 Programme)

Hearing aid service delivery approaches for low- and middle-income settings. (Feb, WHO)

Unlock the everyday a new campaign for assistive technology in low and middle-income countries. (Jan, Unlock the Everyday)

In search of a prosthetic revolution: from charity to investment.

“It is not just money that is needed. A huge amount of time is involved in making prosthetic limbs, in particular because they are a feat of engineering and science. I can spend anywhere between one to four years getting a new leg made and people wonder why I have to be so careful not to gain or lose weight: if my leg does not fit, I have to spend a huge amount of time in clinics having a new one made. The process is slow, open to error, and sadly can take a lot of time to get right. All these things can really impact people’s mental health, especially if anyone has fluctuating weight and their limb simply does not fit. These are the added pressures faced by so many amputees and prosthetic limb users on a daily basis.” (2023, ATscale)

Assistive Technology Digest a quarterly publication “with the objective of increasing awareness about the possibilities offered by assistive technology as experienced by its users.” (2023, IDA)

Repair strategies for assistive technology in low resource settings “The results of this analysis demonstrate the paramount importance of community-based repair of devices, and how despite this importance, repair is often overlooked in the planning and design of assistive products and services.” (2023, Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology)

How the wheelchair opened up the world to millions of people Wheelchairs have existed since the invention of the wheel. But technological advances have revolutionized the way that people use them. (2023, National Geographic)

GDI Hub, Google and AT Scale launch pioneering project to test ‘Mobile at Assistive Tech’ in Kenya, Brazil and India. (2023, Global Disability Innovation Hub)

WHO releases new Wheelchair provision guidelines (2023, WHO)

What Works highlights report a summary of learnings in data, innovation, implementation, capacity and participation. (2023, AT2030)

‘Care bots’: a dream for carers or a dangerous fantasy? (2023, the Guardian)

Walking naturally after spinal cord injury using a brain–spine interface: “a digital bridge between the brain and spinal cord that enabled an individual with chronic tetraplegia to stand and walk naturally in community settings” (2023, Nature)

Sony launches point-and-shoot camera for people with vision disabilities. (2023, Disability Insider)

HearX hearing care by community health workers using digital technologies. (2023, AT2030)

AT Venture Fund Playbook “This playbook was designed to help current and future fund operators and ventures learn from the work of the Assistive Technology Impact Fund (ATIF). It aims to share lessons from launching a fund in a nascent sector and working with a small portfolio of assistive technology ventures.” (2023, AT Impact Fund)

Why Assistive Technology matters thematic briefs explore its relations to inclusive education and climate action. (2023, ATScale)

COVID-19, access and assistive technology: The need for preparedness (2022, Global Social Policy)

Digital Planet audio feature on is disability tech delivering? (no transcript, 2022, BBC)

Making the direct to consumer model work for Assistive Technology warns about the “unintended consequences” of assitive technology relying on charity:

“AT distribution that depends on charitable and philanthropic funding are highly vulnerable to financial cuts and changes in priorities. What’s more, AT distribution cannot be a one-off event like a vaccination camp. Distributed AT must be maintained, adapted and changed as the needs of the user change. Few charitable models are able to accommodate such a model- over time, people can be left with AT that is no longer fit for purpose, and disillusioned as to its value.” (2022, AT2030)

Marketing Matters on how AT startups need to invest in marketing (2022, AT2030)

The Global Report on Assistive Technology: a new era in assistive technology (2022, Assistive Technology)

Needed by one and three and me: assistive technology in my own life and in a global context, with wheelchair cameos by the Pope and Queen of England. (2022, Disability Debrief)

Interesting discussion on Center for Inclusive Policy on Why is access to assistive technology not a global priority? (2022, CIP)

Global Report on Assistive Technology. From the press release:

“More than 2.5 billion people need one or more assistive products, such as wheelchairs, hearing aids, or apps that support communication and cognition. Yet nearly one billion of them are denied access, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, where access can be as low as 3% of the need for these life-changing products.” (2022, WHO and UNICEF)

A scoping review of Technologies Measuring Manual Wheelchair Propulsion Metrics (2022, Assistive Technology)

What do you call technology that's meant to be assistive but isn't? This essay explores the term Disability Dongle coined by Liz Jackson to refer to well intended but useless “solutions“. The essay explores experience of what happens when the authors call out these technologies and how their idea has spread. (2022, Platypus)

TIDAL N+ "Transformative Innovation in the delivery of Assisted Living Products and Services" - "building a transdisciplinary network" (2022, GDI)

For every dollar invested in assistive technology, there is a return of $9 (2022, IDA)

A systematic review of global population-based research Estimating need and coverage for five priority assistive products. “The finding of high unmet need (>60%) for each of the five APs emphasises the need to secure political prioritisation and funding to expand access to AT globally.” (2022, BMJ Global Health)

Measuring assistive technology supply and demand a scoping review (2021, Assistive Technology Journal)

UNICEF to introduce 24 new assistive products into the global Supply Catalogue. "Through global tenders, UNICEF and WHO have been able to negotiate low-cost prices which will ensure these highly technical and specialized pieces of equipment can be quickly and easily ordered by field teams, partners, and governments." (2021, UNICEF)

Introduction to the companion papers to the global report on assistive technology (2021, Assistive Technology Journal)

A new book Disability Interactions: Creating Inclusive Innovations "focuses on the interactions people have with their technologies and the interactions which result because of technology use" (2021, GDI Hub)

Evidence brief on promoting access to assistive technology for individuals with disabilities in Low- and Middle-Income Settings. "Limited access to assistive technology is exacerbated by the lack of awareness about assistive technology and what the technology can offer to people with disabilities". (2021, Disability Evidence Portal)

Africa

Emerging African Ecosystems for assistive technology: “companies must not only be an expert in AT (not an easy feat), but also need to master financing, hiring, logistics and distribution, warehousing, both physical and digital advertising, customer services”. (2022, AT2030)

Assistive Technology Innovate Now launch of its 5th Cohort on Digital AT and Entrepreneurship (2022, AT Innovate Now)

Asia-Pacific

Meeting rising demand for disability devices. “Limited access to assistive technologies such as eyeglasses, hearing aids, mobility and communication devices, and a lack of trained workers remain significant challenges in meeting the needs of people with disabilities and the elderly in the Asia Pacific region.” (2022, Eco-Business)

Australia

Smart glasses that play sounds help people who are blind find objects. (2023, New Scientist)

Impacts of new and emerging assistive technologies for ageing and disabled housing. Exploring smart home assistive technologies.. (2021)

Azerbaijan

How WHO is supporting Azerbaijan in improving rehabilitation and assistive technology services (2022, WHO)

China

Prosthetic hand, Chinese Braille designers awarded Design Intelligence Awards. (2023, Shine)

Europe

A scoping review of assistive technology needs, access and coverage and related barriers and facilitators. “The three key elements significantly affecting the capacity of AT systems to deliver appropriate services to potential users were the relative accessibility of the systems themselves, their financial affordability for users and the acceptability of different APs.” (2022, Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology)

Georgia

Nina’s story: How assistive technology is improving her quality of life (2022, WHO)

India

Maiden wheelchair insurance a step towards transforming disability sector (2023, The Tribune)

Who Pays the Price When Cochlear Implants Go Obsolete? “Some cochlear implant users can’t afford to keep up with compulsory technology upgrades. After becoming dependent on the devices, they’re losing their hearing and feel abandoned by manufacturers.” (2023, Sapiens)

Food Delivery Service With A Difference: This Motorised Wheelchair “Gives Wings To People With Disabilities” (2022, NDTV)

Sensory Futures: Deafness and Cochlear Implant Infrastructures in India:

“In this book, I attend to becoming normal, specifically in relation to sensory normality. I argue that normalization leads to, and is a form of, narrowing. Becoming normal—a key promise of cochlear implant technology—constrains people’s sensory, modal, and relational engagements. Normative sensory configurations and communicative practices based on listening and spoken language are the desired outcomes after cochlear implantation. These desired outcomes are tethered to ideas and ideals about a “right way” to sense, communicate, and relate to others. The Indian state, families of deaf children, medical professionals, and educators, among other stakeholders, increasingly expect that these normative outcomes will occur. They work to foreclose other outcomes for deaf individuals, such as becoming sign language users or orienting to others through vision and touch. As cochlear implants become more ubiquitous in India, sensory, modal, and relational possibilities for deaf children and those with whom they engage diminish. Sensory normality, as a desired goal and outcome, results in a contraction rather than an expansion of ways of engaging with the world.” (2022, Manifold)

From Hoping to Expecting: Cochlear Implantation and Habilitation in India (2022, Cultural Anthropology)

Indonesia

Assistive Technologies for Children with Disabilities in Inclusive and Special Schools in Indonesia (2023, World Bank)

Kenya

Self-taught Kenyan cousins invent bio-robotic prosthetic limbs. (2023, Mail&Guardian)

Malawi

AgriLab model is rolled out in Malawi to co-design assistive technology (2023, Spark)

Relevance of assistive technology and the sustainable development goals to stakeholder organizations. “The cross-cutting nature of the relevance of AT underscores the importance of cross-ministerial cooperation and shared leadership in provision AT.” (2022, Global Health Action)

Age related increase in impairment across the life course: the use of Zomba curves to estimate assistive technology needs. (2022)

New Zealand

The everyday technologies essential for accessibility four disabled people on the tech they consider essential. (2023, The Spinoff)

Pakistan

‘Without a wheelchair my life would be useless’: Zahida Quereshi, whose organization provides thousands of custom wheelchairs. (2022, the Guardian)

Rwanda

UNICEF supplies hundreds of children with life-changing hearing aids “UNICEF was able to significantly reduce the prices for these quality devices, providing them to the Government of Rwanda for $118. At this point in time, the same hearing aid can cost as much as $2,000 if buying it commercially within Rwanda.” (2022, UNICEF)

South Africa

The effects of cognitive effort on academic performance of learners with cochlear implants. “The study highlights that cognitive effort of learners with cochlear implants influenced their capabilities to multitask and retain information”. (2022, African Journal on Disability)

Turkmenistan

Speak my language: a first for digital voice communication in Turkmen. “Thanks to this project, people with screen readers will be able to download the text-to-speech voice in Turkmen.” (2023, ATScale)

Türkiye

New tech glasses made in Türkiye aim to benefit persons with disability. (2023, Daily Sabah)

Ukraine

List of prostheses manufacturers compiled in Ukraine. (2023, Yahoo! News)

United Kingdom

Assistive Technology Changes Lives: an assessment of AT need and capacity in England:

“There was a notable lack of joined up thinking, and missed opportunity for holistic AT delivery that considered the whole individual, across their life-course and diverse needs. Many people were found to be waiting months - and even years - to access essential AT products, while discussions over who would fund what prevailed.” (2023, Global Disability Innovation Hub)

United States

The new norm a campaign video and photo series to change perceptions of hearing aids. (Mar)

Wearing hearing aids could reduce your risk of dying earlier. “For people with hearing loss, regular use of hearing aids could reduce the risk of dying earlier by 24 percent vs. not wearing them at all” (Jan, Washington Post)

Wheelchair Profiteering: A series, starting with How the For-Profit Industry Makes Money:

“If your goal is to sell wheelchairs to poor cash buyers without health insurance, then it makes sense to treat the wheelchair like a commodity. Since commodities are interchangeable, the seller with the lowest price gets the highest sales volume. If your goal is to sell wheelchairs to wealthy buyers or people with health insurance, then it makes sense to treat your wheelchair like a custom prosthesis and create wheelchairs with the highest profit margins.” (2023, Erik Kondo)

Long wheelchair repair times spur effort to get Massachusetts to act (2023, Boston Globe)

A Flexible Interface for Single-Switch Users A Usability Study of Nomon:

“Many individuals with severe motor impairments communicate via a single switch—which might be activated by a blink, facial movement, or puff of air. These switches are commonly used as input to scanning systems that allow selection from a 2D grid of options. Nomon is an alternative interface that provides a more flexible layout, not confined to a grid.” (2023, Assets Conference)

Hearing Aids Are Changing. “As more young people risk hearing loss, over-the-counter hearing aids are providing new options, but also confusing choices.” (2023, New York Times)

A Bride’s Prosthesis Made Not to Blend In, but to Shine. (2023, New York Times)

This researcher builds ‘cool stuff for blind people.’ He’s also trying to help transform society. (2022, PBS)

3D printing allows blind chemists to visualise scientific data. (2022, Chemistry World)

Elderly and Disabled Assistive Devices Market Size report by Acumen (2022, Global Newswire)

Disability At Home practical solutions and photographs that “document the ingenuity and creativity that caregivers and disabled people, including those with chronic illnesses, use every day to make home accessible.” (2022, Laura Mauldin)

This is old, but I liked seeing this wheelchair kitted-out to plow snow with tracks and an attached blade. (2016, WOWT 6 News)

Vatican City

Pope Francis uses wheelchair in public for the first time (2022, the Guardian)

Yemen

War leads to demand for prosthetics. (2022, Reuters)

Back to top.

Black Lives Matter and Racial justice

International News

UN Forum Acknowledges People With Disabilities of African Descent in Recommendations (2023, Minority Rights Group)

DisCrit Expanded a collection of essays where “a diverse group of authors engage in inward, outward, and margin-to-margin analyses that raise deep and enduring questions about how we as scholars and teachers account for and counteract the collusive nature of oppressions faced by minoritized individuals with disabilities, particularly in educational contexts.” (2022, TC Press)

Brazil

The Situation of Black People with Disabilities in Brazil “The historical context of the black population with disabilities in Brazil is underpinned by the history of enslavement and the impacts of colonization that last until today.” (2023, Minority Rights Group)

A report on the situation for black and other marginalized persons with disabilities. (2022, Minority Rights Group)

Thailand

Pushing for rights: Senah Deesa-eh at the UN

“Malay Muslims with disabilities face the compounded effects of being from an ethno-religious and linguistic minority and face wide-ranging violations of rights from health to political participation. Malay Muslim women with disabilities are made particularly vulnerable, owing to multiple and intersecting discrimination on the basis of gender, ethnicity, language, religion, and disability” (2023, Minority Rights Group International)

United States

Listening to Black Californians with Disabilities on healthcare experiences. (2023, California Health Care Foundation)

12 Black Disabled Activists and Advocates You Need to be Following (2023, World Institute on Disability)

Ableism, racism, and the quality of life of Black, Indigenous, people of colour with intellectual and developmental disabilities. “When BIPOC with intellectual and developmental disabilities lived in regions of the United States which were more ableist and racist, they had a lower quality of life, regardless of their demographics.” (2023, Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities)

Black Disability Justice Syllabus. “An opportunity to honor the legacies of Black disabled artists, thinkers, activists, and leaders and a tool for future work.” (2023, Sins Invalid)

Racial Justice and Disability Justice: The Complex Journey (2022, Non Profit Quarterly)

A short history of people of color and the disability rights movement. an interview with Jennifer Erkulwater:

“Not only did activists in the 1970s fear that assertions of racial identity would divide people with disabilities from one another, but throughout the 1980s activists posed disability rights as the antithesis of welfare, at a time when the term “welfare” became deeply racialized. [...] White activists with disabilities sometimes argued that Blacks had to sit at the back of the bus, but the disabled couldn’t even get on the bus.” (2022, URevolution)

Racial disparities persist for disabled youth in spending on services for California children and teens with developmental disabilities. (2022, Los Angeles Times)

How Disability Exacerbates Anti-Blackness: Anti-Blackness and Ableism Led to Ryan Coogler's Arrest (2022, ARD)

Discussion of the book Mark of Slavery and its exploration of the intersection of slavery and disability. (2022, Disability Insider)

Asian Americans with disabilities are often overlooked. A new youth-led group aims to change that. (2022, NBC News)

Black Disability Politics a book from Sami Schalk “explores how issues of disability have been and continue to be central to Black activism from the 1970s to the present [...] this work has not been recognized as part of the legacy of disability justice and liberation because Black disability politics differ in language and approach from the mainstream white-dominant disability rights movement.” (2022, Duke University Press) See an interview with the author on Essence.

Back to top.

COVID-19

Impact

International News

Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on access to healthcare among people with disabilities: evidence from six low- and middle-income countries. “Key barriers to accessing healthcare during the pandemic included changes in availability of services due to systems restructuring, difficulty affording care due to the economic impacts of the pandemic, fear of contracting coronavirus, and a lack of human support to enable care-seeking.” (2023, International Journal for Equity in Health)

Why are people with intellectual disabilities clinically vulnerable to COVID-19? (2023, Lancet Public Health)

Spaces of Exclusion and Neglect: The Impact of COVID-19 on People With Disabilities in Bangladesh, Kenya, Nepal, Nigeria, and Uganda. (2023, Space and Culture)

An issue of Social Inclusion journal dedicated to Disability and Lessons from the Pandemic. (2023, Social Inclusion)

“Vulnerable” or Systematically Excluded? The Impact of Covid-19 on Disabled People in Low- and Middle-Income Countries. “We highlight the multiple exclusions faced by disabled people across the sectors of health, education, economy, community, and pandemic management.” (2022, Social Inclusion)

International Perspectives: Disabilities, Social Connectedness, and COVID-19 the experiences of three Special Olympics International (SOI) connected families and how they navigated the pandemic. (2022, Samuel Centre for Social Connectedness)

Millions of older people have died without being counted. WHO estimates 83% of excess mortality was among older people. (2022, HelpAge)

Five ways older women are affected by the pandemic. “With only 35% of older women confirming daily mobility out of their house by themselves, 2 in 3 older women faced restricted mobility.” (2022, UN Women)

Bangladesh

The pandemic has exacerbated the challenges faced by persons with disabilities

'16-year-old Eemon, who has a visual disability, said, "We are very ill-fated that our education has come to a halt for the past two years." Eemon had to join a courier service as a worker to support his family, as other members faced income loss as a result of the pandemic. It is highly unlikely that he will go back to his much-loved school, even though schools have reopened.' (2021, The Daily Star)

Canada

Outcomes in patients with and without disability admitted to hospital. "Patients with a disability who were admitted to hospital with COVID-19 had longer stays and elevated readmission risk than those without disabilities." (2022, CMAJ)

China

What did disabled youths experience at the peak of infection?
(In Chinese, 2023, We are a minority)

6 disabled people share their covid experiences (In Chinese, 2022)

Ethiopia

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health care and people with mental health conditions. “Scarce mental health service settings were diverted to become COVID-19 treatment centres. Mental health care became narrowly biomedical with poorer quality of care due to infrequent follow-up. Households of people with pre-existing mental health conditions in the community reported worsening poverty and decreased access to care due to restricted movement, decreased availability and fear.” (2022, International Journal of Mental Health Systems)

Europe

An important collection of synthesis reports on COVID-19 and people with disabilities assessing the impact of the crisis and informing disability-inclusive next steps. (2022)

Iceland

Risky Obliviousness Within Fragmented Services: Experiences of Families With Disabled Children During the Covid-19 Pandemic:

“During the pandemic, the gaps in the already fragmented services widened, and the families were left to navigate this new reality on their own. Preventive measures enforced by municipalities and healthcare services centred on non-disabled people’s experiences and needs. Unprepared service systems distanced themselves from the families while maintaining governance and supervision over defining their need for support.” (2023, Social Inclusion)

India

COVID-19, Persons with Disabilities and an (Un)Inclusive Healthcare System a study on access to healthcare services and vaccinations. (2022, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy)

Gasping to live again: A disabled person's account of barely surviving Covid:

“My oxygen is dipping. I have blacked out. When I wake up, the nurse is telling me I should lose weight. Am I going to survive? I must be. No one tells a dying person to lose weight, do they?” (2022, Unbias the News)

Ireland

Professional and Family Carers’ Perspectives on the COVID-19 Pandemic and Its Impact on Supported Decision-Making with Adults with Intellectual Disabilities: A Qualitative Online Survey. (2023, Disabilities)

Nepal

Adolescents with Disabilities and Caregivers Experience of COVID-19 in Rural Nepal (2023, IDS)

New Zealand

The essential numbers showing how disabled people experienced the pandemic:

“By 2022 disabled people’s high rates of vaccination, combined with self-isolation, meant this high-risk group were slightly less likely to get Covid-19 than non-disabled people. However, despite overall lower infection, they were still seven times more likely to die (11 deaths) and 3.5 times more likely to go to hospital.” (2023, The Spinoff)

Disabled were 13 times as likely to die from Covid-19. “People who received disability support services in 2022 were 13 times as likely to die from Covid-19 than the general population, new data shows.” (2023, Stuff)

How will disabled people cope with Omicron in the community? (2022, RNZ)

Russia

“But We Are Always at Home”: Disability Activism, Solidarity, and Staying at Home. (2022, NYU Jordan Center)

South Africa

How did South Africans with disabilities experience COVID-19? Results of an online survey: “people with disabilities in South Africa experienced many negative impacts of the pandemic. Strategies to control the virus largely ignored attending to human rights and socioeconomic well-being of this marginalised group.” (2023, African Journal of Disability)

How the pandemic lockdown affected mental health (2022, the Conversation)

United Kingdom

Racism worsened Covid health outcomes for Black Disabled people “The Commission’s findings highlighted a number of issues including the difficulties faced by members of this community in accessing public health information, the government’s lack of engagement with Black Disabled people who the report says also experienced discrimination when accessing social services.” (2023, The Voice)

‘Government Just Made it Worse’: COVID’s Disproportionate Impact on Disabled People of Colour Revealed. (2023, Byline Times)

Covid-19 and the Crisis in Social Care: Exploring the Experiences of Disabled People in the Pandemic: “the social care crisis has challenged the goal of independent living.”. (2022, CUP)

COVID-19 pandemic impact on psychotropic prescribing for adults with intellectual disability: an observational study in English specialist community services: "The pandemic caused an increase in psychotropic prescribing associated with lockdown severity and urban settings." (2022, BJPsych)

Health and healthcare for people with disabilities in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic: “As the UK opens up, it is important that health care services and social policy address the poor mental health and social isolation of people with disability so that the inequalities occurring early in the pandemic do not become further entrenched.” (2022, Disability and Health Journal)

Documenting the Pandemic for Disabled people: Covid Disability Archive (2022)

United States

A study on the COVID-19 “mortality burden” for people with and without intellectual and developmental disability. “The COVID-19 mortality burden was greater for people with than without IDD during the first year of the pandemic. The continued practice of postmortem diagnostic overshadowing prevents analyzing whether this difference continues through today.” (2022, Disability and Health Journal)

How Masking Changed My Experience of Being Deaf: “The pandemic forced me to communicate differently.” (2022, The Atlantic)

COVID continues to hit nursing homes harder, “Cases are surging everywhere, and nursing home residents remain more likely to face severe illness and death.” (2022, 19th News)

Covid is making more people disabled and exposing America's tattered safety net (2022, MSNBC)

"COVID-19 Likely Resulted in 1.2 Million More Disabled People by the End of 2021" More information would be needed to substantiate the claim about 1.2 million disabled people, as it’s not clear whether higher numbers are due to changes in individual circumstances or changes in the environment. (Thanks to Jennifer Madans for background on this., 2022, American Progress)

Employment Consequences of COVID-19 for People with Disabilities and Employers. "The pandemic adversely affected employment of PWD as reported by workers and employers. Findings parallel the experience of the non-disabled workforce, but reveal vulnerabilities that reflect disability consequences and the need for job accommodations." (2022, Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation)

Response

International News

The inclusion of disability and ageing in COVID-19 hygiene behavior change interventions across low-and middle-income countries: A review using the COVID-19 Inclusive WASH Checklist. “Most organizations identified people with disabilities, older adults and caregivers as target groups, but targeted activities to include them were scarce. Where efforts were made, immediate needs rather than rights were addressed.” (2022, Frontiers Public Health)

For Canadians with disabilities, multiple types of support were important during COVID-19. (2022, the Conversation)

Rising to the challenge: disability organisations in the COVID-19 pandemic (2022, Disability and Society)

After 2 Years of Covid, We’re Still Failing Older People. Part of a series marking the two year anniversary of the Covid-19 pandemic:

"Two years after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, governments around the world are still failing to protect the rights of older people. From ageist comments by public figures to persistent staffing shortages and use of chemical restraints in care homes, the protection of older people’s rights has been put under the spotlight like never before -- and comes up lacking." (2022, Human Rights Watch)

Key Concepts: Human Rights and the Economy a series on human rights on the economic recovery from the COVID crisis. (Not about disability - but maybe useful context, 2022, CESR)

The Global Platform Reader on COVID-19 and older people in low and middle-income countries (link to pdf, 2022, Corona Older)

An evidence brief on How can health and social care services promote the safety and well-being of people with intellectual disabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic in LMICs? (2021, Disability Evidence)

Africa

Challenges and Opportunities for Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in the COVID-19 Response “A limited number of recommended MHPSS activities during the COVID-19 pandemic were planned in countries across Africa, with an even smaller proportion being actually implemented. The implementation level of MHPSS activities was below 50% in most countries. [...] It is critical to build on this to integrate mental health into emergency preparedness and response and strengthen mental health systems in the long term in the post-pandemic world.” (2022, Environmental Research and Public Health)

Australia

How COVID-19 public communications is letting down our most vulnerable. (2023)

Predictors of vaccine hesitancy among disability support workers in Australia. A survey showed that 50% of disability support workers were vaccine hesitant. (2022, Disability and Health)

Living with COVID-19 in the time of OMICRON: Escalating risks for people with disability in Australia and recommendations how to address them. (2022, Centre of Research Excellence in Disability and Health)

Australian vaccine contractor prioritises aged care "NDIS participant vaccine rates remain lower than general population" (2022, the Guardian)

As COVID-19 cases rise, disability advocates say CDC isn't doing enough (2022)

People with disability 'completely overlooked' as Omicron surges (2021)

Bangladesh

Directives to hold special Covid-19 vaccination drive for people with disability (2022, The Business Standard)

Jobseekers with disabilities left out of Covid recovery plans (2021, Dhaka Tribune)

Canada

Quebecers with disabilities struggle with rapid tests, say advocates after the province ran out of PCR tests for the general public. (2022, CBC)

Accessibility of Canadian COVID-19 Testing Locations for People with Disabilities During the Third Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic: "more than a year into the pandemic, there existed a clear lack of accessibility information for Canadian testing locations for people with disabilities." (2021, MedRxiv)

China

Shanghai Covid lockdown: The struggle of blind massage therapists (2022, BBC)

310,000 seniors living alone in Shanghai and young people who help them (in Chinese, 2022, QQ)

Ethiopia

COVID-19 and social policy in contexts of existing inequality: experiences of youth with disabilities. “The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the marginalisation of adolescents and young people with disabilities [...] as health, education and social protection systems have been slow to mobilise targeted support and address social exclusion.” (2022, Disability and Society)

Germany

German Court Orders Protection of People with Disabilities in Triage Decisions

'The court found the legislature had failed “to take measures to ensure that no one is at risk of being disadvantaged on the basis of disability in the allocation of life-sustaining treatment if shortages in intensive care resources arise.” The court ordered lawmakers to introduce stronger measures based on the constitutional right to nondiscrimination. They should consider disability rights training for medical staff and the creation of stronger procedures to identify disabilities.'

See also the statement from the court or coverage on the guardian (2022, Human Rights Watch)

Jordan

COVID-19 and social policy in contexts of existing inequality: experiences of youth with disabilities. “The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the marginalisation of adolescents and young people with disabilities [...] as health, education and social protection systems have been slow to mobilise targeted support and address social exclusion.” (2022, Disability and Society)

Middle East and North Africa

Disability inclusion in health responses to COVID-19 in the Eastern Mediterranean Region: results of a rapid assessment (2022, WHO EMRO)

New Zealand

The daily, grinding tragedy of Covid-19 “By unilaterally disarming in the fight against the coronavirus, the Government is exposing New Zealanders to the very serious ongoing health burden of Covid-19.” (2022, Newsroom)

Mixed response from disability advocates over Covid welfare support funding. (2022, Stuff)

Reporting on an inquiry into how government response to the Omicron wave impacted disabled people: they "do not appear to have been given prominence in government policy and decision making," (2022, RNZ)

'Oh well, we'll all get it' attitude to Omicron ignores increased risk to people with disabilities (2022, Stuff)

Ministry of Health 'so far removed from the day-to-day lives of disabled people' (2022, RNZ)

Nigeria

Creating a more inclusive and more accessible society for a sustainable disability community in a post-COVID-19 world (2022, Pulse NG)

Philippines

Supporting OPDs Covid-19 response: reflections from the Philippines (2021, CBM Australia)

South Africa

Experiences of Organisations of (or That Serve) Persons with Disabilities during the COVID-19 Pandemic and National Lockdown. “The South African government failed to ensure targeted support to organisations of persons with disabilities. A remarkable feature of the organisations we interviewed for this small study was their agility in responding creatively to the challenges they faced.” (2022, Environmental Research and Public Health)

Disabled people moved because of Covid are living in filthy conditions (2022, Ground Up)

Sweden

Evaluation of science advice during the COVID-19 pandemic in Sweden “Many elderly people were administered morphine instead of oxygen despite available supplies, effectively ending their lives.” (2022, Humanities and Social Sciences Communications)

Uganda

The response to Covid-19 in Northern Uganda should be disability-inclusive. A report on a research project between June 21 to August 22. (2022, University of Bristol)

United Kingdom

Disabled people an ‘afterthought’ in pandemic response, Covid inquiry told. (2023, Open Democracy)

COVID Inquiry Hears About Government Disregard of Disabled People:

“Issues highlighted included the greater susceptibility of Disabled people with long term health conditions to respiratory disease; the greater likelihood of transmission in Care Homes and other residential settings; the increased risks by virtue of receiving care and support; the discriminatory barriers to receiving services and the cyclical nature of poverty and disability.” (2023, Disability Rights UK)

‘They gave her a bed to die in’: family of woman with Down’s Syndrome denied intensive care seek answers from Covid-19 inquiry. (2022, the Guardian)

Disabled people are being left out of COVID recovery. “Here are five ways to change that” (2022, the Conversation)

‘Completely Inhumane’: Government’s Relaxed Approach to COVID Represents a Regression for Disabled People’s Rights (2022, Byline Times)

Booster jabs are vital – why is it so difficult for clinically vulnerable people to access them? (2021, the Guardian)

United States

What to Do if You Have COVID A guide for preparing for illness, preventing spread to others, managing symptoms, and recovery (2023, People's CDC)

The Pandemic’s Legacy Is Already Clear: All of this will happen again. “America has little chance of effectively countering the inevitable pandemics of the future; it cannot even focus on the one that’s ongoing.”

“The new coronavirus exploited the country’s many failing systems: its overstuffed prisons and understaffed nursing homes; its chronically underfunded public-health system; its reliance on convoluted supply chains and a just-in-time economy; its for-profit health-care system, whose workers were already burned out; its decades-long project of unweaving social safety nets; and its legacy of racism and segregation that had already left Black and Indigenous communities and other communities of color disproportionately burdened with health problems.” (2022, The Atlantic)

Biden declaring the pandemic over disregards the danger disabled Americans face and “has shown how easily it is willing to view people with disabilities as pesky asterisks.” (2022, MSNBC)

People with Disabilities and COVID-19 Economic Impact Payments “Persons with disabilities were significantly more likely to spend their checks on basic needs, like food and rent, and less likely to spend on second-order items like charity or savings. These results suggest that future stimulus efforts should consider an increased amount for persons with disabilities.” (2022, Journal of Poverty)

Disabled Americans Push to Improve on COVID-Era Policies (2022, Time)

Blind people need more accessible at-home coronavirus tests (2022, GBH)

The White House releases a plan to help people who are especially vulnerable to Covid-19. (2022, NYT)

Biden and CDC's Covid-19 variant guidelines "have disabled people feeling left for dead" (2022, MSNBC)

High-Risk Pandemic Stories: A Syllabus. "We are not alone" (2022, Disability Visibility Project)

Disabled Deaths Are Not Your “Encouraging News” '“Comorbidities” is a weaselly, cruel, violent word.' (2022, Disability Visibility Project)

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commissions details when COVID-19 can be a disability including if you get fired because of having symptoms of COVID-19 (2021, The Hill)

Living with COVID-19

International News

‘No one is talking about it’: the cruelty of long Covid in the global south.

“When people die, that gets into the media. But chronic, disabling conditions do not – and maybe that’s the cruelty of being in a less developed country.” (2023, the Guardian)

Creating a better post-pandemic future for adolescents with disabilities. (2023, BMJ)

What Makes Brain Fog So Unforgiving “Brain fog isn’t like a hangover or depression. It’s a disorder of executive function that makes basic cognitive tasks absurdly hard.” (2022)

If You’re Suffering After Being Sick With Covid It’s Not Just in Your Head. After the 1918-19 influenza pandemic:

‘Many who survived became enervated and depressed. They developed tremors and nervous complications. Similar waves of illness had followed the 1889 pandemic, with one report noting thousands “in debt and unable to work” and another describing people left “pale, listless and full of fears.”’ (2022, NYT)

Long covid sufferers share stories of chronic fatigue, other symptoms. Five profiles from around the world. (2022, Washington Post)

Long covid could change the way we think about disability (2022, Washington Post)

Many Long COVID Patients Identify as Disabled and Feelings Are Complicated (2022, Verywell Mind)

Pandemics disable people — the history lesson that policymakers ignore Why the complacency over possible long-term effects of COVID-19? (2022, Nature)

Australia

Sick and Tired: casting a long shadow. Inquiry into long COVID and repeated COVID infections. (2023, Parliament of Australia)

Covid-related staff shortages in Australian disability sector leave some without vital services (2022, the Guardian)

Canada

COVID: 1 in 9 Canadian adults have had long-term symptoms. “Almost 80 per cent of those people with long-term symptoms have them for six months or more, the report said, including 42 per cent who had them for a year or more.” (2023, CTV News)

High-risk Canadians feel forgotten as rules lift: “Can't we have lives too?” (2022, CTV News)

COVID concerns of disabled people multiply as health protocols lifted (2022, Policy Options Politiques)

Chronic exhaustion, derailed lives and no way out. This is long COVID. (2022, Maclean's)

India

Covid scare keeps blind students away from school (2022, Deccan Herald)

New Zealand

For those of us with disabilities, lockdown won’t end as long as Covid strategies leave us behind (2021, the Guardian)

Norway

When you talk about "those who are going to die from something anyway" then you are talking about me. "Aren't I, a human being, worth more than the local pub?" (in Norwegian, google translate makes sense, 2022)

United Kingdom

Two-thirds of UK workers with long Covid have faced unfair treatment, says report (based on survey of 3,000). (2023, the Guardian)

Living with long Covid series exploring the “millions of lives impacted by long Covid” (2022, the Guardian)

Doctors with long Covid say they have been denied disability benefits. (2022, the Guardian)

Alarm after EHRC says long Covid should not be treated as disability (2022, the Guardian)

United States

1,374 Days My life with long covid. (2023, NYT)

NYC Has Left People With Long COVID Behind Living with long COVID in NYC means living an increasingly lonely existence. (2023, Hell Gate)

Long COVID Is Being Erased—Again What was once outright denial has morphed into a subtler dismissal. (2023, The Atlantic)

Long Covid disabled them. Then they met a 'broken' Social Security disability process. (2023, CNN Business)

The Long COVID Survival Guide How to Take Care of Yourself and What Comes Next, a “patient-to-patient guide for people wliving with long COVID”. (2022, Experiment Publishing)

Long Covid is keeping millions out of work “Fixing the labor shortage means treating, accommodating and mitigating long Covid. It also requires building a society in which disabled people can participate.” (2022, the Guardian)

Long COVID Has Forced the U.S. to Take Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Seriously. “At best, most medical professionals know nothing about ME/CFS [myalgic encephalomyelitis, or chronic fatigue syndrome]; at worst, they tell patients that their symptoms are psychosomatic, anxiety-induced, or simply signs of laziness. [...] Every ME/CFS patient I’ve talked with predicted long COVID’s arrival well before most doctors or even epidemiologists started catching up.” (2022, The Atlantic) See also Ed Yong's reflections on reporting on long COVID and other chronic illnesses in a sensitive way.

Biden's long Covid plan is a good start. But it needs to go further. (2022, Stat)

Black Covid long-haulers say doctors dismissed their symptoms, so now they’re relying on one another for support. (2022, NBC News)

Long Covid keeps millions of Americans out of workforce. Recent research estimates that 2 to 4 million people are out of work due to Covid symptoms after the infection period. (2022, CNBC)

Many try to return to normal from COVID, but disabled people face a different reality “All we're really asking for is for a masking policy that will allow us to be able to go to the store, to go to the doctor, go get the mail, without risking [our health],” (2022, NPR)

Rest May Be the Best Treatment for Long COVID. Our Disability Policies Should Reflect That. “The continuing crisis around long COVID should inspire policymakers to embrace a more flexible frame of reference around what it means to be disabled, and to design more generous short-term disability policies, including a federal short-term disability benefit. Allowing long haulers to rest in the short term might help them avoid years or decades of significant, often disabling long-term health consequences.” (2022, TCF)

Patients with long covid symptoms face tough disability benefit fights: "Patients and doctors say safety net is unprepared for novel claims stemming from the pandemic". (2022, Washington Post)

The Millions of People Stuck in Pandemic Limbo 'Each individual infection is its own high-stakes gamble. [...] Over the past year, as many Americans reveled in their restored freedoms, many immunocompromised people felt theirs shrinking.':

'As the coronavirus moves from a furious boil to a gentle simmer, many immunocompromised people (like everyone else) hope to slowly expand their life again. But right now, “it’s like asking someone who cannot swim to jump into the ocean instead of trying a pool,”' (2022, The Atlantic)

At-Home Coronavirus Tests Are Inaccessible to Blind People: “It’s your personal health information, you should be the first to know." (2022, NYT)

What Does ‘Living With Covid-19’ Mean For Disabled And Chronically Ill People? A useful balanced view of pessimistic and hopeful outcomes. (2021, Forbes)

Back to top.

Civil Society and Community

International News

Don’t shut the door behind you A Debrief feature on how Gatekeeping undermines the disability movement:

“In almost twenty years in the disability sector, I’ve seen time and again how an overzealous guarding of spaces and ideas can hinder progress. The very structures we create to organize and advocate can end up holding back new voices and ideas.” (Mar, Disability Debrief)

Adventist Church in Fiji commits to creating accessible spaces (2023, Adventist Record)

Disabled and older people leading change features of folk around the world. “We have been led, inspired, and transformed by the experiences and stories of people with disabilities and older people”. (2023, Human Rights Watch)

Focus on Organisations of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs) around the world evidence brief. (2023, Social Development Direct)

How representative are organisations of persons with disabilities? Data from nine surveys suggest that “about a third of people with disabilities were aware of OPDs and fewer than 15% were members”. Personally I have doubts that the outcome measures justify this finding, as they seem to be about disability organizations more generally. (2023, Disability & Society)

Leave no one behind: a promise in peril. A campaign to keep the Sustainable Development Goals on track. (2023, Sightsavers)

Focus on Organisations of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs) around the world, an evidence digest. (Link to pdf, 2023)

Beyond Identity Funding: Rethinking Social Justice Philanthropy. A thoughtful and personal exploration of what funders can do differently. (2023, NPQ)

Disability Pride Flag: Origin, Colors and Significance (2023, Good Housekeeping)

Ridiculous Excuses not to be inclusive short, entertaining video of excuses people have used, including: “I'm sorry, but we already have one of those kids”. (2023, CoorDown)

Partnering for disability inclusion “How local authorities, non-governmental organisations and organisations of people with disabilities form effective partnerships to strengthen disability inclusion” (Link to pdf, 2023, Inclusive Futures)

Centering the Voices of Disabled Youth Activists (2023, Women Enabled)

Foundation Giving for Disability: Priorities and Trends reports. About 2% of 2019 grantmaking went to disability-related grants. And, on top of that, it mostly focusses on services and supports rather than rights and justice. (2023, Disability and Philanthropy)

The 2023 D-30 Disability Impact List “honors the unique accomplishments of our most impactful community members globally through a nomination and selection process.” (2023, Diversability)

Let's End Disability Stigma short video from people with disabilities around the world. (2022, CBM UK)

Understanding Minority Youth with Disabilities Through Data and Personal Experience: resources for Centers for Independent Living. (2022, Mathematica)

Our Resistance stories of disability rights activists. (2022, We are Purposeful)

Resourcing Disability Justice: Our Feminist Journey Toward Centring Disability Justice. (Link to PDF, 2022, Purposeful)

Book review of Deaf Empowerment: Resistance and Decolonization “an important book that provides new perspectives on Deaf empowerment.” (2022, H-Disability)

The 2022 D-30 Disability Impact List “honors the unique accomplishments of our most impactful community members globally” (2022, Diversability)

Not just ticking the box: Findings of IDA's Global Survey on participation of organizations of persons with disabilities. In the face of “threats to civic participation and heightening barriers” to participation, there is increasing engagement with international organizations but decreasing engagement with governments. (2022, IDA)

The United Nations and others celebrated World Down Syndrome Day (2022, UN)

Africa

Churches in Africa agree on guidelines for disability inclusion (2023, World Council of Churches)

Girls and young women raise their voice profiles of 10 young female advocates in Eastern and Southern Africa. (2023, UNICEF)

Asia-Pacific

Solution Seekers for an Inclusive Future profiles of advocates across the region. (2023, UNFPA)

Australia

Disability-related inequalities in the prevalence of loneliness across the lifespan: trends from Australia, 2003 to 2020:

“From 2003 to 2020, the prevalence of loneliness was greater for people with disability, such that people with disability were 1.5 to 1.9 times more likely to experience loneliness than people without disability. While the prevalence of loneliness decreased for people without disability between 2003 and 2020, the prevalence of loneliness did not decrease for people with disability during this period. Inequalities in loneliness were more substantial for people with intellectual or learning disabilities, psychological disability, and brain injury or stroke.” (Feb, BMC Public Health)

Good practice guidelines for engaging with people with disability “The guidelines are designed to help people working in the government, private and not-for-profit sectors. They provide practical guidance for people who run activities to design, plan, and deliver processes, products, services and policies.” (2023, Analysis & Policy Observatory)

Our understanding of limb difference is changing, and these young Australians are leading the way (2022, ABC News)

Bangladesh

Police intercept disabled people’s demo heading for Prime Minister's Office to demand for a big increase in the disability allowance. (2023, New Age) See also further reaction to the recent budget. (Daily Sun)

Organizations of Persons with Disabilities and Sightsavers launch Equal Bangladesh campaign (2023, The Daily Star)

Brazil

Ableist offensives and the fear of a crippled planet: challenges for disability activism. (In Portuguese, 2023, Athenea Digital)

Cameroon

The ‘epilepsy warriors’ breaking down the barriers. “Amid alarming rates of the illness, many living with it are seen as cursed. Now these myths are being challenged” (Apr, the Guardian)

How churches are a breeding ground for the exclusion of Persons with Disabilities: “Many church leaders subscribe to the charity model of disability” (2023, Minority Africa)

China

Struggle reappears From the era of strong men and role models to the era of experts, reflections written after the conclusion of the Eighth National Congress of the China Disabled Persons' Federation. (In Chinese, 2023, Jieyan)

Today, I don't want to advocate "disability prevention", what about you? (2022, translated by google) Minority Talk

Cyprus

Disabled protesters unhappy with handling of their issues:

‘The protesters and their supporters expressed dissatisfaction with how the government has handled various issues of concern, with slogans such as: “No to exclusion, yes to recognition and respect”, “Segregation is not for the good of children”, “No to the dismantling of the welfare state” and “The right of disabled children to inclusive education is non-negotiable.”’ (2022, Cyprus Mail) See also a video of the protestors.

Denmark

Interview with Ask Løvbjerg Abildgaard, Views of life interview with the President of Dansk Blindesamfund, on the current situation of visually impaired people in Denmark. (2023, ORF)

Ethiopia

Restricted participation: Drivers, experiences and implications of disability stigma. (2023, African Journal of Disability)

Europe

Inclusive Philanthropy: Foundations and Disability Rights a series interviewing foundations and development actors. (2023, EDF)

Hundreds Of Disabled Activists Demand Rights in Brussels in a “Freedom Drive”. (2022, ENIL)

France

Blockage at Invalides metro station A protest by disabled-feminist collective Les Dévalideuses. “You block us, we block you” (In French, 2023, Les Dévalideuses)

A disabled woman in Paris goes on hunger strike to demand accessible housing. (In French, 2023, France Info)

Disability activists protest in France ahead of Paris Olympics. Highlighting inaccessible metro services and drawing pledges from Macron. (2023, Associated Press)

Georgia

A crisis within the disability rights movement Publication with an interview with Esma Gumberidze exploring corruption and how disability activists can be silenced. (2023, Swedish Development Forum)

How does the property of blind people become someone else’s behind closed doors? Investigative feature on the Union of the Blind, established in 1926. (In Georgian, 2023, Investigative Journalists' Team)

Germany

Let's let the lifts glow: disabled people call to test accessibility of stations. (In German, 2023, Kobinet Nachrichten)

Honduras

People with disabilities protest in Choluteca, demanding fulfillment of state promises. “Those affected indicate that they require wheelchairs, vouchers, food, medicines and other supplies, which, despite requests sent to the authorities, have not been given a response.” (In Spanish, Jan, HCH)

India

Disability, Diwali, Durga Puja. “The absence of wheelchair ramps at entrances to festival spaces, or judgmental stares when a child with sensory issues becomes overwhelmed at a pandal, send a clear message: Not welcome.” (2023, ThePrint)

Disabled Persons Protest Non-Revision of Pensions Since 2011 (2023, Peoples Democracy)

People with disabilities hold protest for release of disability pension “They raised slogans against Social Welfare Department and burnt an effigy of its director.” (2023, Jammu Kashmir Latest News)

Manipur violence: Differently abled person stages protest demanding peace and stability in state. “During the protest, protestors held placards that read Do not kill civilians, we are disabled, We want peace, Save our life, Do not burn our house, Long live Manipur among others.” (2023, India Today)

Disabled Persons Association Protest Merger of Disability Pension Fund with Arunodoi Scheme in Guwahati, Assam (2023, G Plus)

Lakshadweep: Disability Rights Activists Hold Another Protest as Accessibility Issues Continue Protests banned during the G20 meetings in order to stop them. (2023, The Wire)

Revival Disability India turns 3. “We are proud to be taking up digital space little by little, every day, and to be disrupting the able-bodied and heteronormative lines of the world. [...] We have created our very own imagined reality through our phone screens - an accessible reality where we are free to dissent, share intimate moments and experience a sense of belongingness and affirmation.” (2023, Revival Disability India)

In Bihar, People with disabilities launch ‘satyagraha’ “Thousands of people with disabilities from all the 38 districts of the state have launched an indefinite protest at Gandhi Maidan in support of their 46-point demands for their rights and welfare.” (2023)

The Protest Toolkit: “with our existence itself being a form of rebellion, our emotions and our community become our tools of protest.” (2022, Women Enabled International) See also reflections on celebrating disability pride in India.

Iran

Disability movement protests for benefits and implementation of law (In Persian, 2023, Ilna)

‘We exist but we are ignored’: The Iranian disability rights activist on a mission to change things. (2022, Independent)

Ireland

Coalition of disability groups set for mass protest outside Dáil against plans to reform welfare payments. (2023, The Irish Times)

New grassroots organisation aims to change perceptions of disability with 'radical' events (2022, Irish Examiner)

Kenya

Disabled vendors spend night in chilly weather to get Sakaja's attention More than 50 disabled people slept outside Sakaja's City Hall office. (2023, The Star) See further context on Citizen Digital.

Profile of John Wambua of the United Disabled Persons of Kenya. (2022, Inclusive Futures)

A new book: Disability and Social Justice in Kenya Scholars, Policymakers, and Activists in Conversation. “Kenya has been on the forefront of disability activism and disability rights since the middle of the twentieth century.” (2022, Michigan Publishing)

Lithuania

Most Lithuanians don’t want to live next to people with disabilities, homosexuals, Muslims. A survey showed two thirds of respondents “do not want to live next to people with mental disabilities”. (Mar, LRT)

Malaysia

Sen. Ras Adiba Radzi disability-rights advocate honored in Washington. (2023, BenarNews)

Mexico

A directory of organizations for and of persons with disabilities in Mexico. See notes on its launch. (2023, Yo También)

Mexico City wheelchair users rally for more accessibility (2022, Yahoo! News)

Middle East and North Africa

Arab Civil Society Organizations and the Issue of Disability, Inclusion and Sustainable Development (link to pdf, 2022, UNDEF)

Myanmar

A song for freedom Debrief interview with an activist who reveals the situation of disabled people in the civil war:

“Now because of the security issue, there are a lot of checkpoints, in the country, or even in the city areas, downtown. The military, the soldiers, check the persons with disabilities whenever they cross. They think we are like anti-coup and that because of the current armed conflicts, we became the persons with disabilities. They check many things, a lot of inquiry and investigation…” (2023, Disability Debrief)

Netherlands

Reducing prejudices about people with disabilities interesting to see that it doesn't approve of the simulation exercises (in Dutch, google translate makes some sense, 2022, Movisie)

New Zealand

Disability advocates call for stronger accessibility laws. “More than 100 people, including those with disabilities and supporters, have marched to Parliament to deliver a petition calling for better accessibility legislation.” (Mar, New Zealand Herald)

Hot takes on the new Blind Low Vision ad campaign “From 'a pretty cool ad' to 'a self-congratulatory approach', here is what some blind and low vision folks think of a campaign using high-contrast and text-to-speech technology.” (2023, D*List)

From the Debrief's own Áine Kelly-Costello: Saying the quiet part out loud: “For a blindness service provider, creating a work environment which is untenable for people who come from the community the organisation supposedly serves is shameful.” (2023, Blind Citizens NZ)

Nigeria

Schisms in the Church A Debrief feature on the disconnect faced by deaf worshippers in Nigeria:

“This piece explores the challenges of deaf persons in the church. It draws from my own life and the experiences of other deaf folks, most of them close friends and acquaintances I met within the deaf community. We often talk about what causes our disconnection in church. We are treated as after-thoughts, objects of charity, sub-par humans, or needing healing. But we know we are much more.” (Apr, Disability Debrief)

Para Athletes protest “against unpaid allowances and unemployment in the state.” (Mar, Inclusive News Network)

Persons With Disability Protest Over Diversion Of Rice and Cash supports (2023, Cross River Watch)

Persons with disabilities protest non-inclusion in Delta employment (2023, Daily Post)

Foursquare Church: walking the disability inclusion talk

“It is a challenge to the church. One asks: Does the church recognize that “all things” implied in Romans 8:28 includes Disability? And if she does, the very salient question arises: what measures are in place to show it? How far have we studied to show ourselves approved in this matter? How well are we dividing the word of Truth? How well are we embracing Disability inclusion in our churches?” (2023, Church Times)

A Closely Knitted Community Creating Safe Space for Deaf Persons in Lagos (Video feature, 2023, BO News Service)

Philippines

“I'm not rebellious” Debrief feature, an interview with Abner Manlapaz, lifelong activist. (2022, Disability Debrief)

Poland

Disabled people protest outside parliament demanding Polish government fulfil pre-election promise:

“The group’s main demand is that the so-called “social pension”, which is paid to people who are unable to work for health reasons and currently stands at 1,781 zloty (€413) per month, is raised to the level of the minimum wage, which is currently 4,242 zloty (€983) gross per month.” (Mar, Notes from Poland)

People with Disabilities Push for Access to Personal Assistance “Last Saturday, dozens of people dressed in black carried a coffin through the streets of Warsaw to the presidential palace.” (2023, Human Rights Watch)

Disabled in Poland: “Organisations representing disabled people in Poland have renewed their protests to demand more financial help and better care from the state.” (2023, Reporting Democracy)

Disabled people begin protest in Polish parliament seeking rise in benefits to level of minimum wage. (2023, Notes from Poland)

Views Of Life Interview with Dorota Krać. Polish Association of the Blind (PZN). (2023, EBU)

Protest of Polish disabled people in the Parliament Demands to increase social pension. (2023, Poland Daily Live)

Portugal

An interview with Rodrigo Santos, president of ACAPO, the Association of Blind and Visually Impaired of Portugal. (Jan, European Blind Union)

Russia

Human rights defenders secure prosecutors’ attention to problems of people with disabilities in Dagestan. “Officials of the Pension and Social Insurance Fund of Dagestan may face criminal prosecution in connection with regular violations of the rights of people with disabilities to medical products and rehabilitation means.” (2023, Caucasian Knot)

Sierra Leone

Integrating Disability Justice into Girl-Centered programming. (2023, We are Purposeful)

Somalia

Somalia Disability Network Annual Report 2022. (Link to PDF, 2023, SDN)

South Africa

Disability and Islam: PhD examines unconscious exclusion, burden of responsibility. (2023, UCT News.)

South Korea

Disability rights group files suit against Seoul Metro over subway protest ban. (Feb)

Seoul Metro to ban all subway protests by disability advocacy group “Seoul Metro claimed that delays totaling over 86 hours have been caused by the subway protests on 471 occasions since 2021, resulting in some 780 million won (US $600,936) in losses.” (2023, Yonhap)

Disabled activist files complaint with human rights watchdog over arrest during subway protest: “I held on to my wheelchair not to be arrested, but I could not move because the police took my arms and twisted them”. (2023, Korea JoongAng Daily)

Leader of disability rights protests referred to prosecution on illegal demonstration charges: “Park Kyoung-seok, the 63-year-old co-leader of the Solidarity Against Disability Discrimination, was referred to the prosecution by police on Thursday on charges of illegally occupying roads and obstructing subway services during 38 protest rallies across Seoul during the two year period until January.” (2023, The Korea Herald)

Disabled activists stage surprise subway protest in downtown Seoul on nat'l disability day. (2023, Yonhap News Agency)

Disability rights activists are referred to prosecution over protests in the subway during rush-hour. (2023, Korea Times) Comment on this “zero tolerance” approach, which includes Seoul Metro suing the protestors. Protests paused during further dialogue.

Seoul’s callous response to disability rights protests. “While trying to stop the disabled activists from boarding the subway, Seoul Metro workers and the police forcibly pulled activists away by their wheelchairs.” (2023, Hankyoreh)

Resolution remains elusive for Seoul's disabled accessibility issues (2023, Korea Times)

Disabled advocacy group to resume rush-hour subway protests. “SADD has been leading subway protests since late last year and often caused delays in metro services during rush hour as some of its members used their wheelchairs to prevent trains from departing.” (2022, Yonhap News) See a detailed feature on the protests and how the movement goes back to 2001.

Spain

Three Kings with disabilities go to the streets of Madrid to raise awareness. They gave symbolic gifts to the mayor, rector of the university and the bishop to represent accessible heritage, inclusive education and a more diverse society. (In Spanish, Jan, Discapnet)

Inclusive volunteering a guide to help voluntary organizations become inclusive of persons with disabilities. (In Spanish, 2023, CEDID)

Views Of Life Interview with Cristina Barreto Cristina Barreto - Organización Nacional de Ciegos Españoles (ONCE). (2023, EBU)

Greens call Spain prohibit ableist show of persons with dwarfism (2023, Katrin Langensiepen, MdEP)

Uganda

Interview with Esther, CEO of National Union of Disabled persons of Uganda (NUPIDU). “NUDIPU is not comfortable with some of the big international NGOs.” (2023, ADD)

United Kingdom

DPAC are BACK: disabled people block roads, protesting against welfare reforms. (Mar, Canary)

Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) returns to the streets for ‘active resistance’ to Department for Work and Pensions cuts (Feb, Disability News Service)

Changing the Funding Landscape for Disability Justice: Disability Rights UK’s call to Funding Organisations. “True change begins with accessible funding processes, core unrestricted funding, inclusive eligibility criteria, and the acknowledgement of intersectional experiences.” (2023, Disability Rights UK)

The Disability Power 100 in 2023 (2023, The Shaw Trust)

Disabled activists face down police to protest in front of Rishi’s hotel (2023, Disability News Service)

Turning the tide: Debrief feature on fighting for equality when rights are eroded:

“I often feel that we’re going backwards. And some days it’s easy to think we made no progress. But that’s too simple. Our previous gains have put us in a different situation. The civil servants I talk to today have a much better understanding of disability from those I talked to thirty years ago. Disability-related supports can be undermined but the government would find it hard to take them away entirely. Today’s battles are different.” (2023, Disability Debrief)

It’s time we united for justice “Disabled people are suffering as a result of government neglect.” (2023, Big Issue)

Disabled Virgin Mary in Peterborough Cathedral art exhibition. (2023, BBC)

Call for solidarity: Defend the rights of disabled campaigners, ‘calling on the Metropolitan Police to prevent a repeat of the systemic discrimination towards disabled protesters that we documented in our report “Restricting the Rebellion” in 2019.’ (2023, Freedom)

Disabled people have been at the heart of ‘direct action’ protest for years – what do we do now? Claiming the right to protest. (2023, The Independent)

Dementia and Hope a vision for “dismantling the barriers which disable a million people in the UK” (2023, One Dementia Voice)

Disabled youth participation within activism and social movement bases: “[Young disabled people] feel pressure to agree with those who have identified the cause, advised by established figures on ways in which they should demonstrate resistance, and are requested to provide recommendations that will improve the situation for young people: a limited involvement.” (2022, Current Sociology)

First orthodox siddur for people with disabilities launched in UK (2022, Jerusalem Post)

Radio play Pride and Protest offers a window into the current struggle for disability rights. (2022, Disability Arts Online)

Tickboxes and Tokenism? Service User Involvement Report 2022 (2022, Shaping our Lives)

United States

Assume that I can brilliant, bold video rejecting the self-fulfilling prophecy of negative assumptions about people with Down Syndrome. (Mar, CoorDown)

Synagogues can better serve those with disabilities (Feb, JNS)

The Road to Disability Inclusion Report three stories exploring the role of philanthropy. (Feb, Disability & Philanthropy Forum)

Accessibility Advocates Oppose Disability Simulations “Why do you have to wait until you experience it to realize that there’s something important in what I’m telling you?” and a collection of other reasons people raise not to use disability simulations. (2023, Skift Meetings)

Disability advocates are staging a mass commitment ceremony to raise awareness about marriage penalties. “there are marriage penalties baked into existing benefit programs related to income. These rules prohibit people with disabilities from marrying not explicitly, but implicitly because they would no longer be eligible for benefits.” (2023, the 19th) See photos and report in the New York Times.

Newly disabled people aren’t given a ‘how-to’ guide. Disability doulas are closing those gaps: “The community care practice, pioneered by queer women of color, reorients newly disabled people to a different life – a necessity that has grown during the pandemic era.” (2023, The 19th)

The Road to “Beyond Tokenism” on the roles of people with intellectual disabilities in leadership positions on committees and boards of organizations. (2023, Samuel Centre for Social Connectedness)

Focus on disability rights growing, but intersectional support lags. Exploring foundation funding of disability rights. (2023, Candid)

Borealis Philanthropy and Ford Foundation Launch $1 Million Disability x Tech Fund to Advance Leadership of People With Disabilities in Tech Innovation. (2023, Ford Foundation)

Autism research at the crossroads “The power struggle between researchers, autistic self-advocates and parents is threatening progress across the field.” (2023, Spectrum)

Why Fund Disability Rights and Disability Justice? a fact sheet for funders. (2023, Disability & Philanthropy Forum)

What I learned from the Generation of Disabled Activists Who Came After Me (2022, Time) An essay by Ben Mattlin, accompanying the release of Disability Pride: Dispatches from a post-ADA world.

32 Years After the ADA, People with Disabilities Still Are Left Behind in Faith Institutions as religious organizations have exemptions from the law. (2022, Respect Ability)

5 Reasons Why Disability Activism Is Still Hard One is that “Like the rest of society, disabled people are divided and polarized” (2022, Forbes)

Foundations Pledge More Than $3 Million to Launch Disability-Focused Philanthropy-Serving Organization. See also on the disability inclusion pledge which has been signed by over sixty philanthropic organizations. (2022, Disability & Philanthropy Forum)

Uzbekistan

Dreaming beyond the impossible: A story of disability rights activism in Uzbekistan. (2023, UNSDG)

Zimbabwe

Youth with Disabilities and their Participation in the Zimbabwean Society. (2023, This Ability Hub)

Back to top.

Climate Crisis and Environment

Overview

International News

Advancing disability-inclusive climate research and action climate justice, and climate-resilient development. (Apr, The Lancet Planetary Health)

Avenues for disability inclusion in climate and biodiversity action. A review of international policy frameworks:

“The analysis shows that transformative changes can be enacted through four leverage points: strengthening the institutional presence of organisations of persons with disabilities in the negotiations; mainstreaming disability inclusion as a human rights issue; developing mechanisms for disability inclusion and creating systems of accountability; and integrating disability inclusion into national plans guiding climate and biodiversity action.” (Mar, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Finland)

Disability Inclusion in Climate Finance A Background Paper For The Disability Inclusion Approach For Climate Investment Funds. (Feb, Climate Investment Funds)

What I've learned in conversation Debrief feature on conversations weaving together disability and climate justice. (Feb, Disability Debrief)

“I'd fight like hell for you”: Debrief interview with Julia Watts Belser, on not giving up on each other in the climate crisis (Feb, Disability Debrief)

Promoting Disability-Inclusive Climate Action through Litigation “HPOD and Allies Urge Inter-American Court on Human Rights to Take Notice of Evolving International Standards” (Jan, HPOD)

Pathways towards sustainable and just futures with and for disabled populations: a leverage points perspective.

“In this paper, we suggest that addressing ‘deep’ leverage points by 1) recognising diverse valuations of and connections to nature by different social groups (i.e. re-connecting to nature), 2) including disabled populations in decision-making and knowledge creation (i.e. re-structuring institutions), and 3) promoting inclusive education and knowledge generation (i.e. re-thinking knowledge production) can facilitate the development of inclusive transformation pathways and foster sustainable human-nature relationships.” (2023, Ecosystems and People)

Making the green transition inclusive for persons with disabilities. (2023, ILO Global Business and Disability Network)

CBM Global Climate Advocacy Roadmap (2023, CBM Global)

Disability and climate justice interview with the Debrief's own Áine Kelly-Costello. (2023, Down to the Struts) See also an interview with system change not climate change.

The weight of the issue: Debrief feature on showing up disabled in the climate movement:

“Do we put our time into making those spaces more accessible? Do we focus on taking the knowledge that we gain in organising for climate justice back to our own communities? Sometimes it's all too much and we try to assimilate by minimising the disabled parts of ourselves.” (2023, Disability Debrief)

5 reasons why affordable and accessible public transport is crucial for social and climate justice (2023, Greenpeace)

Celebrating One Year of the Disability Rights and Climate Justice Board. (2023, Global Greengrants Fund)

Beyond Vulnerability: The Rights and Agency of People with Disabilities in the Climate Crisis. A series of blog posts exploring different dimensions of the climate crisis and disability. (2023, Bill of Health)

Climate Change and Disability the Debrief's resource guide and original reporting. (2023, Disability Debrief)

Connecting disability to the climate beat tips from the Debrief's own Áine Kelly-Costello. (2023, Unbias the News)

Society Leaves Disabled Communities Sweltering As temperatures break records across the globe, disabled people face unique risks and challenges. (2023, Atmos)

Discussion on the rights of persons with disabilities in the context of climate change (2023, OHCHR)

Examining the Climate Change-Migration Nexus from a Disability Lens (2023, Bill of Health)

Climate Migration and Disability Part 1: What we Know (2023, Sustain Our Abilities)

Climate and Disability Activism: Bridging two important worlds Discussion with the Debrief's own Áine Kelly-Costello (2023, The Martyn Sibley Show)

Climate change and persons with albinism report on the particular impacts and human rights impacts. See also a short video summarising the issues. (2023, Independent Expert on rights of persons with albinism.)

Discussion paper on climate change and disability rights. A study in Bangladesh, Kenya and Nepal. “Lack of transparency of government budgets both centrally and decentralised across different ministries makes it difficult to understand where money is being spent and potentially being re-allocated during times of climate crisis.” See also videos from Malawi and Zimbabwe. (2023, CBM UK)

Enabling Commons Thoughtful conversations hosted by the Debrief's own Áine Kelly-Costello: “This podcast is a space for dialogue among persons with disabilities to explore strategies that will transform our environments, our commons, to be meaningfully enabling for all.” (2023, DICARP)

Debrief Feature: A just transition for disabled people. A disability lens on greening economies and society (2023, Disability Debrief)

Where disability and climate meet. Debrief feature exploring disabled wisdom and an invitation to community. (2023, Disability Debrief)

Nothing about us without us: The urgent need for disability-inclusive climate research. (2023, Plos Climate)

Missing in Climate Action Stories of persons with disabilities from the Global South combined with exploration of ableism and environmental justice. (2023)

Global Impact of Climate Change on Persons with Albinism: A Human Rights Issue. (2023, Journal of Climate Change and Health)

The role of the scientific community in strengthening disability-inclusive climate resilience. “We discuss how the scientific community could advance and hasten the development of disability-inclusive climate resilience, and which areas should be prioritized.” (2023, Nature Climate Change) See also a blog summarising the comment (HPOD).

Persons with Disabilities and Climate Change a collection of articles. (2023, Bezev)

Illegalized Bodies: Addressing Disabled Vulnerabilities and Adaptation to Climate Change based on case studies from the US and Philippines. (2022, Towson University Journal of International Affairs)

An issue on Mental Health & Climate Justice including research on women with psychosocial disabilities in intersecting disasters and climate change. (2022, Mariwala Health Initiative Journal)

A policy brief on realizing disability rights through a just transition towards environmentally sustainable economies and societies (2022, ILO)

How climate change affects mental health highlighting dimensions of concern. (2022, Wellcome)

Leave No One Behind a report on people with disabilities and older people in climate-related disasters. An overview of recent evidence and experiences directly from disabled people themselves. (2022, Human Rights Watch)

Some good news for persons with disabilities from COP27. (2022, IDA)

A status report updating the review of Disability Rights in National Climate Policies. (Link to PDF, 2022, IDA)

The CRPD and Climate Action. Links between the UN Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities and Climate Change. (2022, Gerard Quinn)

Global Disability Justice In Climate Disasters: Mobilizing People With Disabilities As Change Agents (2022, Health Affairs)

Climate policy and activism need to make space for disabled people. (2022, BMJ)

Cripping Climate Activism piece with beautiful illustrations on advocating at the intersections of disability, gender and climate. (2022, Women Enabled International)

Climate change disasters are a disability rights issue. (2022, Yahoo)

Interview with Pauline Castres on importance of climate policy, justice and activism for people with disabilities. (2022, WID)

The Barriers and Enablers of persons with disabilities as climate change agents. Based on research in Bangladesh and Madagascar:

“Persons with disabilities have knowledge and ideas which stem from their every-day life experiences dealing with risk and social and structural barriers creating problem-solving skills invaluable in the fight against climate change. Furthermore, persons with disabilities are clearly highly impacted by climate change and have experiences and perspectives which may contribute valuable insight in mainstream climate discourses.” (2022, LUP Student Papers)

Heatwaves worsen mental health conditions (2022, the Conversation)

Disability Debrief feature: Disability in the Heat Why authorities need to prioritise people at highest risk as temperatures rise (2022, Disability Debrief)

A briefing note for the Bonn Climate Conference 2022 on integrating human rights to climate action. (2022, Human Rights and Climate Change Working Group)

Report on Disability Inclusion in National Climate Commitments and Policies The 2015 Paris Agreement calls on countries to outline the measures they will take to reduce emissions and adapt to climate change. Fewer than one in four countries make references to persons with disabilities in these plans, and where they do, it is often cursory. (2022, IDA and McGill) See also coverage on the Guardian.

Climate and sport: Paralympic champion Tatyana McFadden explains the link. (2022, UN)

See previously on the Debrief, Responses to climate change leaving disabled people behind on the IPCC report and recent floods in Australia. (2022, Disability Debrief)

The Sangyan's posts on climate change include reflections on Climate Change, Disability, and the Capability Approach and the displacement of people with disabilities as climate refugees. (2022, Sangyan)

The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. "Across sectors and regions the most vulnerable people and systems are observed to be disproportionately affected. " Recommends that inclusive governance address vulnerabilities and inequalities related to disability. (2022, IPCC)

The missing conversation about disabled leadership in climate justice. "Disabled people are expert adapters – we spend our lives figuring out how to live and thrive in a world which was not designed for us." (2022, Stuff)

On the IPCC report: Scant mention of disabled community, despite higher risk of climate change impact. (2022, Stuff)

A feature exploring the link between disability and sustainability particularly from the view of the private sector. (2022, Valuable 500)

A policy paper on Locating disability inclusion in action on climate change with advice targeted to the UK government to make their climate action disability-inclusive. (2022, CBM UK)

What I wish non-disabled people understood about disability and plastic. An illustrated coming showing “disabled people often suffer most from plastic pollution, but many also rely on plastic products for health, independence and dignity.” (2022, Greenpeace)

Policy Brief on the decade of healthy ageing in a climate-changing world (2022, Decade of Healthy Ageing)

Cop26: Take stock, regroup and keep disability inclusion on the table for climate action "let's do better together". (2022, Bond)

Resource Page on Connections Between Climate Change and Disability (2022, Disability & Philanthropy Forum)

A discussion exploring Climate Change, Environmental Activism, and Disability (2022, SSIR)

Environmental Justice inclusive of disability animated videos telling the story through a character called Sofía. (in Spanish, 2022, ONG Inclusiva) Also available with English subtitles.

Environmental Justice and Disability with Pauline Castres - YouTube a nice conversation covering key issues and reflecting on COP. (2021, Judy Heumann)

Disability and Climate Justice an overview of the current situation and recommendations to take forward (link to pdf, 2021, Open Society Foundations)

What is Climate resilient inclusive design and why do we need it? Global Disability Innovation Hub at COP26 (2021, GDI)

Asia-Pacific

People with disabilities and the climate crisis short video from disabled people across the region. (2023, CBM Australia)

Australia

Eco-ableism? Banning Straws’ Impact on Disabled People. “This month, Victoria became the latest Australian state to ban single-use plastics, including straws. While this is a win for the environment and marine life, it will come at a price for social inclusion.” (2023, Mirage)

Bangladesh

Displacement in Bangladesh behind the scenes videos from reporting on disability and climate change. (2023, Lens 15)

Disability-Inclusive Climate Action in Bangladesh: gaps and challenges. (2023, Bill of Health)

Protect People Most At Risk During Monsoon Season International Funding Needed to Ensure Climate Action is Inclusive of People with Disabilities, Older People. “Everyone interviewed said the flooding significantly affected their mental health, with many describing extreme fear, anxiety, and distress, but none had access to psychosocial services.” (2023, Human Rights Watch)

Lessons from the Historic 2022 Flooding In Bangladesh. (2022, HPOD)

Data & evidence missing on the impact of climate change on persons with disabilities. “No data on how persons with disabilities have been affected by the flooding, persons with disabilities are scattered in this area and even getting cash support to these persons takes a bit of time. There are not so many OPDs to support them either.” (2022, CBM Global)

Burundi

Driving change for a resilient future: national dialogue paves way for disability-inclusive climate action. (2023, World Council of Churches)

Canada

Disability rights don’t have to clash with environmental responsibility (2022, the Conversation)

One Year Since Deadly Heatwave Protections Still Needed: 600 people died due to extreme heat in the summer of 2021, 91% of whom were 60 or older. (2022, Human Rights Watch)

Dominica

The inclusion of persons with disabilities in the climate change discourse. Highlighting cases of persons with disabilities affected by climate change in this small island developing state. (2022, Dominica News Online)

Ethiopia

The invisible children in climate crisis. “As drought worsens in the Horn of Africa, children with a disability bear the heaviest burden” (2023, UNICEF)

Europe

Heatwaves Disastrous for Older People, People with Disabilities. (2022, Human Rights Watch)

Joint Statement on the Social Climate Fund the fund “must be a transformative instrument tackling structural injustices” (2022, EDF)

India

Climate Change Is A Double Blow For People With Disabilities (2022, Health Policy Watch)

Interview with Alice Abraham, a young woman from Kerala “regarding the impact of climate change on her life and her disability.” (2022, The Sangyan)

An ICT4 Inclusion Challenge on mitigating the impact of climate change on people with disabilities (2022, ICT 4 Inclusion Challenge)

Ireland

Climate action must be inclusive, say disability campaigners. (2023, RTE)

Climate actions must not undermine rights of people with disabilities, committee warned. (2023, The Irish Times)

Jamaica

Empower the Disabled Community to become Climate Resilient: Jamaican Disability Advocates. ”We need to use the most limiting concerns of people with disabilities as the blueprint to tailor the approach in empowering all,” (2023, Channel5Belize.com)

Kenya

Include persons with disability in climate action plans (2022, The Standard)

Madagascar

Climate Change and its Humanitarian Consequences: the impact on persons with disabilities in Southern Madagascar. (2022, CBM Global)

Maldives

Maldives Above the Surface The sea is rising, but no clear plan for people with disabilities. Behind the scenes on reporting. (2023, Lens15)

Nepal

Intersectionality, Indigeneity, and Disability Climate Justice an article exploring evidence and policy frameworks. (Feb, Bill of Health)

A case study on Nepal’s changing climate and its impact on communities including persons with disabilities “I have never seen anything
like that in my whole life. The whole earth was shaking. Other people went
uphill as the flood started to rise. Later, I went up with the support of my
son-in-law too. I came here looking for better access to the market and
other facilities. But I lost everything. I am an old man with a physical
disability, it is very difficult for me now” (2022, CBM Global)

New Zealand

When the rain doesn’t stop. The Debrief's Áine Kelly-Costello on experiences in the Auckland flooding. (2023, Blind Citizens NZ)

Nigeria

Narrative Change Around Disability & Climate Change: Insights and Recommendations from Stakeholders and Community Members in the Niger Delta (2023)

Pacific

Podcast with Sainimili Tawake who works as inclusive development advisor for the Pacific Disability Forum. (No transcript, 2022, UNDP)

Disability and Climate change in the Pacific. Findings from discussions with disabled people in Kiribati, Solomon Islands, and Tuvalu.

“Many of the impacts highlighted in this report relate to exclusionary practices that already exist. This ranges from discrimination within the household to exclusion from policy formation and policy implementation. For example, persons with disabilities may not be prioritised when a household is experiencing a shortage of food or water. Similarly, persons with disabilities are often not considered in disaster risk management, such as the design of evacuation procedures and evacuation shelters. Without concerted action, the impact of exclusion on persons with disabilities will become worse under climate change.” (link to pdf, 2022, Pacific Disability Forum)

Rwanda

‘I Am Left With Nothing’ Rwandans with Disabilities are Disproportionately Impacted by Flooding From Climate Change. (2023)

Samoa

A Sustainable Future discussion on preparation for disasters and climate change. (2023, Disability Justice Project)

Solomon Islands

How People with Disabilities Face Climate Change in Solomon Islands: "Every high tide is right at my doorstep every time I wake up. That keeps me wondering if soon, we are going to sink in the sea with no option,” (2022, Solomon Times)

South Africa

Load shedding life-threatening to people with disabilities. (2022, Rolling Inspiration)

How load shedding impacts people living with disabilities (2022)

South Korea

Assessing heatwave effects on disabled persons. “Our findings emphasize the substantial influence of disability as a key factor in exacerbating heatwave risks” (Feb, Scientific Reports)

Spain

Another Hot Summer for People with Disabilities Authorities Should Reduce Emissions, Adapt to Climate Change (2023, Human Rights Watch)

Inadequate Response to Heatwaves Support People with Disabilities at Risk to Climate Change – study of 2022 heatwaves in Andalusia. (2023, Human Rights Watch)

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka Copes With Climate Change After decades of instability, people with disabilities confront another man made disaster. Behind the scenes on reporting. (2023, Len15)

United Kingdom

No climate action without us a toolkit on “how to make disabled people’s access to live events environmentally sustainable. ” (Feb, Attitude is Everything)

Disabled people and the environmental crises How Disabled people want charities and government to respond to the climate and nature crises. (2023, NPC)

Briefing for charities and funders on how the climate and nature crises impact older and disabled people (2023, NPC)

Disabled people are being left out of the climate conversation (2023, Big Issue)

Why I’m here: four disabled female voices on their place within the environmental movement. (2023, Greenpeace UK)

Protest for All a guide for climate change groups on making their protests accessible for disabled people. (link to pdf, 2022, Bristol Disability Equality Forum)

The people making a difference: profile of a climate activist: “a heavy wheelchair is handy for wrongfooting the police”. (2022, the Guardian)

Disabled People Must Not Pay The Price For Clean Air (2022, Bristol Disability Equality Forum)

City’s co-produced climate action plan ‘is a world first’ featuring Bristol's climate plan, which we also covered on the debrief (2022, Disability News Service)

Disability and the heatwave: Cooling solutions and disability as weather alert goes red (2022, BBC)

‘There’s no support for us at all’: The realities of caring for a disabled child during a heatwave. (2022, Big Issue)

Glasgow disabled facing hostility for car use “Disabled people are facing "climate-change themed" hostility and aggression for using cars, according to a charity.” (2022, The Herald)

A new Community Climate Action Plan in Bristol (2022, Bristol DEF)

Up to the Challenge report examining the National Disability Strategy and how it addresses climate change. "Disabled people across the country are excluded from the important work to tackle climate change." (2022, Oxford)

For disabled environmentalists discrimination and exclusion are a daily reality (2022, Greenpeace)

United States

How people with disabilities can experience the total solar eclipse 'Sight is only one of our senses' (Mar, USA Today)

Visually impaired students can ‘get a feel for’ eclipses With support from NASA, scientists published a set of tactile graphics on the 2024 total solar eclipse:

“We pick a set of unique textures to use on the master to signify different items, so the sun feels different than the Earth. This way, the textures of the graphics become part of the story being shared. For example, in a model of the sun’s surface, we use Spanish moss to create the dynamic texture of the sun.” (Mar, Fast Company)

How climate change risks disproportionately impact people with disabilities. Video feature on disproportionate impact of natural disasters. (2023, PBS NewsHour)

Rituals for Climate Change: a book on A Crip Struggle for Ecojustice: “offers an often-overlooked perspective on climate-grief, interdependence, and resilience. Disabled people know how to adapt to a world that is ever changing without considering them” (2023, Punctum Books)

Climate Crisis Makes Us Recognize Our Limits;

“Disability has forced me to reckon more forthrightly with the limits of my flesh, to confront the truth that bodies and minds cannot do it all. It has helped me learn to embrace rest, to resist the voices that clamor for more, always more. But disability has also taught me to push back against injustice, to fight hard against the structural barriers that stand in disabled people’s way. Both of these insights are powerful tools for confronting climate change.” (2023, Truthout)

Activists with disabilities want to lead the climate fight despite barriers in their way “Disability and the disability community, we lead with joy and love. And that is such a huge thing that I feel like is often missing from the climate conversation,” (2023, 19th News)

Temperature Regulation Tips for Wheelchair Users How to Stay Safe and Comfortable (2023)

Energy Storage Can Help People with Disabilities Through Extreme Weather Events. (2023, The Equation)

Climate change efforts won’t work if they exclude people with disabilities. “Ultimately, disability-inclusive approaches to climate action increase the safety, flexibility and accessibility of climate solutions for society as a whole.” (2023, Spokesman-Review)

Poet and Activist Naomi Ortiz Talks About Ecojustice and Self Care: “Ecojustice to me is how we can live and balance the best we can and honor the fact that we have different needs.” (2022, WNYC Studios)

It’s not just heat stroke. Extreme temperatures pose special risk to people with chronic illness (2022, Statnews)

In best of times, New Orleans is hard on people with disabilities. In hurricanes, it's deadly. (2022, Nola)

Ageing and the Climate Crisis aging (2022, ASA Generations)

Where Food Sustainability and Disability Clash “Services like grocery and meal delivery are generally not environmentally or worker-friendly, using lots of single-use plastic and relying on underpaid gig workers. But they’re often the safest and most accessible avenues for disabled and chronically ill people.” (2022, FoodPrint)

Climate change is forcing care workers to act as first responders. “A new pilot program in California aims to provide the training and resources they need to take care of their clients and themselves. But advocates say increased responsibility should equal more pay.” (2022, 19th News)

Severe weather can mean life or death for people with disabilities. (2022, Fox9)

Ensuring the Safety of People With Disabilities During Climate Change (2022, Santa Clara University)

How heeding disabled people can help us survive the climate crisis. (2022, Slate)

Uzbekistan

Climate change highlights the need for disability-inclusive adaptation (2023, World Bank)

Conference of Parties (COP)

International News

COP 28: the disability movement calls for inclusion in climate action “This Summit witnessed an increased presence of disability advocates and more discussion on disability issues.” (2023, EDF)

Towards COP28: Key Advocacy Messages to Include Persons with Disabilities (2023, IDA)

A Call for Disability-Inclusive Climate Action in India and Globally (2023, The Sangyan)

Ensuring Disability Inclusion in the Global Climate Action Agenda Call to Action ahead of the 28th Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (2023, Harvard Law School Project on Disability)

Why is disability still waiting for real progress on inclusive climate action? 5 takeaways from COP27. (2023, Bond)

What has been done and what can still be done. Increasing participation albeit significant access challenges remain. (2022, EDF)

Can COP27 contribute to disability-inclusive climate justice? (2022, Disability Debrief)

People With Disabilities Raise Voices at Climate Talks (2022, AP News)

How people with disabilities fought for formal recognition at COP27: “We’re still just trying to get on the agenda”. (2022, Grist)

No climate solution without disability inclusion (2022, LFTW)

Nepal

This 28-year-old from Nepal is telling COP28: Don't forget people with disabilities. (2023, NPR)

Back to top.

Communication and Language

Overview

International News

Plain English Weekly “A weekly newsletter packed with advice, tools and resources to help you write clearer, more accessible content. Sent on Wednesdays by Iain Broome.” (2023, Plain English Weekly)

Complex to Clear: Tips for Easy-to-Understand Communication (2023, Inclusion International)

Comics beyond sight A highly visual case for blind access – beautifully illustrated questions about how to make visual design of comics accessible. (2023, MIT Technology Reviews)

Journal of Critical Study of Communication and Disability First edition in 2023. (2023, JCSCD)

People need to understand information to live their lives independently: about easy-to-read. (2023, Inclusion Europe)

Ethiopia

Working for inclusivity, accessibility: launch of a new Talking Books initiative to make educational texts available in audio format. (2022, The Reporter Ethiopia)

Europe

Speech Impairment and Yiddish Literature, or: On the Obligation to Communicate and the Responsibility to Listen (2023, Journal of Critical Study of Communication and Disability)

India

An online library for blind and print disabled with a collection of nearly 700,000 books in DAISY format combining audio and text. (2022, Kashmir Images)

Indonesia

Information gap affecting the disabled “Instead of accessing official information, many disabled people had to rely on advice from family and friends, who may not have been well informed” (2022, D+C)

Israel

"Nagish" opened its app to the deaf and hard of hearing for free and unlimited use, for real-time transcription of phone calls. (2023, Vertex Ventures)

Jordan

Language in Medical Worlds: Hearing Technology for Deaf Jordanian Children "The focus on the acquisition of orality and speech for deaf Jordanians, to the exclusion of other forms of language and communication, can result in deaf Jordanian children not being able to communicate—in any modality—as well as their having a diminished sense of belonging to broader deaf collectivities." (2022, Medical Anthropology)

Nigeria

Book Famine: How policies in Nigeria limit visually impaired persons’ access to books. (2023, Premium Times)

Palestine

Communication, inclusion and psychological wellbeing among deaf and hard of hearing children: A qualitative study in the Gaza Strip:

“Key themes identified in the analysis included lack of accessible communication, community exclusion, negative attitudes towards hearing impairment and deafness and the impact on deaf and hard of hearing children's sense of self”. (2023, PLOS Global Public Health)

South Africa

Ending the book famine: Copyright guide launched for blind and visually impaired. (2023, Gadget)

United States

I Lost My Ability to Speak After Surgery. Here’s What the the Passy Muir® Valve Means to Me.

“The worlds of speech and silence intersect and overlap. Silence isn’t static or limiting. Silence is not an empty void. Silence has a landscape of its own. Silence has its own dimension, a space that enables another way of thinking and being. There is dignity in all forms of communicating.” (2023, Teen Vogue)

DeafBlind people are creating a new language a video feature on protactile, “a language of touch”. (Has audio-description and ASL, 2023, PBS)

How tactile graphics can help end image poverty. “Tactile graphic design is an art of transformation: what appeals to the eye may be cluttered and chaotic to the fingertips.” (2023, MIT Technology Review)

Jordyn Zimmerman is redefining communication as a nonspeaking advocate for disability rights, describing “augmentative and alternative communication”:

‘It’s essentially all the ways someone may communicate besides speaking. It refers to any tool or method or support to help someone be heard or understood. The “augmentative” is usually meant to add to someone’s speech, and the “alternative” is usually meant to be instead of someone’s speech. For me, iPad paired with a text-based application serves as the tool that allows me to reliably and effectively be heard and understood.’ (2023, the 19th)

DeafBlind Communities May Be Creating a New Language of Touch. “Protactile began as a movement for autonomy and a system of tactile communication. Now, some linguists argue, it is becoming a language of its own” (2022, New Yorker)

Sign Languages

International News

Create a World of Deaf Readers Standards for Sign Language Storybooks.

“The vast majority of deaf children and youth worldwide are not exposed to an accessible language, such as sign languages, until they start formal schooling. This results in serious delayed cognitive and language development in early childhood. Even when in school, only 1–2 percent of deaf students receive education in their sign language, leaving a large percentage of deaf students without access to a sign language in school” (2023, All Children Reading)

Access to National Sign Languages as a Health Need. A position paper. (2023, WFD)

Evidence for superior encoding of detailed visual memories in deaf signers. “Our findings add to evidence showing that deaf signers are at an advantage [... in the] retention of detailed visual memories over the longer term.” (2022, Scientific Reports)

World Federation of the Deaf celebration of international mother language day: "by specifically recognizing the right of deaf people to have access in all areas of their lives to their Mother Language, sign language." (2022)

The Global Digital Library has books available in three sign-languages, namely Cambodian, Kenyan and Rwandan. (2022)

Africa

Why do deaf Africans struggle to access their rights? A brief look at sign-language use in several countries. (2023, DW)

Australia

The art of interpreting standup comedy in sign language. (2022, the Guardian)

Canada

How Indigenous sign language is helping this woman connect with her culture (2022, CBC)

Chile

In drafting of the new constitution sign-language has been recognised as an official language (2022, UN Special Envoy on Twitter)

Egypt

Numerals in Egyptian Sign Language from a Typological Perspective. (2022, North African Linguistics)

Fingerspelling Systems in Egyptian Sign Language (2022, North African Linguistics)

Finland

Why Is Sign Language an Important Part of a Deaf Child's Identity Development? (Jan, The AutoEthnographer)

India

What’s the sign for ‘centrifuge’? How we added scientific terms to Indian Sign Language (Feb, Nature)

In A First, Deaf Lawyer Sara Sunny Argues Supreme Court Case In Sign Language “Chief Justice Chandrachud has been calling for ensuring equal access to justice. Last year, he ordered a detailed accessibility audit of the Supreme Court complex to make the justice system more accessible and to understand the challenges faced by differently abled people when they come to the court.” (2023, NDTV) See further on the BBC.

With 260 new terms Indian Sign language enables communication on banking bonds and trade. (2023, Times of India)

Ireland

Ireland's first sign language café opens in Dublin (2023, Irish Examiner)

Israel

The Vulnerability of Emerging Sign Languages. An article on how Kufr Qassem Sign Language is merging with Israeli Sign Language as its users show a preference towards ISL. (link to pdf, 2022, MDPI)

Kenya

Teaching sign language will be of benefit to all Kenyans (2023, Nation)

Deaf Persons Open A Centre To Promote Use Of Kenya Sign Language. (2023, Kenya News Agency)

Govt Offices to Start Using Sign Language in New Law (2022, Kenyans)

Malaysia

Maybank explores language of inclusivity featuring the deaf community, this Chinese New Year (Feb, Marketing-Interactive)

Nepal

Supporting deaf learners in Nepal via Sustainable Development Goal 4: Inclusive and equitable quality education in sign languages. (2022, Int. Journal of Speech-Language Pathology)

Nepal’s first PhD candidate from the deaf community campaigns to promote Sign language (2022, Nepali Times)

The eye and the other: Language and ethics in deaf Nepal (2022, American Anthropologist)

Pakistan

Broadcast media to have sign language interpreters (2022, The News)

Solomon Islands

Trainings for deaf and hearing people in Australian Sign Language to go out “into remote communities” to teach sign language. (2022, RNZ)

South Africa

Sign language is set to become South Africa’s 12th official language after a long fight for recognition. (2023, The Conversation)

South African Sign Language set to become official language (2022, Disability Insider)

Uganda

Reasonable accommodation for Deaf persons on why provision of a sign language interpreter needs to be accompanied by further measures. (2022, IDA)

United Arab Emirates

How to sing in sign language: meet the interpreter joining Mohammed Abdu on stage (2022, The National News)

United Kingdom

British Sign Language GCSE set to launch in 2025 (2023, TES magazine)

How is sign language adapting to climate change? 200 environmental science terms that have their own new official signs in British Sign Language (BSL). (2023, BBC)

Stormzy Interpreter On Making Grime Accessible (2023, Dig!)

Signs for Change review of a beautiful documentary by Rose Ayling-Ellis. See also an interview with Rose: “Nobody deaf in this country has the profile I have. I just want to get it right.” (2023, the Guardian)

Work to be done on census figures for BSL: discusses methodology and estimates 150,000 BSL signers in the country. (2022, BDA)

Sign Language is My Language a series of “new perspectives on the experience of being deaf in 21st-century Britain.” (2022, BBC)

Sign language used in court as deaf jurors with own interpreters used for first time in England. (2022, Daily Mail)

Why I co-created a Twitter bot for BSL interpreter requests (2022, The Limping Chicken)

Sign language 999 BSL service launched for deaf people (2022, BBC)

A Sociolinguistic History of British Sign Language in Northern Ireland. "The study shows how the Protestant schools played an important role in the transmission of BSL in the island of Ireland." (2022, Sign Language Studies)

Why everyone should learn some sign language (2022, New Scientist)

British Sign Language to become recognised language in the UK (2022, the Guardian)

United States

Hawaii's Deaf Community Is Struggling With Lack Of Certified ASL Interpreters (Apr, Honolulu Civil Beat)

‘A beautiful way of saying a lot’: sign language brings benefits to the organic chemistry classroom. “We’ve created this organic chemistry lexicon with the Deaf community in mind, but we are starting to see its universal design advantages.” (Mar, Nature)

American Sign Language Reveals Wordplay Beyond Sound a learner of ASL finds new ways to wordplay. (Mar, New York Times)

NFL Player learning ASL and bringing his own flair to the language (2023, NPR)

Sign Language Is Often Glamorized. So Why Isn’t Accessibility Taken More Seriously? (2023, Elle)

Deaf rappers who lay down rhymes in sign languages are changing what it means for music to be heard. Dip-hop “signals an independent style grounded in both hip-hop and Deaf culture.” (2023, The Conversation)

How recognizing American Sign Language will serve Hawaiʻi's local deaf community. (2023, Hawaiʻi public radio)

How ASL performer Justina Miles stole the show at Super Bowl LVII. (2023, CNN)

Native American sign language arrives at the Super Bowl. (2023, Washington Post)

Crip Linguistics Goes to School:

“Because the school environment provides another way for deaf children to acquire language, professional signed language fluency is critical. Yet, in other second language acquisition contexts, fluency is not necessary for effective teaching and often highly racialized. If perceived fluency is often dependent on proximity to whiteness, and language fluency is not necessary for effective teaching, then why is it necessary to require professionals to be fluent in signed languages before teaching and working with deaf children?” (2023, Languages)

How These Sign Language Experts Are Bringing More Diversity to Theater “As productions increasingly include characters and perspectives from a variety of backgrounds, deaf and hearing people who translate the shows for deaf audiences are trying to keep up.” (2023, New York Times)

Why Sign Language Was Banned in America part of a video series exploring sign language. (2022, Storied, PBS)

How Deaf and Hearing Friends Co-Navigate the World: “friendterpreting” and the everyday ways people communicate. (2022, Sapiens)

How Sign Language Evolves as Our World Does. (2022, NYT)

The Need For Black Sign Language Interpreters In Hip-Hop (2022, Okayplayer)

Vanuatu

Left out of society: Vanuatu’s deaf community push for national sign language. (2022, the Guardian)

Braille

International News

Introducing Braille Brain! “This is a free website-based, self-paced curriculum to help people who already have literacy skills learn braille.” (2023, American Printing House)

Governments urged to increase access to braille (2023, 1News)

World Blind Union calls for increased access to braille on World Braille Day. “Despite obligations arising from international and national law, we know many blind people lack access to braille itself, to appropriate training in braille, and to technologies that facilitate the use of braille”. (2023, World Blind Union)

The UN international World Braille Day (2022, UN)

Australia

Magic touch: how ‘revolutionary’ changes are making braille better than ever. “Braille has had a revival during the past decade. Technology such as refreshable braille displays has made the script more portable and adaptable, and increasingly braille is being integrated into the community beyond books.” (2023, the Guardian)

Brazil

Beco de Batman gets graffiti in Braille a unique technique to make street art accessible. (In Portuguese, 2023, O Globo) See also a video feature in English from Star Tribune.

Braille: accessibility improves in Brazil, but still needs to advance. Almost one in four blind Brazilians are illiterate. (2023, Agência Brasil)

China

New doors open for the visually impaired a feature on use of Braille in China. (2022, China Daily)

Europe

A new video on the importance of Braille. (2023, European Blind Union)

India

Thirukkural and other Tamil literary works to be available in Braille script. (2022)

Kenya

Feature on the Kenya Institute of Special Education's work on Braille. (2023, Star)

Malaysia

English-BM braille dictionary in the works “The country’s first ever English-Bahasa Malaysia braille dictionary is in the pipeline.” (2023, The Star)

South Africa

Concourt rules that Copyright Act is unconstitutional. “Blind and visually impaired people, prevented from converting written material to braille or other accessible formats without the permission of copyright holders, can now do so following a ruling by the Constitutional Court.” (2022, GroundUp)

South Asia

Seeing with fingertips: essay on the history and variations in Braille, including how they are used to render different scripts and languages. (2022, Himal Southasian)

Tunisia

Seeking Knowledge While Blind. A feature on blind people working to make more accessible materials available. (2021, Meshkal)

Türkiye

January 4 World Braille Day photoessay on braille in Turkey and around the world. (In Turkish, 2023, TRT Haber)

United Kingdom

The Politics of Braille Exploring continuing arguments about use of Braille:

"Blind people are divided in regards to its usefulness, schools debate whether it is worth recruiting qualified teachers, and governments fail to set aside funding to either train those teachers or fund their employment in local authorities. ‘Has technology replaced Braille?’ is a question I hear thrown around by the media more often than I should, usually accompanied by an article about a technology that will revolutionise how blind people read, rendering Braille unnecessary. It has not failed to escape me that whilst I’ve seen countless such articles, Braille is still firmly in place as the writing system used by blind people globally." (2022, Catch These Words)

United States

Braille cookbooks bring blind cooks recipes. “Library of Congress arm offers free print-on-demand Braille cookbooks to users, and hundreds are taking advantage of it” (Jan, Washington Post)

Back to top.

Conflict and Peace

Overview

International News

Towards Greater Inclusion The devastating impact of armed conflict on children with disabilities. A discussion paper based on literature review and interviews with experts. (Jan, UN)

In war zones, disabled people must fend for themselves “Despite facing neglect and discrimination, disabled Palestinians and others in Sudan, Lebanon, and the Congo are advocating for themselves and their communities to demand solutions and systemic change.” (2023, Reckon)

War is devastating – but for the disabled and their families, it is a unique horror “My family’s experience in the Iran-Iraq conflict gave me an insight into what many disabled Palestinians experience today:”

“I remember clearly when the sirens sounded my mother would gather us all in one room, away from the windows. Electricity would be cut and then we would huddle together and wait for the planes or rockets to be shot or driven away. My siblings and I did not fully understand the gravity of the situation – another beautiful aspect of being a child – we enjoyed the adventure and excitement without the fear that adults carried.” (2023, National News)

The transformative role of persons with disabilities in peacebuilding processes.

“In this report, the Special Rapporteur highlights the agency of persons with disabilities in rebuilding broken societies in post-conflict contexts. Using concepts such as moral repair and transitional justice, he points to the need to include the voices of persons with disabilities in peacebuilding processes.” (2023, Gerard Quinn)

Persons with disabilities in armed conflict interview to “take stock of the legal protections (and lack thereof) for persons with disabilities in armed conflicts and reflect on how to move the legal and policy debates forward in the next few years.” (2023, Humanitarian Law & Policy)

Alexander Breitegger on the Red Cross and civilians with disabilities in armed conflicts. Interview. (2023, Gerard Quinn)

Protection measures needed to support children with disabilities in armed conflict. (2022, OHCHR)

Mr. Giles Duley appointed as the first United Nations Global Advocate for persons with disabilities in conflict and peacebuilding situations. (2022, UNDP)

Addressing the accountability void: War crimes against persons with disabilities. How obligations in international humanitarian law can help monitor, protect and address disability-based violations of the law. (2022, International Review of the Red Cross)

Including civilians with disabilities in the aftermath of war. (2022, ICRC)

Persons with disabilities in armed conflict. An edition of the International Review: “thirty thought-provoking contributions, including many authored by persons with disabilities, jointly take stock of the legal protections (and lack thereof) for persons with disabilities in armed conflicts, and reflect critically how to move the legal and policy debates forward in the next few years.” (2022, International Review of the Red Cross)

Protection of the rights of persons with disabilities in the context of military operations. A report “widening the lens of international humanitarian law to become more consciously self-aware of the realities faced by persons with disabilities in conflicts”. (2022, UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) See a summary of the report on Gerard Quinn's website.

The Role of Accessibility and Funding in Disability-Inclusive Peacebuilding. “Persons with disabilities can be — and have been — the source of solutions in peacebuilding initiatives. Participants in the roundtable emphasized that persons with disabilities are some of the strongest advocates in building peace, especially after experiencing violence themselves.” (2022, United States Institute of Peace)

Peace, Disability, and the Violence of the Built Environment Reflections on how disability relates to studies of peace. (2022, Peace Review)

Lifting the cloak of invisibility: civilians with disabilities in armed conflict. Discussion of how humanitarian law would relate to disability issues and bringing together conversations between people with disabilities and military representatives. “Steps must be taken to ensure that people living with disabilities and their representative organizations can and do shape the interpretation and implementation of International Humanitarian Law norms relevant to them.” (2022, ICRC)

Give people with disabilities better protection in conflict and crises (2022, The New Humanitarian)

Africa

Ensuring the Rights of Women and Girls with Disabilities in Communities Experiencing Armed Conflict (2022, Women Enabled International)

Ethiopia

Challenges persist in rehabilitation of Tigray's ex-fighters Experiences of fighters who acquired disabilities. “Ex-fighters at Awash camp suffer from severe injuries such as limb loss, facial injuries, and concussions. They require significant amounts of medicine and medical treatments; otherwise, their health conditions become critical.” (2023, Addis Standard)

Tigray establishes war veterans council “in a bid to help disabled fighters and families of martyrs of the two years war with the federal government and its allies.” (2023, Addis Standard)

Incoming Tigray interim leader pledges to address grievances of disabled Tigrayan soldiers following protest rally in Mekelle. (2023, Addis Standard)

Haiti

Standing in Solidarity with Haitian Disability Rights Advocates (Mar, Disability Rights Fund)

Israel

“The IDF is the world's largest employer of autistic people” A claim by Captain Udi Heller, who explains: “At the end of the first year there were 300 and at the end of the second year there were 500 full-fledged soldiers, in all positions, in all units” (2023, CTech)

Special in Uniform “This program gives people with developmental disabilities the opportunity to strengthen their self-confidence, enlist in the army, and contribute to Israel in a real and meaningful way.” (2020, IDF)

Enabling Militarism The inclusion of soldiers with disabilities in the Israeli military, exploring implications for our imaginations of soldiers and geopolitics of disability. (Link to pdf, 2019, Eastwood, QMUL)

Kenya

Kenyan disability champion to receive global peace award Zaja “helped build a resource centre in Majengo that annually churns out more than 1,500 youth, women and persons living with disability with empowerment.” (Feb, KBC)

Myanmar

Junta Soldiers Murder Disabled Man. “The Burma Army (BA) has reportedly killed a mentally ill disabled man in northern Chin State”. (2022, BNI Online)

Myanmar junta troops murder disabled villagers “A deaf woman and a paralysed man were murdered by regime forces in northern Chin State’s Falam Township late last week, according to local sources.” (2022, Myanmar Now)

Myanmar Junta Troops Shoot Dead Mentally Ill Man (2021, The Irrawaddy)

Nagorno-Karabakh territory

Protection and safety of persons with disabilities open letter to the international community. “Persons with disabilities in or fleeing from Nagorno-Karabakh are at great risk of abandonment, abuse and even death.” (2023, EDF)

Fleeing Karabakh, elderly couple fear for the future with their disabled son (2023, Reuters)

Last to flee: Older people’s experience of war crimes and displacement:

“The renewed fighting in 2020 underscored the unique risks of a particular group: older people. More than half of the ethnic Armenian civilians who were killed were over 60 years old. The oldest was 89. Many faced torture or other ill-treatment in detention. Others are still missing.” (2022, Amnesty)

Russia

How Russia Depicts Wounded Soldiers: As Heroes, or Not at All.

“Troops with amputated limbs or serious injuries return home to find a patchwork system of treatment and, often, efforts to keep them out of the public eye.” One woman caring for her husband wrote “I feel like I’m putting my loved one together like a puzzle.” (Feb, New York Times)

Sudan

Children with special needs transform their lives interventions from Sudan Humanitarian Fund to support internally displaced people, including those with disabilities, in Blue Nile State. (Feb)

Disabled children forced to flee fighting in Sudan video feature on how Insaf fled the fighting in Khartoum. (Feb, Sky)

Disabled and Displaced The additional challenges faced by disabled people in the Sudan crisis. “even to escape to another state other than the one in which the clashes are taking place, and it is difficult for us to reach food and health needs.” (2023, ADD)

Dozens of babies die in orphanage as Sudan war takes grim toll on Khartoum. (2023, Reuters)

“We are not alone”. A Debrief feature on disabled people in Sudan's conflict. A call for solidarity: “desperate circumstances, the institutions that let them down, and the systems of love that hold things together.” Also available in Arabic. (2023, Disability Debrief)

Israel-Palestine Conflict

International News

Crip Call to Action: why disabled people living in the US need to be calling for a long lasting ceasefire in Israel-Palestine. (2023, Disability Visibility Project)

Canada

Ontario NDP removes Sarah Jama from caucus after Israel-Hamas comments. Jama posted on social media about “the generations long occupation of Palestine”. She uses a wheelchair. (2023, Global News)

Europe

Critical situation of persons with disabilities in Gaza Letter to the President of the European Commission. (2023, EDF)

Israel

Wounded IDF veterans find a home in Israel’s rehabilitation centers “According to Defense Ministry figures released on February 15, more than 5,500 wounded soldiers have entered the rehabilitation system since the beginning of the war. It is expected that there will be a total of 20,000 by the end of 2024.” (Mar, Times of Israel)

Israel Held 82-year-old Gaza Woman With Alzheimer's for Two Months as an 'Unlawful Combatant'.

“Israeli soldiers arrested Fahamiya Khalidi in early December at a school in Gaza after she fled her home due to IDF shelling. She was moved to Damon prison, where she was refused a meeting with an attorney and was only freed after an appeal” (Feb, Haaretz.com)

Thousands of Israelis amputated, disabled: “Around 2,000 Israeli civilians, soldiers and police officers have had limbs amputated or become disabled in other ways since Oct. 7.” (Jan, Intermountain Jewish News)

Predictions of number of Israeli soldiers that will acquire disabilities. “As of late December, the defence ministry said the number of Israeli soldiers injured since 7 October had reached 3,000, with the Israeli army saying over 2,300 have been disabled.” (Jan, Middle East Eye)

Israeli State Watchdogs Find Defense Ministry Has Neglected Disabled Veterans With PTSD “State comptroller finds that huge parts of the budget allocated to expand the rehabilitation department haven't been utilized, IDF veterans are unaware of their rights and plagued by bureaucratic hurdles, lack of digital accessibility” (Jan, Haaretz)

Paralympians to help war-wounded heal from trauma “A new initiative established by the Israel Sports Association for the Disabled and the Israel Paralympic Committee aims to help the wounded adapt to their new reality, both physically and mentally.” (2023, Israel 21c)

Young Israeli artists with disabilities express emotions amid war “Over the past few weeks, Shalva’s art therapists have guided adolescents and adults to express their feelings through a variety of art forms.” (2023, The Jerusalem Post)

Yad Sarah’s Jerusalem hotel hosts disabled, elderly evacuees for free. (2023, The Jerusalem Post)

55,000 Israelis with Disabilities Evacuated from Conflict Areas Figure quoted in a discussion, which also highlighted how new accommodations are often inaccessible and this is compounded by many staff and family carers being called up for military service. (2023, Cision)

Soldiers with disabilities recruiting for the war effort. “Anyone who puts these sweets and snacks in a carton is like firing a missile at Hamas and helping our soldiers.” (2023, Jerusalem Post)

Hamas hostages: Families 'worried sick' for relatives held in Gaza. "My mom is 79, she has diabetes. She uses insulin daily. My brother Nadav is also diabetic. So he takes pills for that condition, so the medication issue is really troubling and worrying." (2023, BBC)

Cognitive disabilities in the crossfire: “Creating a semblance of the routine, normalizing feelings and helping disabled people to contribute to the efforts has made all the difference.” (2023, Jerusalem Post)

He took his disabled daughter to the raves that gave her life. Hamas murdered both. (2023, i24 news)

Living through war experiences of blind women in Israel and Gaza. (Podcast, no transcript, 2023, BBC)

A disability lens on conflict: Israel and Gaza war Debrief feature on disabled victims of Hamas attacks, destruction in Gaza, and disability on different sides of the conflict. (2023, Disability Debrief)

Israeli special needs community struggles to cope with war victims of the 7th October attacks and response from disability organizations. (2023, Jerusalem Post)

Shalva National Crisis Response Center: centre for disabled people becomes a refuge for evacuees. (2023, Jerusalem Post)

Shalva Center opens bomb shelter for people with disabilities. (2022, Jerusalem Post)

Disabled Israeli Man Who Can’t Reach Bomb Shelter in Time Says He Feels Like ‘Cannon Fodder’ (2019, the Algemeiner)

Palestine

'He didn't understand, he was terrified': Disabled Palestinian man shot dead by IDF in Gaza hospital. “The 39-year-old, who had severe learning difficulties, had fled to the nearby Al Khair hospital with his parents and siblings after the apartment block where they lived was hit by an artillery strike.” (Mar, ITV News)

How Israeli army brutality killed a disabled Palestinian man “Ezz al-Din al-Banna was paralysed from the waist down, but Israeli soldiers beat and dragged him across the ground anyway” (Mar, Middle East Eye)

The Children Who Lost Limbs in Gaza (Mar, New Yorker)

Gazan Para-Cyclists deliver aid on bikes “With their dreams of competing at the Paris Paralympics shattered, the Gaza Sunbirds have pivoted to a full blown aid operation.” (Mar, New Internationalist)

People with disabilities and the war of starvation experiences of disabled people in Gaza. (In Arabic, Mar, Al Araby)

Inclusive Needs Assessment: Situation of the Conflict-affected Persons with and without Disabilities in the Gaza Strip (March 2024). (Mar, Atlafuna)

Israeli army forces family to leave 94-year-old grandmother behind Her daughter says she 'cannot move, eat, or drink alone'. (Mar, Middle East Eye) Social media reports she's been found dead.

Humanity & Inclusion's office in Gaza City destroyed

“The building is completely destroyed. No HI staff were present, but we do not have information about potential other victims in the surrounding areas. No alert or warning was given to HI, even though the coordinates of the building were duly communicated to the notification system put in place by the United Nations and Israeli forces to avoid the inadvertent targeting of humanitarian premises.” (Feb, Humanity & Inclusion)

Remembering Ibrahim Abu Thuraya: disabled Palestinian, rights activist, freedom fighter. “Despite of the prominence of his case — no one in the international disability rights community took any interest in him or the circumstances of his killing.” (Feb, Hernan Bonomo)

Double burden on people with disabilities displaced in Gaza. (In Arabic, Feb, Wafa)

Impact of the conflict on people with disabilities in the Gaza Strip. Thematic report summarising available information. (Feb, acaps)

Patients with chronic illnesses in Gaza failing to get treatment “The lack of medicine, food and water means thousands of people with asthma, kidney disease or diabetes are unable to treat or control their conditions” (Feb, the Guardian)

Gaza's child amputees face further risks without expert care “More than 1,000 children had undergone leg amputations, sometimes more than once or on both legs, by end-November, according to U.N. children's agency UNICEF” (Jan, Reuters)

'Mercy' flights provide critically wounded and sick Palestinians a chance to survive “Commercial planes are retrofitted with stretchers and beds to ferry patients on a four-hour trip from Egypt to Abu Dhabi to receive medical care.” (Jan, NBC News)

A young man with hearing disability and his family in the Gaza war, who have been displaced six times. (Signed, with Arabic and English subtitles, Jan, AlJazeera Arabic)

Video shows Israeli soldier shooting mentally disabled Palestinian in West Bank:

“When Tarek Abu Abed told the men that he did not have identification, an argument ensued that culminated in Tarek being shot, according to his brother.” (2023, CNN)

How do deaf people live in the Gaza strip during the war? A short video (In Arabic, 2023, BBC)

Disabled NZ resident battling to get out of Gaza “Despite Ghada Alree being unable to walk and reliant on family for mobility, New Zealand initially told her this week they would not allow her mother to be added to a list with her for evacuation from Gaza to Egypt.” (2023, NZ Herald)

Israeli Forces Attack Gaza Church Just Days Before Christmas The patriarchate said that the Convent of the Sisters of Mother Theresa, part of the church compound was home to 54 disabled people. “The 54 disabled persons are currently displaced and without access to the respirators that some of them need to survive,” (2023, Huffpost)

Amputations, nerve injuries and fractures - New report on injuries caused by heavy bombing. (2023, Humanity & Inclusion)

New catastrophic plight in Gaza: Israel’s attacks leave more than 5,000 Palestinians disabled. (2023, Euro Med Monitor)

12-year-old Dunia lost her leg in an Israeli airstrike that killed her whole family. Dunia speaks in her recovery. She was killed a few weeks later. (2023, Defense for Children)

Gaza: Israeli Attacks, Blockade Devastating for People with Disabilities “The Israeli military’s major ground offensive in Gaza adds immeasurably to the serious difficulties for people with disabilities to flee, find shelter, and obtain water, food, medicine, and assistive devices they desperately need,” (2023, Human Rights Watch)

Horror in darkness: the plight of the visually impaired seeking refuge in UNRWA's schools.

“As a person with visual impairment, hearing the shelling around without being able to see it or know where it’s coming from. You are left to imagine that you are the target, your world engulfed in darkness and fear.” (2023, AOAV)

People With Disabilities in Gaza Suffer in Israel-Hamas War “People are homeless; some separated from their families, support systems and mobility devices, Shaheen said. Those with chronic illnesses, who need medical care, cannot receive it because hospitals are overflowing with critically injured patients, while others don’t have the funds to buy supplies such as catheters at pharmacies” (2023, Time)

I'm from Gaza but can't return home.

“I called a friend of mine the other day who has a physical disability, who has been sheltering at an overcrowded United Nations Relief and Works Agency school, within the evacuation zone. Over a lot of background noise, she told me, “I lost my wheelchair. If we are ordered to evacuate, I will not be able to run like everyone. I am so terrified.”” (2023, USA Today)

Inclusive Humanitarian Action - Gaza a factsheet, exploring the risks faced by disabled people and response needed. (2023, Handicap International)

“The planes bomb us. We are deaf so it scares us.” short video on the situation of Ahmed Abu Odeh and his wife Walaa, both deaf. The couple and their children are trying to survive Israeli airstrikes in Gaza. (2023, AJ+)

‘Where will I leave these children, on the street?’ The struggle for survival faced by disabled Palestinians in Gaza. (2023, CNN)

Palestinians with disabilities face hardship short video on the challenges disabled people are facing. (2023, Aljazeera English)

A Palestinian with disability among those reported killed by Israeli Forces in the Jenin Camp on the West Bank. (In Arabic, 2023, Alhurra)

The harsh reality of disabled people trying to survive war Families forced to carry those with disabilities for several kilometres after having to abandon their homes in northern Gaza and head south. A piece by Gazan journalist Maha Hussaini. (2023, Middle East Eye)

Israel continues to attack hospitals in Gaza. “The Psychiatric Hospital, the only one of its kind in the Gaza Strip, is also no longer able to treat its patients.” (2023, Aljazeera)

UN expert demands unconditional humanitarian access and relief for people with disabilities:
“This region has increasing disability rates among the population because of exposure to repeated armed conflicts in addition to the current bombardment of the Gaza strip, and all relief teams and international bodies must take this into account.” (2023, Relief Web)

Trapped and traumatised, Gaza's disabled face death sentence (2023, The New Arab)

Attacks on healthcare and Impacts on Physical Rehabilitation and Mental Health Services. (2023, Humanity & Inclusion)

'This is my fifth war': Gazan man with disability. “I don't want my brothers to keep carrying me, they are tired of carrying me.” (2023, Straits Times)

Interview with Deaf Palestinian Tayyeb Badwe:

“How do they provide updates? They have a WhatsApp group and also use Telegram to provide news and updates. It includes a sign language interpreter as well, who is based in Gaza. They also use social media but if they don’t have internet connectivity, I don’t know how they can provide updates. But how do they know about incoming bombs? Deaf people depend on hearing family members who live with them for alerts on when to evacuate. Or if a deaf person lives by themselves, they will get messages on their phones from hearing family members who keep tabs on them.” (2023, The Daily Moth)

Deaf Gaza residents struggle to survive Israeli siege and bombing “Instagram videos from deaf people who live in Gaza who are trying to survive with dwindling water, food and constant bombardment from the Israeli military.” (2023, The Daily Moth)

Amnesty International Researcher Budour Hassan a blind journalist and researcher, describes the situation in Gaza and when asked about her own disability says “it's not about me”. (Video on Twitter, 2023, ABC News Live)

Plain language primer for solidarity with Palestine. (2023, Crip News)

Disabled athletes braving bombs to feed starving Gaza civilians. “A para-cycling volunteer team managed to feed 1,800 people in the blockaded strip” (2023, Express)

Statement on the situation of persons with disabilities in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory (2023, IDA and IDDC)

Urgent Call to Protect the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Gaza (2023, Disability Rights Fund)

“People with disabilities not spared by Israel’s war machine on Gaza Strip” “Bombs, lack of electricity and roads damaged by Israeli offensive make life impossible for disabled people in Gaza.” (2023, Aljazeera)

A disability lens on conflict: Israel and Gaza war Debrief feature on disabled victims of Hamas attacks, destruction in Gaza, and disability on different sides of the conflict. (2023, Disability Debrief)

People with Disabilities in Gaza Languish after Israeli Airstrikes (2023, Human Rights Watch)

How do people with disabilities cope when Israel bombs Gaza? (2023, Electronic Intifada)

“Ten minutes is not enough for a person with a disability to evacuate their home safely” (2023, MAP)

An Israeli missile worsens the adversity of five disabled siblings (2023, Reuters)

Statement of Solidarity with Palestine: “Abolition and apartheid cannot co-exist. There is no disability justice under military occupation.” (2021, Abolition and Disability Justice Coalition)

United Kingdom

DR UK Stands in Solidarity with Disabled Palestinians “We are deeply concerned about the severe humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza, and we are committed to advocating for the protection of the rights and dignity of Disabled individuals in this time of crisis.” (2023, Disability Rights UK)

United States

Palestine is Disabled “A free Palestine is a disability justice issue. Disability justice will not win without a free Palestine. Where disabled people live in a land that is at peace. Where we get to just be.” (Jan, Disability Visibility Project)

Disability Justice Activists Organize to Help Palestinians Stay Connected Organizers are distributing digital SIM cards directly to people in Gaza amid communication blackouts. (Jan, Truthout)

Why Palestinian Liberation Is Disability Justice “I’m no expert but I know what it means to be dehumanized, rendered disposable, and oppressed. I know that all people deserve freedom. I know that genocide is a mass disabling event and a form of eugenics.” (2023, Disability Visibility Project)

What Does Disability Justice Mean in Gaza? On debility, drones, and solidarity. (2023, Sluggish)

Back to top.

Culture, Entertainment and Media

Overview

International News

Review of 'Elusive Kinship: Disability and Human Rights in Postcolonial Literature' a book by Christopher Krentz, “a thorough interdisciplinary examination of the importance of highlighting disabled fictional characters in the postcolonial Global South”. (Mar, H-Disability)

Sebastião Salgado releases photography book for the blind. Providing tactile transcriptions of a photo project. (2023, Digital Camera World)

Hatiye Garip’s whimsical comic embraces tactility and audio to create an accessible publication. “With raised spot gloss and an audio bundle, The Land of Uncertainty is paving the way for publications that attend to the needs of blind and low-vision folk.” (2023, It's Nice That)

The Dynamics of Photography and Disability: interview with Jaklin Romine. (2023)

Dungeons & Dragons introduces its first canonically autistic character Designer Makenzie De Armas discusses putting a little bit of herself into the game (2023, Polygon)

It's a cultural fight: Debrief feature with Christian Tasso on using photography to challenge perceptions of difference. (2023, Disability Debrief)

Non Inspirational A collection of interviews about cerebral palsy in fiction. (2023, Julian Gray)

Lego to sell bricks coded with braille to help vision-impaired children read (2023, the Guardian)

Poem-a-Day Guest Editor John Lee Clark discusses selections “from the worlds of disability”. (2023)

The disabled villain: why sensitivity reading can’t kill off this ugly trope. “For centuries, fictional narratives have used outer difference to telegraph inner monstrosity. As someone who uses a wheelchair, I’ve learned you can’t just edit out a few slurs or bad words to fix this – it’s often baked deep into the story” (2023, the Guardian)

Am I ugly? a super-cute video of small figures getting around accessibility, assistive tech and stigma. (No visual description, 2023, Sylvanian Drama, TikTok)

Nurse! My pen! Hanif Kureishi’s hospital musings and the art of sickbed writing. (2023, the Guardian)

On (Not) Discovering Disability in the World of Jane Austen. “Disabled characters are present in Austen’s novels, but largely invisible in her cinematic remakes” (2023)

How Can Art Reach Out and Touch Us? A primer on haptic tech innovation and new possibilities for access in dance. (2023, Laurel Lawson)

Disability Poetics a collection of poems and essays by disabled poets:

“Disability poetry resonates for us because it is fundamentally a poetry of liberation. [...] Disability poetics speaks powerfully because it articulates the resistance of bodies and minds to the erasure, commodification, convenience, and disposability articulated all around us and that we struggle against. In this collection, we mean to resist.” (2023, Poetry Foundation)

A Picture of Health: Jo Spence, a Politics of Disability and Illness. A project featuring different artistic explorations. (2023, A Picture of Health)

Being Seen a new book by Elsa Sjunneson. “A Deafblind writer and professor explores how the misrepresentation of disability in books, movies, and TV harms both the disabled community and everyone else.” (2022, Simon and Schuster)

The Group Fighting for Disability Justice in British Museums and Galleries (2022, Timeout)

Curating Access a new book, edited by Amanda Cachia on disability art activism and creative accommodation. (2022, Routledge)

Cripple Punk: The Disabled Young People Smashing Ableism: “Spiked wheelchairs, studs and cigarettes – cpunk is about rejecting society's ‘inspiration porn’ narrative of physical disability.”:

“We need to see more disabled people behaving badly. And no, I don’t mean blind people littering or wheelchair users shoplifting. I mean we need to see more disabled people behaving like everyone else. We need to see more disabled people smoking, drinking and sticking up a middle finger. More disabled people who are angry, bitter and abjectly un-inspirational – because frankly, there are a lot of us. So where have we all been hiding?” (2022, Vice)

Disabled musicians turning up the volume radio show featuring artists with disabilities. (no transcript, 2022, BBC)

Changing the narrative on disability: is representation in books getting better? Article sees increasing representation in children's literature but not “the same commitment to representation in the adult literature sector, where they say disability is still seen as a niche topic.” (2022, the Guardian)

‘Deaf Utopia’ review – Nyle DiMarco’s memoir is enlightening, depending on how (and if) you read it (2022, Limping Chicken)

23 New And Upcoming Novels With Disabled Main Characters (2022, Buzzfeed)

Geelong, an Australian ensemble of disabled actors, wins one of the world’s richest theatre prizes (2022, the Guardian)

A Different Narrative: Text within Disability Art. "Help the Normals". (2022, Disability Arts)

Review of Disability Studies special issue on disability, film and media. A wide ranging set of articles from self-presentation on instagram, radio in Kenya and disability metaphors in Korean news. (2022)

Latest issue of Ability Magazine features the actor Greg Grunberg and articles from around the world. (2022)

Adaptive fashion: the $400bn opportunity to embrace Disability inclusion (2022, MBS Group)

A collection of poems by Disabled and d/Deaf Poets Curated by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. I enjoyed Sick4Sick by torrin a. greathouse, which opens:

“I think my lover’s cane is sexy. The way they walk

like a rainstorm stumbles slow across the landscape.” (2022, Poets.org)

Argentina

The Drummer Who Reminds People That ‘You Can Play Music as You Like’ “Miguel Tomasín, one of the few professional musicians with Down syndrome, has brought attention to the artistic visions of people with developmental disabilities, with his band releasing over 100 albums.” (2022, New York Times)

Australia

The dancers with disability exploring sex and love: ‘Once you open the floodgates, it’s pretty interesting’. (Feb, the Guardian)

'I believe deaf people are the best listeners in the world': Just another day as a deaf music critic. (2023, ABC News)

Seeing the story — just another day working as a blind critic (2023, ABC News)

Communicating about Disability in Australia Insights, Challenges and Opportunities. (2023, Frameworks)

‘I don’t care, I know I look good’: Australian dancer Dan Daw on kink, disability and ‘powerful crip joy’. (2023, the Guardian)

Lara Ricote is comedy’s next big thing. She's also deaf. (2023, SBS News)

Artists unmask disabilities in push to break barriers and challenge attitudes around music in Australia. (2023, ABC News)

Revamped national cultural policy includes a national arts and disability plan. (2023, NME)

From homeless and busking to the main stage: Rodney Bell’s wheelchair dance tours Australia | Dance | The Guardian (2022, the Guardian)

Adaptive fashion for people with disability showcased (2022, SBS News)

Azerbaijan

The catwalk with a difference: adaptive fashion comes to Azerbaijan. “An enterprising student and a designer want to make attractive clothes that disabled people can wear – and model too” (2022, the Guardian)

Brazil

Guidance for accessibility in museums (In Portuguese, 2023, SISEM-SP )

Dances of Queens Mercedes Baptista and Josy Brasil signs of racism and ableism in Afrobrasilian dance (In Portuguese, 2023, Capacitismes)

Canada

Disability Desirability Arc Poetry Issue 102 where guest editor Therese Estacion asks: “What do we make of a disabled body or, to use disability justice group Sins Invalid’s term, bodymind that desires? A body that knows all too well how it feels to be told that it has no business wanting for love, wanting for more.” (2023, Arc)

Crip Rave Is the Revolutionary Collective Prioritising Accessibility. “There was the disorientation of the music, but also the vibrations, which left me sensing my pain in a different way ... I left that night with a new relationship to my body.” (2022, RA)

Alt-Text & Ambiguity A Poetic Approach to Image Description by Alex Haagaard and Liz Jackson (2022, Akimbo)

Acting the part: A thematic analysis of the experiences of actors with disabilities. “Many actors experience inadequate accommodations, inaccessible work sites, stigma, and being limited to disability specific roles. As a result, actors with disabilities have implemented strategies to improve their success when faced with social and physical barriers in the industry.” (2022, Canadian Journal of Disability Studies)

#CripRitual exhibition of art exploring disability culture and ritual (2022, #CripRitual)

China

This one-woman show by a disabled woman has made my dream come true. “I have always dreamed that one day, someone can bring the most real disabled people, the most real lives, the most real feelings and the most real needs of disabled people to the stage for all the public to see.” (In Chinese, quote via Google Translate, 2023, The Paper)

Europe

The European Court of Human Rights declined to condemn France for censuring a video featuring adults and children with Down Syndrome. (2022, ADF International)

Implementing the Right of People with Disabilities to Participate in Cultural Life across Five European Countries: Narratives and Counternarratives. Research in Austria, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and Sweden:

“[This article] contrasts official narratives, which highlight good practices and steps taken to improve access to culture, with counternarratives that reveal a fragmentary approach to cultural participation of persons with disabilities, persisting barriers, limited recognition of artists with disabilities, and the perpetuation of stigma and stereotypes.” (2022, Journal of Human Rights Practice)

A Narrative Literature Review of Barriers and Facilitators to Cultural Participation by People with Disabilities. Covers legislation and policies, funding and services, attitudes, accessibility and gaps in consultation.

"While adopting binding accessibility standards is important, to the extent that this results in a checklist approach to addressing barriers, it is unlikely to be sufficient. This is especially so given that existing guidelines can restrict themselves to addressing particular disability types and that many barriers occur in the realm of attitudes and lack of knowledge of a range of actors and in approaches to education. Moreover, standards alone are unlikely to address the need for support and interaction that seems necessary to facilitate access and participation, particularly for some groups such as people with [intellectual disabilities]." (2022, Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research)

Ghana

Photojournalist Inspires Deaf Students to Explore Visual Storytelling (Video Feature, Mar, VoA)

India

Please touch: “Museums as well as galleries are displaying tactile panels to make art accessible to people with disabilities.” (Jan, Scroll.in)

Profile of queer disabled artist Ritika Gupta: on the significance of the digital medium for neurodivergent artists and why community networks for disabled artists must thrive (2023, BehanBox)

Japan

Married manga artists tell story about life with disability “Manga artists Eri Nanato, 43 and Satoshi Kameyama, 41, have brought the issue of adult developmental disorders to the fore via the pages of a manga series that conveys the challenges they face in real life.” (2023, Kyodo News)

Disabled author wins prestigious Japanese literary award Saou Ichikawa, who has a physical disability, won the prestigious Akutagawa literary award her work about a disabled woman's anger and desires. (2023, Kyodo News)

Kenya

Short video feature on Julia Ayen a Refugee artist “proving to the world that disability is not inability” (2022, Citizen TV Kenya)

Kuwait

A Talk with Reema Humood: Multiple Sclerosis and its Literary Representation.

"The love of caretakers who don’t mean to suffocate you, but they do with their worries and fears, and the injustice and discrimination against people like me, rejecting us, excluding us, denying us the right to be…I discovered there was ‘us’ against ‘them’, the sick ones and the healthy ones, each group gazing at each other, afraid. Any attempt at meshing together, at understanding each other, stops and sinks in muddy waters" (2022, Arab Lit)

Mexico

Arjen Power a Mexican heroine with disability for inclusion in comics. (In Spanish, Feb, Yo También)

Soumaya Museum: art for everyone. (In Spanish, 2023, Yo También)

People with disabilities behind plushie concert craze: “the toys are made by a group of some 400 people with disabilities in a factory in Puebla.” (2022, La Prensa Latina)

New Zealand

Halloween character costumes that are actually scary “Parking Warden Who Doesn’t Believe It’s Your Mobility Permit” and other frightening figures. (2023, The D*List)

Spreading kōrero of disability and music technology (2023, Arts Access Aotearoa)

Stay home club “Making remote portraits of New Zealanders in isolation—using only their phone cameras.” (2022, New Zealand Geographic)

Blind Scrabble master takes on the country's best (2022, Stuff)

Pakistan

Profile of Alishba, an activist and artist. (2022, World Down Syndrome Day)

Saudi Arabia

Virtual artspace opens new worlds for disabled artists (2023, Arab News)

Singapore

'I just feel happy': Profile of Fern Wong, a visual artist with Down syndrome who has won several local and international competitions. (Feb, CNA)

South Africa

Athenkosi Kwinana breaks the stigma about Persons Living with Albinism (PLWA) through art (2023, Biz Community)

South Korea

In a K-Pop First, Deaf Members Debut as 'Big Ocean' | Be Korea-savvy “They will perform songs in Korean sign language, English sign language and international sign”. (Mar, the Korea Bizwire)

Spain

The Royal Spanish Academy will urgently evaluate use of the word “disminuido”, diminished, which is currently given as synonymous with “discapacitado”, disabled, or “minusválido”, handicapped, without any comment they are derogatory. (In Spanish, Jan, El Observador)

On the Front Line of a War Over Bullfighting Traditions Opponents of Spain’s comic shows at bullfights by people with dwarfism say they are banned by a new law. But performers say the show must go on. (2023, New York Times)

Spain bans decades-long tradition of ‘dwarf bullfighting’. “Dwarves in Spain have long dressed as firefighters or clowns to chase bulls without killing them, at public spectacles designed to be humorous. The tradition stretches back decades, but has declined in popularity.” (2023, the Guardian)

Exploring world monuments through Spain’s Museum for the Blind. Short video. (2022, Haben Girma)

Sri Lanka

Atrocities of the Civil War Through the Eyes of Artists profile of artists with disabilities. (2022, Ground Views)

Taiwan

Thematic Exhibition of Artistic Creations by People with Disabilities art-work and promotion of easy-read materials. (2022, Family of Joy Social Welfare Foundation)

Tunisia

Dance show performance embraces diversity to 'break down walls'. (2023, AfricaNews)

United Kingdom

‘I’m done with pretenders’: disabled actors on reclaiming Richard III. (Feb, the Guardian)

Disability in classical music: how can we increase accessibility? “There is small army of instrumentalists, conductors, composers and instrument makers fighting to make the industry genuinely more accessible to professional performers.” (Jan, Classical Music)

Jack Moyse, You and I. Fiona Johnstone reviews an exhibition of photographic works by Jack Moyse, a young artist living with muscular dystrophy. (2023, The Polyphony)

Does the Booker Have an Autism Problem? “This year’s Booker Prize longlist is a sign that, during the past 20 years, the publishing world has advanced and stagnated when it comes to autistic representation.” (2023, Publishers Weekly)

‘I think it’s a new artform’: Chris Fonseca, the man bringing Deaf dance to the mainstream. (2023, the Guardian)

Inside Britain’s only all-wheelchair dance troupe a feature on Propel. (Video, 2023, NBC News)

Representing disability in museums. (2023, The Hunterian Blog)

Barbara Hulme shares a showcase of watercolour portrait paintings titled 'Men's Health' – highlighting their disability/ health stories. (2023, Disability Arts Online)

Unfinish’d sympathy: can literature get over reading disability morally? (2022, the Guardian)

Storytelling and Chronic Illness – An Evolution of Time and Place. (2022)

Being Hybrid A guide to hybrid events for the literature sector. (2022, Spread the Word)

‘Don’t tone it down’ – inside the invasion of British museums by disabled artists. (2022, the Guardian)

United States

An Instagram-Ready Immersive Museum Uses Braille. But Is It Accessible? “Roy Nachum designed the spectacle-filled Mercer Labs, which he touts as inclusive. But some advocates for blind people say his use of Braille can feel exploitative.” (Mar, New York Times)

9 Books that Center Deaf and Hard of Hearing Characters (Mar, Electric Literature)

How Alien We Seem: On Being Blind and Obsessed with Photography. “M. Leona Godin Considers, Among Other Things, the Enduring Trope of the Blind Pencil Vendor” (Jan, Lithub)

Her Guide Dog Inspired Her Art. “After losing her sight in an accident, Emilie Gossiaux found meaning and art in a bond with her dog, London, celebrated at the Queens Museum.” (2023, New York Times)

How deaf fans of opera can feel the music with Lyric Opera’s new shirt “A pilot program at Lyric Opera of Chicago aims to tailor the opera experience by offering wearable technology to patrons” (2023, Washington Post)

Hear the Dance: Audio Description Comes of Age Recent experiments in describing dance, like the film “Telephone,” approach it not just as an accessibility service but as a space for artistic exploration. (2023, New York Times)

Disrupting Museum Behavior: An Exploration of the Art Institute of Chicago’s “Cripping the Galleries”. (2023, American Alliance of Museums)

Museum Makes Major Acquisition. “The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art announced the acquisition of more than 150 works by 23 artists with developmental disabilities from three Bay Area art centers.” (2023, Disability Scoop)

One custom costume at a time father and son make Halloween accessible to kids with disabilities. (2023, CNN)

Britney Spears' book: The Woman in Me. Review:

‘Anyone looking for starry anecdotes or studio vignettes won’t find them here. Instead, The Woman in Me tells a focused story that makes inarguable the ties between patriarchy and exploitation, and deserves to be read as a cautionary tale and an indictment, not a grab-bag of tabloid revelations. After all Spears has lost, the sharpness of her perspective is a miracle. She repeatedly questions why – whether as a teenager in a crop top “corrupting” the youth, or a 25-year-old getting drunk at the club – she was perceived as “dangerous”. May her truth pose a legitimate threat to the system that exploited her.’ (2023, Guardian)

Stephen King's "Holly" reframes his hero's mental illness “Holly Gibney's anxiety and OCD helps to solve problems, not create them” (2023, Salon)

Comedian Nina G. Is Challenging Stereotypes Of People With Disabilities — One Joke At A Time. (2023, Huffpost)

Disabled Creatives in Comics: Interview with Tee Franklin (2023, Disability Visibility Project)

Dean Strauss Illustrates Disabled Life in Bright, Beautiful Ways “I got into art out of spite.” (2023, Shuttershock)

Art is at the Heart of Disability Justice “I think the way I decide to live now, which is very different than how I decided to live previously, is to welcome all of myself into my body, and not try to shut down the undesirable parts of myself.” (2023, Narrative Initiative)

Georgia O’Keeffe Made These Works After Going Blind. (2023, ARTnews.com)

“Our Hands”: Reading with DeafBlind Poet John Lee Clark. (2023, Public Books)

Mattel launches first Barbie with Down syndrome to ‘counter social stigma’. (2023, Los Angeles Times)

Performance by Gaelynn Lea a musical welcome to Microsoft's Ability Summit. (2023, MSFT Enable)

A review of the book 'Turn on the Words!: Deaf Audiences, Captions, and the Long Struggle for Access' (2023, H-Net)

All Sorts of Secret Treasure Feature on DeafBlind poet John Lee Clark and his debut poetry collection How to Communicate. (2022, Poetry Foundation)

An Art in America edition dedicated to Disability Culture. (2022, Art in America)

Why Beyoncé and Lizzo Changed Same Lyric on Their New Albums. (2022, Time) See also a linguistic discussion of the word and how it is used differently across communities of English-language speakers, and frustrations with holding Black artists to higher standards.

‘Access as an Ethic’: the dancers at Kinetic Light think about “access as an ethic, as an aesthetic, as a practice, as a promise, as a relationship with the audience [...] The disability arts community is really in a moment of vast experimentation.” (2022, NYT)

Mean Baby by Selma Blair review “Written with warmth and candour, the actor’s new memoir chronicles her alcoholism and MS diagnosis – alongside tales of dressing up with Carrie Fisher” (2022, the Guardian)

As Lizzo was called out for ableism, many Black disabled people felt overlooked. (2022, NPR) See also on BBC

Barbie unveils its first-ever doll with hearing aids (2022, CNN)

How The Grammys Got Accessibility Right, And What They Could Have Done Better - An Interview With Lachi (2022, Forbes)

Disability in Theatre: Strategies for Combating Ableism by Meeting Actors’ Access Needs. (2022, On Stage Blog)

Why Music Videos Present A Unique Opportunity For Disability Inclusion (2022, Forbes)

Review of ‘True Biz,’ by Sara Novic (2022, NYT) See also a discussion on Power, Privilege, and Love in a Residential School for Deaf Students (Electric Literature).

Contemplating Beauty in a Disabled Body “My looks don’t fit into classical ideals of order, proportion, symmetry. So what was I looking for in that gallery in Rome?” (2022, New York Times Magazine) An essay by Chloé Cooper Jones, whose book Easy Beauty has just come out. I enjoyed her discussion of the book on longform, sadly no transcript.

Sofía Jirau Makes History as the First Victoria’s Secret Model With Down Syndrome (2022, Glamour)

A New Coalition Amplifies Disability Culture in the Music Industry (2022, NYT)

Disability Justice from A to Z A Coloring Book For Our Communities (2022, Sins Invalid)

TV and Film

International News

The rule-breaking audio descriptions of Netflix's All the Light We Cannot See. Netflix accessibility consultant Joe Strechay talks inclusivity on set. (2023, Mashable)

8 Times When Films Or Shows Got Disability Representation Right (2023, Feminism in India)

All the Light We Cannot See review “this terrible mess is a one-way ticket to Triteland” (2023, the Guardian)

10 Best Anime Depictions of Living With a Disability “Some anime stories minimize or overturn physical disabilities, but these ones provide genuine and earnest representation, in a thoughtful manner.” (2023, Screen Rant)

Why are face equality charities calling for film warnings for Halloween? Interview with Phyllida Swift of Face Equality International. (2023, Euronews)

Hugh Grant is an Oompa-Loompa now. “Hugh Grant’s casting as an Oompa-Loompa in ‘Wonka’ feels to some like the latest in a long line of slights against dwarf actors” (2023, Washington Post)

It’s time to reconsider how dwarfism is represented in the entertainment industry

“People with dwarfism are not novelties or figures of fun. Yet their place in entertainment has been culturally constructed as if they are. Actors with dwarfism need to step out of their comfort zone and push for more roles that break away from those purely reliant on height.” (2023, LSE)

‘I don’t like people feeling sorry for us’: inside the world of TV’s disabled dating shows. (2023, the Guardian)

Barbie's wheelchair vs my actual wheelchair a critical comparison by Katie Pennick. (2023, Twitter thread)

Wheelchair Barbie Is a Lesson in the Power of Showing Up Where People Don't Think You Belong (2023, Teen Vogue)

I'm a Barbie girl in an inaccessible world parody song (2023, ItsAliceElla, TikTok)

Interview with Keely Cat-Wells on disability in movies entertainment and across popular culture. (2023, Gerard Quinn)

Unilever calls for production crews to be more inclusive of disability community “For shoots costing more than €100,000 the brand wants to see at least one person who has a disability as a member of the crew.” (2023, Campaign)

11 Movies or TV Shows with Authentic Disability Representation. (2023, Tilting The Lens)

Netflix Sets a High Bar for Inclusion – and Ensures Disability is Part of the Conversation. “While the report shows that Netflix has increasingly improved its diversity in many areas in front of and behind the camera, representation of people with disabilities has slid back from 2019” (2023, Respect Ability)

Inclusion of the facial difference community. “For almost one hundred years movies have cast scarred characters in different versions of the same roles: villains, vigilantes, victims, outcasts.” (2023, Face Equality International)

Meet James Martin, the First Actor With Down Syndrome to Win an Oscar (2023, Bright Side)

Animated Film and Disability a book by Slava Greenberg, Cripping Spectatorship. “Crip animation has the potential to challenge the ableist gaze and immerse viewers in an alternative bodily experience.” (2023, Indiana University Press)

‘Hardly seen as human at all’: will fantasy ever beat its dwarfism problem? (2022, the Guardian)

Ralph and Katie: Disability Content's Coming of Age. (2022, Disability Arts Online)

Bantering Through Disability and Dislocation In “Tuesco,” Daniel Poler documents a Venezuelan family’s use of dark humor to remain buoyant in exile. (2022, The New Yorker)

Subtitles can be terrible: profile on Netflix's head of accessibility. “About 40% of Netflix's global users use them all the time, while 80% use them at least once a month, according to the company's internal data.” (2022, Business Insider)

Marvel's New Spider-Verse Hero Shows the Struggle of a Real Disease. Marvel's newest Spider-Man variant uses a wheelchair and has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. (2022, Screen Rant)

'Cha Cha Real Smooth' Star Vanessa Burghardt on Autism Representation. (2022, Variety)

Netflix is beefing up its its audio description and subtitling accessibility features and has a collection of its shows celebrating disability. (2022, The Verge)

'The Simpsons' Makes History With First Deaf Voice Actor and ASL (2022, Variety)

A detailed look at Inevitable Foundation's Cost of Accommodations Report “features line budget research outlining the actual (not presumed) financial impact accommodations can have on TV and film budgets of various sizes as well as a survey of disabled talent on their experiences requesting accommodations”. For example, “30% of disabled talent have had to pay out-of-pocket for their accommodations.” (2022, Hollywood Reporter)
See analysis and critique of the report from Crip News:

‘“Accommodation” as a framework assumes that we ought not to threaten a status quo. It assumes the benefits of inclusion, where disabled people have access to a process but don’t shape or lead its values. The report is a great example of what we might call inclusionism, accommodationism, incrementalism, or reformism.’

What Season 6 of 'This Is Us' Gets Right About Disability Representation (2022, The Mighty)

Team Zenko Go An All-New Disability Inclusive Series From DreamWorks Animation And Mainframe Studios. “Team Zenko Go has managed to avoid all too familiar disability tropes such as, for instance, villains, victims or inspirations.” (2022, Forbes)

CODA won an Oscar: a flawed triumph for the Deaf community. “The movie and the awards ceremony show the power—and limits—of on-screen representation.” (2022, Slate) See also the tension at the heart of CODA on the Atlantic.

Argentina

Four Feet High A charming series from 2020. A portrait of young people figuring out identity issues on a rollercoaster of relationships, identity, inclusion and exclusion. 'Revolutionises the way the body is represented on the screen' (in Spanish, with subtitles in English and other languages, 2021, Arte TV)

Bangladesh

Country's first wheelchair-bound news presenter makes debut "an initiative to bring people with disabilities into the mainstream to commemorate the golden jubilee of independence." (2021, The Business Standard)

Canada

How ‘Finality of Dusk’ Breaks New Ground Deaf Cinema-Goers “In the sound design, the bass has been increased to amplify vibrations which can be felt more intensely if you aim to sit in the middle to the back rows inside a movie theater,” (2023, Hollywood Reporter)

Chile

Cromosoma 21: the Chilean series that is making impact on Netflix (In Spanish, 2023, Yo También)

Germany

Meet Elin, The German Sesame Street's First Muppet with a Disability. (2023, ABILITY Magazine)

India

Disability and Poverty in Dosti 1964 the story of a friendship between two disabled boys. (2023, Neurodivergent India, instagram)

Streaming apps woo differently-abled (2023, Mint)

Making Cinema Accessible To Everyone “The Delhi High Court on January 16, directed the producers of the upcoming movie ‘Pathaan’ (Yash Raj Films), to make the movie accessible for hearing and visually-impaired persons.” (2023, Live Law)

Will ‘Jalsa’ Improve Disability Representation in Indian Popular Culture? (2022, BBC) See more on Surya Kasibhatla, the actor with cerebral palsy that stars in the thriller.

Japan

Deaf Japanese actor is a sign of the times feature on the movie “Love Love”. (2022, NHK)

Mexico

‘Iluminados’ by Jorge Curioca a documentary following the blind visual artist Pedro Miranda and the psychic Iris Palau: “two people for whom sight is a central and recurring theme in their lives.” (In Spanish, Feb, IMCINE)

Ana Paula, a young Mexican woman who inspired the film Campeonex. Ana Paula “lives for art and painting. She has autism, is non-verbal and for much of her life she was unable to communicate with her family.” (In Spanish, 2023, Yo También)

Disability has a minimum presence on Mexican television: to marginalize is to discriminate. (In Spanish, 2023, Yo También.)

Middle East and North Africa

Why Ameera is a Muppet with a wheelchair that doesn't fit. “Should the wheelchair reflect Ameera’s reality or accurately represent her needs? Is it more powerful to show the world as it is, or how it should be?” (2022, CNN)

Meet Ameera, Sesame Workshop’s Newest Muppet Friend a young girl that uses a bright purple wheelchair and forearm crutches. (2022, Sesame Street International Social Impact)

Netherlands

Never Seen “is a documentary produced by Naima Abdullahi that offers us a glimpse into the life of Nimco Hersi and shows how she navigates Dutch society as a Black deaf woman” (2023, Casco Art)

New Zealand

Applying the Fries Test in Aotearoa “Does a work have more than one disabled character? Do the disabled characters have their own narrative purpose other than the education and profit of a non-disabled character? Is the character’s disability just a part of them, or are they eradicated either by curing or killing them?” (2023, Arts Access Aotearoa)

South Korea

Extraordinary Attorney Woo’s episodes have good and bad autistic representation. “In highlighting the realities of discrimination through the microcosmic lens of Hanbada, Extraordinary Attorney Woo excels. [But, as well as reinforcing some misconceptions about autism, the] ultimately supportive nature of Young-woo’s colleagues has led some to criticize the show for being too fantastical.” (2022, Polygon)

Uganda

The Ugandan woman behind TV for the deaf (2022, Disability Insider)

United Kingdom

The Industry Is Questioning Where The Shows Are two-and-a-half years after the BBC and Netflix unveiled their five-year disability partnership. (Mar, Deadline)

Disabled Actors Deserve To Blend Into The Background, Too “In placing disabled actors into minor roles, disability is progressively being treated as a normal aspect of human variation like differences in height, hair color, or body size.” (Feb, Huffpost)

Is There Anybody Out There? review “Ella Glendining’s intelligent documentary challenges the discriminatory attitudes she faces as a young woman with a rare physical disability” (2023, the Guardian)

Doctor Who's disability representation proves why small moments matter (2023, Radio Times)

Kirkmoore review – disability is way funnier than this comedy can handle. (2023, the Guardian)

Mixmups: Behind the scenes with the disabled stop motion characters. (2023, BBC)

Name Me Lawand review empathic and inspiring portrait of deaf Iraqi refugee boy. (2023, the Guardian)

Disney hasn't gone 'woke' by replacing Snow White's seven dwarves – they’re just treating people like me with respect. (2023, Metro.co.uk)

Disabled artists talk about their experiences working in TV: 'There’s still a lot of work to do'. (2023, BBC)

Doctor Who casting Ruth Madeley is game-changing for disabled fans. (2023, Radio Times)

“An Irish Goodbye:” A New Standard for Disability-Focused Stories. (2023, Respect Ability)

The 5 As: our standards for disability inclusion in the television sector. (2022, BBC)

‘I’m done with being token deaf character on TV’: Rose Ayling-Ellis, winner of last year's Strictly Come Dancing, important reflections on representation. It's worth watching the whole speech.

“I had to break through countless barriers to get to where I am. It’s been a lonely, upsetting journey, and whilst winning Strictly was an amazing experience, it shouldn’t be allowed to conceal the hardships I have been through to get here.” (2022, the Guardian)

Channel4 Disability Code of Portrayal commits to more nuanced approaches in portrayal of disabled people, involving disabled people themselves. (2022, Channel 4)

Starring Rosie Jones Disability Benefits is a comedy take on getting disability benefits from the government, and if that doesn't work, getting the disability benefit in a life of crime. (2022, Channel 4)

Britain's Got Talent 2022 Eva Abley's performances, a 14 year-old comedian. (2022, Adnan Entertainment)

Let’s storm Parliament! Then Barbara Met Alan is a film from BBC on the ”punks who risked their lives to fix ableist Britain”. See also on “these stories change how people think”. (2022, the Guardian) One line I enjoyed from the film: “It was 1990, nothing in law, just a pat on the head and a fuck off if you moan too much”. See also a comment on what the film misses out.

Broadcasters unite to create ‘passports’ “that will remove barriers and support better inclusion of disabled people and other colleagues at work.” (2022, Channel 4)

‘It’s time for us to live our lives to the full’. Line of Duty’s Tommy Jessop on changing the world for people with Down’s syndrome. (2022, the Guardian)

Channel 4 creative brief Disability Disruption commission "ripping up the playbook and showing disabled people as they have never been seen before on British TV." (2022, Channel 4) See also coverage on Broadcast.

I'm thrilled that Rose Ayling-Ellis won Strictly Come Dancing: see her interview in the Guardian talking about her life, career and the show. (2021, the Guardian)

United States

Oscar contender Poor Things is a film about disability. Why won’t more people say so? (Mar, The Conversation)

How Dune shows us the power of language – including sign language:

“While not deaf themselves, Dune’s characters show us deaf gain through deft manipulation of their environment, from the stealth of their signs to their attunement to the vibrations they make in the sand, which they use to attract or repel the giant beasts below.” (Mar, The Conversation)

Oscars: Academy Outlines Its Disability Accessibility Efforts “The 2024 Oscars will include confidential accessibility requests for all nominees and guests, captioning, audio description, in-theater assisted listening devices, accessible seating and parking, and a suite of ASL interpretation services.” (Mar, Hollywood Reporter)

‘Still: A Michael J. Fox’ Movie: ‘Crip Camp’ Director Praises the Film. (Jan, IndieWire)

Marvel’s Echo Star Alaqua Cox Is Breaking Down Hollywood Barriers “Cox is making history with Echo, the first Marvel show centered on a deaf, Native American superhero.” (Jan, Teen Vogue)

Aria Mia Loberti Embraces ‘All the Light We Cannot See’. ‘The first-time leading lady reflects on the audition that changed her life, reveals her next role in another high-profile book adaptation, and resists being labeled a “blind actor.”’ (2023, Vanity Fair) See more on “an authentic blind heroine” from Newsweek.

Exploring the Imaginative Worlds of Blind Children in “The Unicorn in Snowpants Suddenly Ran Off”. “Philipp Schaeffer’s film is a glimpse at the overlap of play and perception.” (2023, The New Yorker)

One of Us: Tod Browning’s Freaks. A 1932 film, “the most infamous disability film of the first half of the twentieth century and in some ways still the most progressive.”:

“An early noir about a group of disabled carnival performers who enact swift and terrible vengeance upon the non-disabled grifters who prey upon one of their own and in so doing, offend them all, Freaks is still an equally amiable and nasty piece of work nearly a century after its debut.” (2023, Disability Visibility Project)

Watchlist: 7 Documentaries by Artists with Disabilities (2023, Sundance.org)

For Disabled Writers and Actors on Strike, Picket Line Access Is Key. (2023, Hollywood Reporter)

Ezra: Is Hollywood Getting Better at Autistic Representation? “Ezra continues in this new tradition, showing that when autistic people are creatively involved it strengthens not only representation, but the very quality of a film itself.” (2023, Thinking Person's Guide to Autism)

If Hollywood gets worse for workers, it will get worse for disabled workers first (2023, Los Angeles Times)

Behind the Lens Wheelchair Users Tell Their Stories in Acclaimed Documentaries (2023, New Mobility)

Why the 1932 Movie ‘Freaks’ Is a Touchstone for Disability Representation. “Though it has detractors, scholars and advocates have largely embraced this film for the way it shows people just living their lives while disabled.” (2023, New York Times)

Human Resources a character based on Alice Wong features in the second season. (2023, HITC)

For disabled writers, the WGA strike stakes couldn’t be higher. “This is true even on the picket lines themselves, where disabled writers have had to advocate for the accommodations they need to participate.” (2023)

‘It's Little People, You Got That?’: Danny Woodburn on Playing Mickey Abbott, the Most Explosive Character on ‘Seinfeld’. (2023, Cracked.com)

A year after ‘CODA’ made Oscars history, Deaf people are waiting for more inclusive stories. (2023, GBH News)

Creators Ask Hollywood to Hire Disabled Writers: “Disabled writers, directors, and actors are rarely hired to work on projects that feature disabled characters because studios and production companies have prioritized hiring disability consultants.” (2023, Variety)

'I Didn't See You There' Is a Disability Film Unlike Any Other - The Atlantic (2023, The Atlantic) Also on the Guardian.

Short Film “Take Me Home” Captures Empathy During Mourning. The short follows a cognitively disabled adult named Anna who lives with her aging mother in Midland, Florida. (2023, Respect Ability)

‘Sometimes you felt excluded’: How debut director Marlee Matlin righted past wrongs (2023, Los Angeles Times)

Oscar's Final Frontier: Movies Featuring Disabilities. “This year's race includes a handful of films on the topic; it's not enough but there is progress.” (2022, Variety)

‘Best Foot Forward’ Is a Story About, and by, People With Disabilities (2022, New York Times)

Captioned Video Accessibility. “Stranger Things” Captions, a Fascinating Case Study: “Captions are not the place to exercise creativity”. (2022, Meryl Evans)

Accurate Disability Representation In Mass Media: 8 Powerful Film and Television Performances By Actors With Disabilities. (2022, Kids Included Together)

DisLabeled, a short pilot episode, The Original Hackers. “Join comedian Brian McCarthy and other disabled designers, creators, and advocates who help him navigate his sudden vision loss with humor, innovation, and authenticity.” (2022, Bric TV)

Ahead of the Golden Globes Shining a Spotlight on Disability-Inclusive Nominations (2022, Respect Ability)

‘As We See It’ Is Not a Typical Portrayal of Autism starring three leads who are on the autism spectrum (2022, NYT)

‘CODA’ Script: Read Siân Heder’s Screenplay That Spotlights Deaf Culture (2022, Deadline)

Zambia

He's a singer, a cop and the inspiration for a Netflix film about albinism in Africa: profile of John Chiti. (2023, NPR)

‘Can You See Us’ True Story: How a Zambian Singer With Albinism Inspired the Drama on Netflix (2023, Decider)

Media

International News

Nothing About Us Without Us An international survey of disabled advocates and case studies from business. “Disability representation in media and marketing matters, yet brands often fall short.” (Link to pdf, Jan, Valuable 500)

Stories you won't read elsewhere Disability Debrief stocktake for 2023 on making media for the disability movement. (2023, Disability Debrief)

Disabled People Transforming Media Culture for a More Inclusive World open access book telling “stories of disabled people who have been influential in creating modern mass media.” (2023, Routledge)

How to improve portrayals of people with disabilities in the media. An evidence brief. (2023, Disability Evidence Portal)

‘A View From Somewhere’ DJP Staff, Partners, and Fellows Reflect on Two Years of “Taking Back the Narrative” on Disability (2023, Disability Justice Project)

A disability lens on world news. The Disability Debrief vision, grounding the news in our lived experiences. (2023, Disability Debrief)

Profiles of those awarded Create Fund grants change how people with disabilities are portrayed in media. (2022, Shuttershock)

Rings of power and privilege: Popular media promotes negative biases towards people with facial differences. (2022, Psychology Today)

It's time for the disabled community to take center stage. (2022, Fortune)

Tips to make your visual journalism more accessible. (2022, International Journalists' Network)

Crip News A great weekly newsletter with weekly updates on arts, culture and politics. Largely US/UK. (2022)

Shutterstock is partnering with disability organizations in a Create Fund for artists from diverse backgrounds that help fill content gaps in stock images, videos and other media. See more on the importance of meaningful visual representation. (2022, Shutterstock)

Australia

Five disability-led Australian podcasts that are a must listen. (2023, ABC News)

Vanessa Vlajkovic is a subeditor at ABC News. She's also Deafblind, here's how she does her job. (2023, ABC News)

Representations as Violence: When the News Reports on Homicides of Disabled People. “When such murders are reported in the news, disabled people as full subjects fade away, portrayed as objects of care and suffering; their murders are routinely presented as an understandable if tragic response by ‘overwhelmed’ carers.” (2023, International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy)

Australian advertisers striving for inclusiveness through disability representation. (2022, ABC News)

Brazil

Portraits of Brazil with Disability A new podcast exploring a range of disability issues (in Portuguese, with transcription, 2022)

India

Reframing Disability a newsletter “untangling disability-inclusive narratives” and storytelling. (2023, Priti Salian)

How one Indian radio station is giving ‘a lifeline to people with disabilities’ around the world. “Set up in 2015, the volunteer-run station now has some 50,000 people with disabilities tuning in to its trilingual broadcasts every month”. (2022, This Week in Asia)

A 9-step plan for 'curb-cutting' disability access in India’s news and newsrooms. A paper on the experiences of journalists with disabilities and what more can be done. (2022, Reuters Institute)

Indonesia

Meet Two Disability Justice Project Fellows Modeling Inclusive Storytelling. (2022, Disability Rights Fund)

Kenya

Interview with Alan Herbert “a Kenyan journalist, social inclusion advocate, and behavior change communications professional.” (2023, Disability Rights Flordia)

Liberia

Disabled Community Encourages Media Institutions to Highlight Issues Affecting Them including by forming a Journalist Network for Disability Reporting. “Please stand by us, as our success is intertwined with yours. Our journey towards success relies on your advocacy.” (2023, FPA)

New Zealand

First reporter with cerebral palsy breaks down barriers, “Whakaata Māori has made media history by having a journalist affected by cerebral palsy produce a story for television with his voice and subtitles.” (2023, Te Ao)

D*List editorial values launching a new disability magazine. (2023, D*List) The new home of disability culture in Aotearoa. (The Spinoff)

Nigeria

TheCable unveils Nigeria's first disability inclusive news application with assistive features to help access the news. (2023, TheCable)

United Kingdom

How To Report On Disability Responsibly In Journalism “How we tell stories about disabled experiences matters. Bad reporting directly affects how non-disabled people treat us in the real world, from people in our daily lives to politicians writing policy.” (2023, Journo Resources)

Disability in Advertising: Is Representation Finally Improving? (2023, Just Copy)

The media are failing disabled people. “Lucy Webster explains why – and how they can do better” (2022, Tortoise)

BBC Unveils Latest Statistics on Disability, Ethnicity Representation. “53% of teams monitored achieving their targets for disability representation, an increase of 35 percentage points over the last year and a half.” (2022, Variety)

United States

An Editor Who Makes Times Visuals Accessible to All “Jaime Tanner, The New York Times’s first accessibility visuals editor, wants to remove barriers to make sure readers with disabilities can engage with Times visual journalism.” (Mar, New York Times)

Reporting Guide to Investigating Disability Issues “Virtually every reporting beat has a disability angle.” (Jan, Global Investigative Journalism Network)

The Media, Disability, and Me ‘Working in media has always been an uphill battle for disabled writers, but an ever-shrinking industry gives “hard” a whole new meaning.’ (2023, The Nation)

Winners announced for Excellence in Disability Reporting awards. (2023, ASU Cronkite School)

Disabled Authors Deserve, and Demand, More “I believe in the power of storytelling and the perspectives, skills, and expertise of disabled people. In the future, I hope the publishing industry will finally reflect and welcome all of us.” (2023, Publshers Weekly)

Day Al-Mohamed on why media created by disabled artists is so important. (2023, Disability & Philanthropy Forum)

Ableism, inaccessibility prevail in field of journalism (2023, The Badger Herald)

People with disabilities aren't often seen in stock photos. The Consumer Product Safety Commission is changing that. (2023, NPR)

Guide to Investigating Disability Issues (2023, Global Investigative Journalism Network)

How public radio stations can serve deaf audiences. “Two public radio stations looking to improve the accessibility of their broadcasts for the deaf and hard of hearing have found new ways to provide live captioning of their programming.” (2022, Current)

Representation in media: Closing the inclusion gap for people with disabilities (2022, Nielsen)

Language, Please: a style guide for journalists that includes a section on Disabilities, Neurodiversity, and Chronic Illness (2022, Language, Please)

Disability Matters: A toolkit for newsrooms to better serve the disability community (2022, Reynolds Journalism Institute)

Short video campaign Spotlights Black Disabled Creatives (2022, Respect Ability)

How to Report With Care on Disability.

"Although I was happy to learn that Starbucks was trying to be more inclusive, to me, hiring people with disabilities isn’t a big news story — and neither is a corporation making one store accessible to deaf and hard-of-hearing customers. I felt that the real story was how some of those workers had master’s degrees, yet they had trouble finding jobs elsewhere because of their disability." (2022, NYT)

The Squeaky Wheel: a brilliant parody disability news site - think the Onion, but for us (2022)

Three disability questions every editor should ask (2021, RJI)

Clothing and Fashion

International News

These fashion designers are putting braille right on their clothing. (2023, Fastcompany)

Gucci disrupts disability inclusion. (2022, Vogue)

Uganda

Inclusive fashion show “one of a kind fashion show organized to raise awareness for the International Deaf week in Uganda. The event was made to raise funds for Dove School which is a special needs school in Kampala.” (2023, Africanews)

United Kingdom

Accessible underwear helping disabled people 'slay' “Primark is the latest to announce plans to offer more affordable accessible items in its almost 200 UK shops.” (Jan, BBC)

Vogue model Ellie Goldstein: 'Doctors said I wouldn't walk or talk'. (2023, BBC)

Meet Unhidden, the fashion brand changing the game for people with disabilities. (2023, the Guardian)

Reframing Fashion: British Vogue Celebrates Disabled Talent in Historic New Edition. (2023, Tilting the Lens)

United States

Will fashion ever be truly diverse? A new program at Parsons School of Design aims to close the gap for designers with disabilities (2023, Washington Post)

The Fashion Empire Built on Stolen Ideas “Mindy Scheier built her brand catering to disabled people, but there’s mounting evidence that she’s no ally.” (2023, New Republic)

I’m a Disabled Woman in My Maximalist Era. "I explored my personal style and used it as a vessel for reclaiming autonomy over my body and the symptoms I often cannot control." (2023, Refinery29)

Ramping Up Fashion’s Accessible Future “The fashion industry is designing adaptable clothing for disabled people, but is that enough to undo the industry’s ableism?” (2022, Yes!)

I Never Loved Fashion— Until I Went Blind. “On styling myself for a whole new life and the hope that came with it.” (2022, Cosmopolitan)

A Double Take on Adaptive Fashion at NYFW, From Open Style Lab. (2022, Vogue)

Clothing Hacks for Wheelchair Users - New Mobility (2022)

Back to top.

Data and Research

Overview

International News

What cut-off(s) to use with the Washington Group short set of questions?

“We recommend a three-way disaggregation comparing persons with (a) no difficulty, (b) some difficulty and (c) a lot of difficulty or unable to do. In cases where sample sizes are small for disaggregated analysis, we recommend comparing persons with no difficulty to persons with any level of difficulty (i.e. persons with any disability).” (2023, Disability and Health Journal)

8 reasons why citizen-generated data is imperative for people with disabilities. (2023, Data Values Digest)

How many disabled people are there? Debrief feature exploring why the complexity of disability can't be reduced to one number. (2023, Disability Debrief)

Inclusive data and Sightsavers: an ongoing journey. (2023, Sightsavers)

A learning brief on using the Washington Group questions on disability in development programs. (2023, CBM Global)

Disability Data Report 2023 reviews available disability data internationally and explores indicators for 15 countries. (2023, Disability Data Initiative.)

Who is disabled? On whether the functional definition of disability targets the same individuals as the subjective definition:

“Being categorized as disabled according to one assessment tool does not necessarily mean that an individual will be categorized as disabled when using another assessment tool. Two studies found that there was only about 47% overlap between individuals that score as disabled using a subjective measure and those that are disabled according to the Washington Group question set.” (2023, Frontiers In Sustainability)

The importance of citizen-generated disability data. (2023, CBM Global)

Global prevalence of developmental disabilities in children and adolescents: a systematic umbrella review. (2023, Frontiers in Public Health)

Counting children with disabilities starts with changing minds. (2022, UNICEF)

Harmonizing Disability Data to improve disability research and policy. (2022, Health Affairs)

Module on Child Functioning: Guidance note for translation and customization (2022, UNICEF)

Global and regional prevalence of disabilities among children and adolescents: Analysis of findings from global health databases. Comparing data from UNICEF and Global Burden of Disease Study. (2022, Frontiers Public Health)

An analysis of global prevalence of cerebral palsy. “From the limited but increasing data available from regions in low- and middle-income countries, birth prevalence for pre-/perinatal CP was as high as 3.4 per 1000 live births.” (2022, Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology)

Household Survey Data on Disability and Education in countries where the Global Partnership for Education works. “There remain 28 countries (out of 76) for which there appears to be no nationally representative, reliable and comparable survey or census data on disability that could be used for disaggregating education statistics for the period 2010–2020” (2022, GPE)

Why do we need data on women and girls with disabilities? “One way to address this data gap has been the collection and use of qualitative data, including citizen-generated data from organizations of persons with disabilities and NGO allies to complement official statistics to measure gaps and progress. This use of qualitative data is especially important in emergency situations, such as during the COVID-19 pandemic” (2022, CBM Global)

The association between household wealth and the prevalence of child disability. Analysis of surveys in 40 low- and middle-income countries give “robust evidence that in LMICs the prevalence of child disability is disproportionately concentrated in poorer households.” (2022, Disability and Health Journal)

World Bank and Microsoft commit to narrow the data gap. With a “disability data hub” they plan to “expand both access to and the use of demographics and statistics data to ensure representation of disability, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.” (2022, Microsoft)

Should you use the Washington Group questions in your humanitarian programming? A tool to help you decide. (2022, Washington Group on Disability Statistics)

Explainer video on how the Washington Group question approach to measuring disability relate to the Social Model? (2022, Center for Inclusive Policy)

Why is it Important to Identify the Population with Disabilities? an explainer video. (2022, Washington Group on Disability Statistics)

Short video to understand the prevalence of disability (2022, Center for Inclusive Policy)

Short video on Why is it important to identify the population with disabilities? (2022, Center for Inclusive Policy)

Exploring the Use of Washington Group Questions to Identify People with Clinical Impairments Who Need Services including Assistive Products: Results from Five Population-Based Surveys (2022, Environmental Research and Public Health)

A video introducing the Center of Excellence on Data for Children with Disabilities (2022, UNICEF)

How will data help us break the cycle of discrimination and intersectional disadvantages for girls and women with disabilities? (2022, Inclusive Education Initiative)

Report on how organizations within the UN are using Disability Statistics (link to pdf, 2022, UN)

Summary of an article on conducting online interviews with disabled young people during the COVID-19 pandemic. (2022, International Journal of Social Research Methodology)

All children count: Fostering inclusion through data. (2022, Data 4 SDGs)

Why Disability Data Matters Review of Leonard Cheshire’s latest disability data and the Disability Data Portal. "Where disability data does exist, it
can often remain unused. " (link to pdf, 2022, Leonard Cheshire)

Much remains to be done to improve inclusive data collection (2022, Devex)

FIRAH applied disability research General call for projects - 2022 Project leaders can be from any country in the world but if they're not French then it has to be in partnership with a French organization. (2022, FIRAH)

Workshop on Innovative methods for researching disability & COVID19 in the Global South for academics and practitioners, on 3rd March. (Disability Under Siege, 2022)

Addressing the dearth of disability-inclusive data in COVID-19 (2022, Data Values Digest)

The World Bank Open Learning Campus elearning module on Collecting Data on Disability Inclusion. (2022, World Bank)

Data Dashboard on health and disability, “includes data on overall mortality and COVID-19 mortality for people with disabilities, as well as key health indicators” (2022, Missing Billion)

Disability Data Advocacy Toolkit updated version (link to pdf, 2021, CBM Global)

Data-driven advocacy for inclusive employment and social protection The experiences of organizations of persons with disabilities in Bangladesh and Kenya (2021, Leonard Cheshire)

Afghanistan

Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey Findings Report 2022 to 2023 survey. Percentage of children age 5-17 years with functional difficulty in at least one domain is 35%. (2023, UNICEF)

Africa

ILO data highlights need for disability disaggregated labour force surveys and investment in data systems. “Across Africa, 31 countries have at least one year of disability-disaggregated data available on ILOSTAT in the 20-year period from 2002-2022.” (2023, ILO)

Asia-Pacific

Are persons with disabilities included in the effort to leave no-one behind? An overview that shows the gaps in countries' ability to monitor the situation of persons with disabilities. See accompanying resource, Where are we?, and lessons learned. (2022, UNFPA)

Australia

New Disability Dashboards released “These dashboards offer a new way to access and understand data and insights about the main disability types represented in the NDIS.” (2022, NDIS)

Bangladesh

Preliminary Report on the National Survey on Persons with Disabilities 2021. A cross-sectional survey of 36,000 households finds that in government definitions of disability 2.8% are disabled and in terms of functional difficulty (a preferred measure), 7.1% have a functional difficulty. (link to pdf, 2022, BBS)

Improving disability data in Bangladesh Access Bangladesh Foundation’s leading advocacy. (2022, DRF)

Cambodia

Exploring demographic and health survey data (2023, Disability Data Initiative)

Canada

Canadian Survey on Disability, 2017 to 2022:

“New findings from the 2022 Canadian Survey on Disability (CSD) showed that 27% of Canadians aged 15 years and older, or 8.0 million people, had one or more disabilities that limited them in their daily activities. The rate of disability in Canada has increased by 5 percentage points since 2017, when 22% of Canadians, or 6.2 million people, had one or more disabilities. This increase can be partially attributed to both the aging population and the large increase in mental health-related disabilities among youth and working-age adults. In 2022, the rate of disability was higher among women (30%) than men (24%), following the same pattern from 2017.” (2023, Statistics Canada)

China

Atlas of Classified Disability: Spatial Statistics and Pattern (2023, CCDC Weekly)

Report on disability data with a focus on employment. (In Chinese, 2023, JSTV)

Correlation between functional disability and quality of life among rural elderly in Anhui province,: a cross-sectional study. (2022, BMC Public Health)

Colombia

Colombia’s journey to produce disability statistics (2022, Data 4 SDGs)

Europe

It just became easier to find EU-level data on persons with disabilities (Jan, EDF) See the new eurostat thematic section on disability.

Guatemala

Exploring census data. (2023, Disability Data Initiative)

Haiti

Exploring demographic and health survey data (2023, Disability Data Initiative)

India

Exclusion of questions on disability data from the upcoming National Family Health Survey. “In a plea challenging the exclusion of disability-related questions from the sixth instalment of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS), the Calcutta High Court has issued notice to the respondents to file an affidavit to satisfy the prayers raised by the petitioners against the exclusion.” (2023, The Leaflet)

Lack of data is denial of rights for persons with disabilities. Disability questions dropped from upcoming National Family Health Survey (NFHS-6). (2023, H-Leads)

Data Gaps: Undercounting Disability In India Explores issues with surveys, disability certification and the unique disability id scheme. (2022, IndiaSpend)

Factsheet: Disability In Jharkhand results from the National Family Health Survey showing less than 1% of the population having a disability. (2022, The Sangyan)

Indonesia

How do Positive Deviants Overcome Health-Related Stigma? An Exploration of Development of Positive Deviance Among People With Stigmatized Health Conditions in Indonesia (2021, Qualitative Health Research)

Jordan

Government update on use of the Washington Group questions in the census and other surveys. (link to pdf, 2022, United Nations Statistical Commission)

Kenya

Empowering Inclusive Living for All People: exploring the methodology of the 2023/2024 Kenya Housing Survey. (Jan, Washington Group on Disability Statistics)

Exploring demographic and health survey data (2023, Disability Data Initiative)

Lebanon

Disability Inclusion Survey Results (2023, Relief Web)

Luxembourg

Results of disability in nationwide census. Disability was included for the first time in 2021. “People with disabilities have a lower level of education than other people,” Statec said in a statement on Friday. “Their integration into the labour market is also more complicated.” (Mar, LuxTimes)

Maldives

Exploring demographic and health survey data (2023, Disability Data Initiative)

Mali

Exploring demographic and health survey data (2023, Disability Data Initiative)

Mauritania

Exploring demographic and health survey data (2023, Disability Data Initiative)

Myanmar

The 2019 Inter-Censal Survey finds a disability prevalence rate of 12.8%, namely close to six million of forty six million aged five and up. Higher among females (13.9%) than males (11.6%) and slightly higher in rural areas (13.1%) than urban (12.3%). (Link to pdf, 2020, Myanmar Government and UNFPA)

Nigeria

Exploring demographic and health survey data (2023, Disability Data Initiative)

Pacific

Introduction to Disability Data Advocacy Workshop for Organisations of Persons with Disabilities (2023, UNFPA)

Pakistan

Exploring demographic and health survey data (2023, Disability Data Initiative)

Palestine

The number of persons with disabilities has doubled in Gaza Strip between 2007 and 2017. (2023, Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics)

Disability in the Occupied Palestinian Territories Analysis of Census Results 2017 using the Washington Group (WG) questions:

“Overall, 2.2% (or almost 18,000 persons) of those included in the census above 4 years of age (as defined by the WG) are people with one or more disability using the narrow definition of the WG” (Link to pdf, 2021, Disability Under Siege)

Philippines

Functional Difficulty in the Philippines: results from the 2020 census of population and housing. “Nearly nine in every 100 persons (8.7%) had at least one domain of functional difficulty. Females accounted for 55.6 percent.” (2022, PSA)

Rwanda

Exploring demographic and health survey data (2023, Disability Data Initiative)

Rwanda to conduct first digital census for people with disability. A pilot digital census, using the Washington Group questions, and a precursor to a Disability Management Information System. (2022, The New Times)

Senegal

Exploring demographic and health survey data (2023, Disability Data Initiative)

Senegal launches action plan to to collect high-quality inclusive data. (2022, Sightsavers)

South Africa

Exploring demographic and health survey data (2023, Disability Data Initiative)

Monitoring disability inclusion: Setting a baseline for South Africa (2022, African Journal of Disability)

South Korea

Life expectancy and healthy life expectancy of Korean registered disabled 2014–2018, Korea National Rehabilitation Center database. Study confirms disabled people have a shorter life expectancy than those without. (2023, BMC Public Health)

Timor Leste

Exploring demographic and health survey data (2023, Disability Data Initiative)

Tonga

Exploring census data (2023, Disability Data Initiative)

Tunisia

Quality of life and its predicting factors for Tunisian children with cerebral palsy. (2022, African Journal on Disability)

Uganda

Exploring demographic and health survey data (2023, Disability Data Initiative)

We are able: interactive radio campaign. Respondents without disabilities more likely to say disabled people experience food insecurity because of low self-esteem and negative attitude than because they face exclusion. (2023, Trac FM)

United Kingdom

Fall in disabled older people in census data ‘could be due to pandemic’, or the change in wording of the census question. (2023, The Independent) More young people declared disability in the census after inclusion of mental health in the question about disability.

Childhood disability, social class and social mobility: A neglected relationship. “We specifically focus on the importance of social class for disabled young people's outcomes, emphasizing the need for intersectional analyses of disability inequalities.” (2022, The British Journal of Sociology)

Outcomes for disabled people in the UK: 2021 detailed statistics from a range of datasets. (2022, ONS)

United States

Next Steps on the American Community Survey Disability Questions in response to push-back on proposed adoption of the internationally-standard Washington-Group questions. (Feb, Census Bureau)

Working-Age Adults with Disabilities Living in the Community. Analysis of the American Community Survey. (Jan, KFF)

Charting Equality: Why Demographic Disability Data is Good for Everyone. A detailed exploration. (Jan, DREDF)

The United States Census Bureau’s Decision to Switch to the Washington Group Questions a justification of reasons for the change. (2023, Center for Inclusive Policy)

How many in the U.S. are disabled? Heated discussions of proposed change to use of Washington Group Questions. (2023, Science)

Most Disability Professionals are Ableist. “I found the majority of disability professionals (77.2%) explicitly preferred nondisabled people, with 54.2% of disability professionals moderately or strongly preferring nondisabled people.” (2023, The Council on Quality and Leadership)

Four in Ten Adults with Disabilities Experienced Unfair Treatment in Health Care Settings, at Work, or When Applying for Public Benefits in 2022. (2023)

8 facts about Americans with disabilities based on government data and recent surveys. (2023, Pew Research Center)

Prevalence of disabilities among older Americans is much lower than a decade earlier (2023, News Medical Life Sciences)

Comparing Measures Of Functional Difficulty With Self-Identified Disability: Implications For Health Policy. Shows how six-question sets “performed especially poorly in capturing respondents with psychiatric disabilities or chronic health conditions.” (2022, Health Affairs)

A Need For Disability Data Justice “Public health data systems and infrastructure must be built to collect disability data and use this information to combat ableism and support equity and social justice.” (2022, HealthAffairs)

Disability Data Snapshot: Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. (2022, U.S. Department of Labor Blog)

An Online Resource For Understanding Disability ‘By The Numbers’ (2022, Forbes)

More inclusive research practices needed to expand data on people with disabilities (2022, Healio)

Yemen

Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey Findings 2022-2023 across 20,000 households. Percentage of children age 5-17 years with functional difficulty in at least one domain is 21%. (2023, UNICEF)

Research

International News

Crip Authorship: Disability as Method a book “presenting the multidisciplinary methods brought into being by disability studies and activism. Mara Mills and Rebecca Sanchez have convened leading scholars, artists, and activists to explore the ways disability shapes authorship, transforming cultural production, aesthetics, and media.” (2023, NYU Press)

Principles and process: The ethics of disability-inclusive development research (2023, Bond)

Research Handbook on Disability Policy “Examining how policy affects the human rights of people with disabilities, this topical Handbook presents diverse empirical experiences of disability policy and identifies the changes that are necessary to achieve social justice.” List price $425. (2023, Elgar)

Interview with Arseli Dokumaci on his book "Activist Affordances: How Disabled People Improvise More Habitable Worlds". (With transcript, 2023, Newbooks Network)

Midgetism: a book on the Exploitation and Discrimination of People with Dwarfism. (2023, Routledge)

Crip Genealogies “The contributors to Crip Genealogies reorient the field of disability studies by centering the work of transnational feminism, queer of color critique, and trans scholarship and activism. They challenge the white, Western, and Northern rights-based genealogy of disability studies, showing how a single coherent narrative of the field is a mode of exclusion that relies on logics of whiteness and imperialism.” (2023, Duke University Press)

Intellectual disability a perspective on how anthropology can study intellectual disability: “anthropological research reveals dimensions of the social and cultural life of intellectual disability that biomedical and professional research rarely enquires into, let alone comprehends.” (2023, Open Enyclopedia of Anthropology)

Riberdis (the Iberian-American Repository on Disability) “summarizes and disseminates in free-access digital format the scientific production generated within the Iberian-American field on subjects related to disability.” (2023)

Finding Blindness an edited volume bringing together essays on “international constructions and deconstructions” of blindness. (2022, Routledge)

Disability as Rupture a collection on how disability creates “to reconceptualize ethnographic practices and anthropological projects”:

“Because the infrastructures of everyday life are often predicated on “normal” bodies and their capacities, when disabled bodies interact with those infrastructures, the friction that results exposes the underlying norms that guide social life.” (2022, Cultural Anthropology)

What Have We Learned since Then? A summary of research articles on disability in the sixteen years since the UN convention on disability rights. (2022, Environmental Research and Public Health)

Adapting Disability Research Methods and Practices During the Covid-19 Pandemic: Experiences from the Field (2022, IDS)

Divergent Ethnography: Conducting Fieldwork as an Autistic Anthropologist “Doing fieldwork as an autistic person means to see, hear, and process information in different ways, and this difference has an impact on our theoretical approach. In this sense, neurodivergence can be an epistemological position that shapes and informs our way of looking at reality.” (2022)

Africa

A call to give a voice to people with intellectual disabilities in Africa through inclusive research (2023, African Journal of Disability)

Developmental disabilities in Africa: A scientometric review “revealed a trend of broadening research towards systems of care, away from a medical model of disease.” (2023, Research in Developmental Disabilities)

Australia

A step closer to inclusive disability research The National Disability Research Partnership Learnings and Recommendations report. (2022, NDRP)

Doing research inclusively: co-production in action “provides practical strategies for every step of the co-design process in research.” (2022)

Brazil

An edition of Anthropological Horizons focussed on disability. (In Portuguese, 2022, Scielo)

Canada

The HopePunkening Including Disability journal's Omnibus 2023 (2023, Including Disability)

Chile

Florencia Herrera, director of Núcleo Disca promoting research with disabled people. (2023, Universidad Diego Portales)

China

Book review of Disability in Contemporary China. Tracing representations of disability from Mao to now. (2022, Disability Studies Community Blog)

Europe

Voice, disability and ‘end of life’ research: Strategies for including people with intellectual disabilities in qualitative research related to death and dying. (2023, Journal of Policy and Practice in Intellectual Disabilities)

Russia

Intercorporeal Togetherness: On Russian Blind Activists’ Technology of Disability Inclusion. (2022, Cultural Anthropology)

United States

Do you hear what I see? How blindness changes how you process the sound of movement (2023, The Conversation)

A symposium on Capitalism & Disability. (2022, LPE Project)

Open access to research can close gaps for people with disabilities (2022, Stat News)

Uzbekistan

Layers and Ranges of Disabling Borders A chapter exploring enduring legacies of segregation and ableism in the socio-politics of disability in Uzbekistan. (2022, Invisible Borders in a Bordered World)

Zambia

Disability Research in Zambia: A Scoping Review (Mar, Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research)

Back to top.

Digital Accessibility and Technology

Overview

International News

How to improve digital inclusion and accessibility for girls with disabilities. (2023, UNICEF)

More Than Half Of All Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare II Players Used The Game's Graphical Accessibility Settings (2023, Game Informer)

6 Reasons Why Accessibility is Maintained, Not Attained (2023, AccessiCart)

Why making video games accessible for disabled players is empowering Sony’s Access Controller is the latest high-profile device built with disabled gamers in mind. (2023, CBC)

Try Venngage to make accessible infographics. It's now easier to create professional quality business visuals anyone can access (2023, Wonder Tools)

Forza Motorsport: the Blind accessibility review. “Forza Motorsport is indeed playable by blind gamers and should be the gold standard for any and all racing games from now on when it comes to accessibility and approachability.” (2023, Victor Dima) See further discussion of blind driving assists from Kotaku and a detailed accessibility review from Sightless Kombat.

Cripping Data Visualizations: Crip Technoscience as a Critical Lens for Designing Digital Access. “This paper investigates the challenge of designing accessible data visualizations through the lens of crip technoscience. We present four speculative design case studies that conceptually explore four qualities of access built on crip wisdom: access as an ongoing process, a frictional practice, an aesthetic experience, and transformation” (Link to pdf, 2023, ASSETS '23)

8 ways Google is making daily tasks more accessible New accessibility updates come to Maps, Search, Chrome and more. (2023, Google)

How friendship between NVDA founders Mick Curran and Jamie Teh is changing lives for thousands of blind people. (2023, ABC News)

Google Meet grows more inclusive with new closed captioning languages. (2023, Android Police)

Japanese Game Studios Are Taking Accessibility to the Next Level. “Developers like Koei Techmo and Tango Gameworks are working to make accessible design a global standard.” (2023, Wired)

Apple previews Live Speech, Personal Voice and more new accessibility features. “New software features for cognitive, speech, and vision accessibility are coming later this year” (2023, Apple)

Games Are More Visually Accessible Than Ever. “Indie and big-name studios alike are innovating new ways to include blind and low-vision players, from text-to-speech to sound cues.” (2023, Wired)

Create inclusive content with the new Accessibility Assistant in Microsoft 365. (2023, Microsoft 365 Blog)

Practicing digital accessibility in the workplace. Access conclusions taken from reading Reddit. (2023, Adobe Blog)

This feature has been disabled: Critical intersections of disability and information studies (2023, First Monday)

Blind news audiences are being left behind in the data visualisation revolution: here's how we fix that. (2023, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism)

Influencing the Trends of Digital Inclusion: An Interview with Jonathan Hassell (2023, Accessibility.com)

Accessibility checklist, testing strategies and considerations. From the Washington Post. (2023, Washington Post)

Individualization is the future of digital accessibility an argument that “universal design is not a universal solution.” (2023, Domingos de Oliveira)

How Indie Studios Are Pioneering Accessible Game Design. (2022, Wired)

Do No Harm Guide: Centering Accessibility in Data Visualization. (2022, Urban Institute)

‘Hey, GitHub!’ will let programmers code with just their voice, together with AI-assisted code suggestions. (2022, The Verge)

Failings in accessibility processes and procurement. Highlighted in a global report: “Despite widespread senior endorsement of accessibility and inclusion, most organisations still need to adapt their project processes to embed accessibility.” (2022, AbilityNet)

The Greatest beautiful music video showing people using assistive digital technology. (2022, Apple)

Discussion of Human-Computer Interaction Accessibility Practice with chronically ill people. (2022, HCI & Design at UW)

How inclusion drives innovation in Windows 11: “he culture of inclusion within the Windows engineering team has helped to foster the development of more inclusive and delightful Windows experiences for everyone.” (2022, Windows)

What’s new in Microsoft 365 accessibility for Summer 2022 (2022, Microsoft)

Accessibility and QR codes: considerations and guidance for creating accessible experiences with QR codes. (2022, Tetralogical)

Celebrate Disability Pride, Uplift Gaming and Disability Communities and Creators with Team Xbox (2022, Xbox)

How to make the most of the Mac’s accessibility features (2022, The Verge)

Tech journalism’s accessibility problem:

“Tech newsrooms (The Verge’s very much included) need informed accessibility coverage. They need articles drawing from firsthand experience. They need to do that without heaping the burden on a small group of disabled writers.” (2022, The Verge)

How to Design for Accessibility with Your iOS App (2022, Intuit Engineering)

By the Blind, For the Blind reflecting in particular on open source software where tools can be full integrated with the operating system. (2022, Devin Prater)

A Digital Cage is Still a Cage “At their most extreme, the use of new and emerging technologies could replicate the worst features of institutional care rather than facilitate independent living and inclusion within the community.” (2022, University of Essex)

May 19th was Global Accessibility Awareness Day focusing on digital accessibility. (2022, GAAD)

The Performative A11yship of Global Accessibility Awareness Day (2022, Adrian Roselli)

Let's Discuss: Mobile World Congress and the mobile disability gap reflections on mobile and digital inclusion (2022, Valuable 500)

How esports and gaming can create more accessibility for gamers who are disabled (2022, Nerd Street)

The Mobile Disability Gap Report 2021. A report on 7 low- and middle-income countries finds that persons with disabilities are significantly less likely to own a smartphone or use mobile internet. “The disability gap typically widens at each stage of the mobile internet journey” (2021, GSMA)

Bangladesh

Bangladesh adopts digital accessibility guideline After months of dedicated efforts, ICT Division has officially approved the ‘Digital Service and Web Designing Guideline for Inclusive Accessibility 2022.’ (2023, The Business Post)

China

Alibaba Platforms Leverage Technology to Support Users With Disabilities “by using high-tech means to improve accessibility on its e-commerce and navigation platforms”. (Jan, Alizila)

Europe

The Digital Services Act will create second-class internet users. (2022, EDF)

The European Accessibility Act's June 2022 Deadline "the member states of the European Union must create their own digital accessibility law per the European Accessibility Act" (2022, BOIA)

India

WhatsApp leads the way in digital accessibility in India. (2023, Deccan Chronicle)

State of digital accessibility in India (2021, Financial Express)

Kenya

How Kenya's ICT Accessibility Standards can create more inclusive workplaces (2023, The Standard)

Report Highlights Increased Usage of Mobiles (2022, Global Accessibility News)

Luxembourg

“Technology is a door opener” Interview with Tanja Kleut on digital accessibility, technology and legislation. (2023, Portail de l'accessibilité numérique)

Norway

Inaccessible Possibilities: experiences of using ICT to engage with services among young persons with disabilities: even though they're seen as digitally native doesn't mean they can use health and social services online. (2021, Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology)

Qatar

Mada Center enhancing digital accessibility for persons with disabilities (2023, The Peninsula)

Uganda

Luganda text-to-speech: breaking barriers and promoting accessibility for visually impaired. (Mar, Africa News)

Ukraine

New standard to make government websites and applications more user-friendly for everyone. (2022, Yahoo! News)

United Kingdom

It's not all doom and gloom: What the pandemic has taught us about digitally inclusive practices that support people with learning disabilities to access and use technologies. (2022, British Journal of Learning Disabilities)

United States

Unlocking the Virtual Front Door An Examination of Federal Technology’s Accessibility for People with Disabilities, Older Adults and Veterans (Link to pdf, 2022, Senate Special Committee on Aging)

Anticipate and Adjust: Cultivating Access in Human-Centered Methods. (Summary of a research paper on approaches to accessibility in human-computer interaction research communities., 2022, Kelly Mack)

Fulfilling our commitment to accessibility and inclusion reports from a recent "digital forum" (2022, Microsoft Industry Blogs)

Why Americans With Disabilities Use The Internet Less Frequently (2022, BOIA)

Artificial Intelligence

International News

How AI is advancing assistive technology (Jan, TechTarget)

GPT-4 Image Recognition: An Absolute Game Changer in Accessibility:

“As you can tell from the samples above, the level of detail and accuracy provided by GPT-4 is groundbreaking. That being said, you will notice that it does have a tendency to misidentify less focused items or those that are less common.” (Jan, American Foundation for the Blind)

ChatGPT is not ready to handle web accessibility remediation (2023, Karl Groves)

Estée Lauder's Makeup App is the Tool for Blind People Voice-enabled Makeup Assistant is here—and Cosmo chatted with four of the app’s users. (2023, Cosmopolitan)

Generative AI holds great potential for those with disabilities – but it needs policy to shape it. (2023, World Economic Forum)

Using AI to support people with disability in the labour market “Building on interviews with more than 70 stakeholders, this report explores the potential of AI to foster employment for people with disability, accounting for both the transformative possibilities of AI-powered solutions and the risks attached to the increased use of AI for people with disability.” (2023, OECD) See discussion on the Debrief.

Prompting GitHub Copilot Chat to become your personal AI assistant for accessibility. (2023, Github)

AI Image Contest Draws Striking Entries disability-related images. (2023, New Mobility)

Real AI Solutions for Accessibility Challenges (2023, Equal Entry)

Artificial Intelligence Incident Database indexes harms caused by deployment of artificial intelligence systems, and has many items related to disability. (2023, AIID)

AI is acting ‘pro-anorexia’ and tech companies aren’t stopping it “Disturbing fake images and dangerous chatbot advice: New research shows how ChatGPT, Bard, Stable Diffusion and more could fuel one of the most deadly mental illnesses” (2023, Washington Post)

How sovereign funds could empower the future of assistive technology and disability AI (2023, World Economic Forum)

Adventures with BeMyAI (2023, Tink)

AI Revolution: Paralyzed Woman ‘Speaks’ via Digital Avatar (2023, Neuroscience News)

To chat or bot to chat: Ethical issues with using chatbots in mental health (2023, Digital Health)

‘AI’ Will Not Fix Accessibility “Accessibility is about people. It is not a strictly technical problem to be solved with code.” (2023, Adrian Roselli)

Visual description via AI, the promise and the problem

“ When it works well, it can take your breath away. When it fails, it can make things up with such confidence that you may be convinced it’s telling the truth when it isn’t. Those of us with no vision may not be able to determine the accuracy of certain descriptions without verification from a sighted person we trust.” (2023)

Microsoft leverages power of AI to improve accessibility for disabled people (2023, AT Today)

Why Sign Language Translation Poses a Puzzle for AI. (2023, Slator)

Cognitive diversity-centred AI can improve social inclusion. “Artificial intelligence can address some of the challenges and discrimination that people with cognitive diversity and other disabilities face in everyday life.” (2023, World Economic Forum)

Can ChatGPT Make The World More Accessible? (2023, Accessibility.com)

New GPT-4 Model Can Reportedly Describe Images Accurately “However, when you’re developing content for real people, you need to rely on the judgment of real people.” (2023, BOIA)

Envision Adds ChatGPT AI Sight Assistance To Its Smart Glasses For The Blind (2023, Forbes)

GPT-4's new capabilities power a 'virtual volunteer' for the visually impaired (2023, TechCrunch)

Be My Eyes Announces New Tool Powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4 to Improve Accessibility for People Who are Blind or Have Low-Vision. (2023, Business Wire) See background on the collaborations that made it happen, and a reflective piece on riding the AI hype wave.

AI-powered HR technology has a disability problem: “AI recruitment tools have become the first line of defence against high-volume online hiring. But unless the unintended consequences of AI-powered HR technology are urgently addressed, hundreds of millions of people worldwide face lifetimes of economic and societal exclusion” (2023, The Forum Network)

ChatGPT for Robotics: Design Principles and Model Abilities: “We extended the capabilities of ChatGPT to robotics, and controlled multiple platforms such as robot arms, drones, and home assistant robots intuitively with language.” (2023, Microsoft)

Ableism and ChatGPT: Why People Fear It Versus Why They Should Fear It:

“If ChatGPT can be used to make education more accessible, then why are so many educators against it? I suspect that part of the reason is that ChatGPT threatens to disrupt able-bodied privilege, which is an entrenched feature of the education system—something used to make decisions about grading, publishing, and hiring.” (2023, APA Blog)

Equally AI Releases ChatGPT-Powered Report on Web Accessibility Websites in the US, Urges Business Leaders to Prioritize Inclusivity. (2023, PR Web)

AI for Accessibility: discussion of opportunities and challenges. (2023, Equal Entry)

Apple's New AI Audiobooks Are Great for Accessibility, Bad for Voice Actors (2023, Lifewire)

ChatGPT-powered web accessibility platform launched (2023, BusinessCloud) Remember to great this kind of news with healthy scepticism.

A memo on disability-centered AI and algorithms. (2023, Yonah.org)

Disability And Algorithmic Risks: Public letter and call-to-action: “Existing approaches to understanding high and unacceptable-risk systems still miss disability-specific vocabulary, scenarios and associated risks” (2023, Yonah.org)

Artificial Intelligence Is Dangerous For Disabled People At Work: 4 Takeaways For Developers And Buyers. (2022, Forbes)

Common AI language models show bias against people with disabilities: ‘when a disability-related term followed “good” in a sentence, the AI generated “bad.”’ (2022, The Hill)

Humanity should get the best from AI, not the worst Statement from Gerard Quinn, whose report we explored previously. (2022, OHCHR)

Bot can spot depressed Twitter users in 9 out of 10 cases (2022, Tech Xplore)

A new alliance for Disability Ethical? AI led by Scott Parker International, IBM, Oxford Brookes and others. "AI powered recruitment technology threatens the life chances of hundreds of millions of people with disabilities worldwide, as well as those of us who will become disabled in time." (2022, Includes a collection of resources)

Policy Brief on Ageism in artificial intelligence for health (2022, WHO)

Artificial intelligence and the rights of persons with disabilities a study from the UN Rapporteur on Disability. (2022, UN) See commentary on the Debrief and summary from EDF.

Australia

Australian terrorism prediction tool considered autism a sign of criminality “A tool designed to predict future crime in terrorist offenders considered them at greater risk of offending if they were autistic despite having no empirical basis to do so, an independent report has found.” (2023, the Guardian)

Belgium

'He Would Still Be Here': Man Dies by Suicide After Talking with AI Chatbot, Widow Says. (2023, Vice)

China

Good for tech: Disability expertise and labor in China's artificial intelligence sector (2023, First Monday)

Europe

Artificial Intelligence Act: European Parliament misses chance to ensure accessibility. (2023, EDF)

AI Act: European Parliament must ensure accessibility of Artificial Intelligence systems. (2023, EDF)

Civil society and EDF reacts to European Parliament’s Artificial Intelligence Act draft Report urging safeguarding people's rights in AI legislation. (2022, EDF)

Ireland

Can we use AI to tackle internet accessibility? “We visited Vision Ireland and its spin-out IA Labs, which is looking at AI as a way to make the internet more accessible for people with visual impairments.” (2023, Silicon Republic)

Slovakia

The story of Ukrainian Anton Mirhorodchenko and how he has been using Copilot to write code. (Short video, 2023, Microsoft)

Spain

Report on technology and disability 63% of disabled people fear that AI systems will exclude them from recruitment processes. (In Spanish, 2023, Fundación Adecco)

United Kingdom

Making AI delivery robots disability-friendly “As a robot designed to use pavements, it could have become another frustrating obstacle for disabled people to navigate.” (2023, BBC)

United States

A disability advocate preserves his voice with iPhone For physician and disability advocate Tristram Ingham, Apple’s new speech accessibility features provide reassurance amid an uncertain future (2023, Apple)

UnitedHealth uses AI model with 90% error rate to deny care, lawsuit alleges “For the largest health insurer in the US, AI's error rate is like a feature, not a bug.” (2023, Ars Technica)

Personal Voice Should be a Game Changer for Me. It's Not. “If you know you are at risk of losing your speech, chances are you - like Nick - may not be able to read and recite sentences in these optimal conditions.” (2023, Reach Every Voice)

Not magic: Opaque AI tool may flag parents with disabilities. “The couple was stunned when child welfare officials showed up, told them they were negligent and took away their daughter.” (2023, AP News)

Denied by AI: How Medicare Advantage plans use algorithms to cut off care for seniors in need. (2023, Stat)

How School Tech Treats Students With Disabilities Like Criminals. “The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) needs an update to protect vulnerable kids’ rights in the age of artificial intelligence (AI) and nonstop surveillance.” (2022, The Daily Beast)

The Biden Administration warns that Hiring algorithms, and artificial intelligence risk violating Americans with Disabilities Act (2022, NBC News) See the detailed guidance, from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and a summary from ADA.gov. Also on Forbes and Bloomberg Law.

Ableism And Disability Discrimination In New Surveillance Technologies. How new surveillance technologies in education, policing, health care, and the workplace disproportionately harm disabled people (2022, CDT)

How AI is being used to improve disability employment (2022, Microsoft)

In Our Tech Reckoning, People with Disabilities are Demanding a Reckoning of their Own (2022, Tech Policy Press)

Online Accessibility

International News

Internet Privacy Is A Disability Rights Issue.

“No disabled person should have to choose between accessing technologies that help them lead fulfilling, self-directed lives and protecting their personal information. And, people with disabilities should be able to benefit from technology without worrying that their health-related data will be used for nefarious or unknown purposes.” (Jan, Tech Policy)

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2:

“The new updates in WCAG 2.2 focus on improving accessibility for users with cognitive, learning or mobility disabilities and low vision users. This is a beneficial update, showing a positive step forward for the web accessibility standards.” (2023, AbilityNet)

Website accessibility of the world's largest brands. 56% of images are not accessible, 64% have links not clearly marked, 25% of forms are missing clear labels. (2023, AudioEye)

A historical review of Web Accessibility using WAVE “Overall, the data shows that efforts are being made in order to make the websites more accessible.” (2023, UC Irvine)

Are you making these five mistakes when writing alt text? (2023, The A11Y Project)

The WebAIM Million: The 2023 report on the accessibility of the top 1,000,000 home pages. (2023, WebAim)

A guide to writing accessible image captions. (2023, Mashable)

Meet the first-ever accessibility engineer at The Washington Post. (2023, Nieman Lab)

How to write hyperlink text for better web accessibility (2023, Scope)

What's New in WCAG 2.2 Draft (2023, W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI))

New Brutalism and web accessibility: brutalist style and its interactions with accessibility. (2022, UX Collective)

The History of Digital Accessibility (2022, Storyly)

WordPress 6.1 Accessibility Improvements. (2022, Make Wordpress Core)

Verifying the Disability Equality Index by measuring how their website conforms with web-access standards: “the DEI score is not a good predictor of the accessibility score.” (2022, jpdev.pro)

Yes, accessibility is also a backend concern. “Backend developers wield a tremendous amount of power, as they help shape the underlying structure of what is and is not possible when creating a digital experience.” (2022, Eric W Bailey)

Web3 must learn from the past: People with disabilities are the largest untapped demographic (2022, Venture Beat)

What's Happening with Digital Accessibility in 2022 (2022, UsableNet)

Q&A: Patrick Garvin The creator of two web accessibility bots talks alt text and accountability. “If accessibility is only pitched as something that’s related to code or only related to computers, it’s going to be real easy for people in newsrooms to distance themselves from that.” (2022, Objective Journalism)

A how-to on using Firefox for accessibility testing “Firefox has become one of the best tools for accessibility audits.” (2022, The A11Y Project)

Digital Accessibility: The Next Frontier of Disability Rights Includes a discussion on justifying digital accessibility because of legal compliance or as an opportunity for growth, preferring the latter, quoting this reasoning: “[Focusing on lawsuits] capitalizes on this fear that disabled people are out there to sue you and make your life difficult …. It furthers this really horrible view of disabled people that we’re literally out there to get money and that we just use our disabilities for that.” (2022, Women Enabled International)

Exploration of alt-text including detailed advice (2022, Accessible Social)

5 Ways Delivery Apps Don't Deliver On Accessibility (2022, UsableNet)

An accessibility review of public and private sector websites shows private sector websites significantly worse. Even big companies that have made commitments on disability inclusion through membership of Valuable 500 still only offer a median accessibility score of 52.6, a fraction lower than the median score of Fortune 500 websites. (2022, Silktide)

Why Are iFrame Titles Important for Accessibility? (2022, Bureau of Internet Accessibility)

Takeaways from The Internet is Unusable: The Disabled View (2022, Lireo Designs)

Does Your Website Have Have Any of These 10 Most-Cited Accessibility Issues? (2022, Equal Entry)

WordPress 6.0 Features Numerous Accessibility Improvements (2022)

Zoom Continues to Miss the Boat on True Accessibility. (2022, Living with Hearing Loss)

New Department of Justice ADA Web Accessibility Statement reiterating that accessibility online is covered by disability discrimination. (2022, BOIA)

How creating an accessible product helped Stark build an inclusive team "You can’t build an accessible product without breaking down internal silos first" (2022, The Drum)

The Hidden Image Descriptions Making the Internet Accessible a feature on alternative text for images (2022, NYT)

Email Accessibility 4 Best Practices for Marketers (2022, BOIA)

A chrome plug-in Wordle for Screen Readers. Great game, and good to see some accessibility retrofitted: see also a site that gives you descriptive text to allow sharing the results in an accessible way. Another disappointing example of how things can go viral without accessibility being baked in. (2022)

6 Tips to make your Tweets more accessible and inclusive (2022, Twitter)

Disabled And Here "a disability-led effort to provide free and inclusive images from our own perspective" (2022, Affect the Verb)

The case for describing race in alternative text attributes (2022, Tolu Adegbite)

Rich Screen Reader Experiences for Accessible Data Visualization

“Although our design dimensions highlight a diverse landscape of screen reader experiences for data visualizations, our study participants attested to the value of following existing best practices. Namely, alt text and data tables provide a good baseline for making visualizations accessible. Thus, visualization authors should consider adopting our design dimensions to enable more granular information access patterns only after these initial pieces are in place.” (2022, MIT Visualization Group)

Microsoft Edge site ALT text adds more “making the web a more inclusive and accessible place, starting with the blind and low vision community.” (2022, Microsoft)

Australia

A new playground: the digital lives of young people with disability. (2023, Analysis & Policy Observatory)

Bangladesh

Web Accessibility is now a reality in Bangladesh, not a dream anymore (a bold description of the important initiatives taken.) (2021, Digital Journal)

Brazil

The Brazilians advocating for digital accessibility. (2022, Fair Planet)

Canada

The internet doesn't have to be impossible to navigate for Canadians with disabilities. (2022, National Post)

China

How Visually Impaired Engineers Are Guiding China’s Accessibility Efforts “A team of partially sighted software programmers in Shenzhen is improving information accessibility by helping developers eliminate the many obstacles facing disabled users.” (Feb, Sixth Tone)

Europe

Review of the Web Accessibility Directive (2022, EC)

The Digital Services Act must ensure accessible digital services for persons with disabilities (2022, Brussels Morning)

France

Accessibility Advocates Sued by French Overlay Company discussion of advocates who lost a lawsuit for tweets critiquing the company. (Jan, Equal Entry)

India

Court of Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities orders a online healthcare service provider to make its application and website accessible. (2022, The Hindu)

Usability and accessibility-based quality evaluation of Indian airline websites. (2022, Universal Access in the Information Society)

Ireland

Major Irish websites inaccessible “Three-quarters of the country’s top 100 websites are technically inaccessible to 600,000 people with disabilities, according to new research from the National Council for the Blind of Ireland (NCBI).” (2023, Irish Independent)

Ukraine

One in five Ukrainian state websites now sufficiently accessible to people with disabilities. “In 2023, 22% of the government websites analysed were found to be sufficiently and highly accessible. Compared to 2021, this was a rise of 9%.” (Feb, UNDP)

United Kingdom

Accessibility as a cyber security priority Want security that works better for people? Make it accessible. (2023, NCSC)

United States

Blind Leader Wins $2 Million Settlement Over Inaccessible California Parks Website. (2023, Tre Legal)

OMB Releases Digital Accessibility Guidance to Ensure All Americans Have Ability to Access Critical Government Resources. (2023, The White House)

What Are the Top Barriers to Digital Inclusion in 2023? “79% of website users and 78% of app users said they feel frustrated because they don’t have as much independence as a sighted person when completing digital tasks.” (2023, American Foundation for the Blind)

How Accessible are Dating Apps? “these services offer little to no recourse for individuals who may have visual impairments.” (2022, Accessibility.com)

For people with disabilities, AI can only go so far to make the web more accessible (2022, Protocol)

LGBTQ+ artists and those with disabilities see Etsy as a lifeline “Many sellers who live at the intersection of multiple marginalized identities were already struggling before the e-commerce site’s latest fee increase.” (2022, 19th News)

How to Create Accessible & Inclusive Digital Platforms for Those With Mental Health Disabilities (2022)

App & Web Accessibility Lawsuits Break Records (2021, UsableNet)

Technology

International News

Xbox launches new resource to help developers add inclusion into their games. “Xbox has launched the 'Gaming For Everyone Product Inclusion Framework', a series of resources and information on how to make games more inclusive.” (Mar, Games Industry.biz)

How people with disabilities can use Alexa to help them lead more independent lives (2023, Amazon)

Guided Frame on Google Pixel With Lachi: built-in guidance to guide blind people in taking pictures on their phones. (Short video, 2023, Google)

The iPad was meant to revolutionize accessibility. What happened? “For people who can’t speak, there has been depressingly little innovation in technology that helps them communicate.” (2023, MIT Technology Review)

Google Project Gameface: A new hands-free AI-powered gaming mouse (2023, Google)

Life is About to Come with Subtitles “Automated live captions used to be terrible. But they’re becoming transformative for people who can’t hear.” (2023, The Atlantic)

Xbox lead dev talks about the future of video game accessibility (2023, Polygon)

Not robots; Cyborgs Furthering anti-ableist research in human-computer interaction. (2023, First Monday)

Inclusive AR/VR: accessibility barriers for immersive technologies. (2023)

Sony Releases Its First Accessible Controller. “The company unveiled Project Leonardo, a fully customizable, accessible console game controller, built with the help of the disabled community.” (2023, Wired)

The accessibility charity helping Xbox and PlayStation: SpecialEffect. (2023)

What does accessibility in the metaverse look like? (2023, Vogue)

Virtual Reality Accessibility: 11 Things We Learned from Blind Users (2022, Equal Entry)

The Hidden History of Screen Readers: For decades, blind programmers have been creating the tools their community needs. (2022, The Verge)

For people with disabilities Consumer Electronics Aren't There Yet (2022, PCMag)

Android gets enhanced accessibility features (2022, Chrome Unboxed)

Disability Inclusion Is Coming Soon to the Metaverse (2022, PC Mag)

Microsoft’s Adaptive Accessories: Buttons and mice that you can adapt for your body and needs (2022, The Verge) See also a short introductory video.

Accessibility Virtual Reality Meetup: What Is It Like in Spatial? See also an interview on how a blind person can use virtual reality. (2022, Equal Entry)

Apple previews innovative accessibility features (2022, Apple)

Virtual Reality Is Here to Stay – It's Time to Make It Accessible.

"VR’s reliance on physical movements can be a deterrent for many players with motor disabilities. Beyond that, the headsets and screen resolution can lead to numerous barriers for low-vision users, so much so that games without appropriate features or accessible design are completely unplayable." (2022, Wired)

Virtual Reality Accessibility: The Importance of Comfort Ratings and Reducing Motion (2022, Equal Entry)

Windows 11 is making it easier to control your PC with your voice (2022, ZD Net)

Pacific

Capturing Vision Through Sound and Touch Disability Justice Project Fellows Harness iPhone Technology to Spotlight Climate Crisis in the Pacific. (Jan, Disability Justice Project)

United States

Javier in Frame Google Pixel Super Bowl Commercial 2024 of their guided frame feature. (Feb, Google)

Who’s in Charge? Information Technology and Disability Justice in the United States. 'Can disabled people be called “users” or said to “have access” to technology if they are regularly denied agency over how they use technology?'

"Disabled people in the United States are surrounded, defined, and, to some degree, controlled by data, technology, and information—from medical technology and therapies to educational systems to social and government services and policies that shape their lives. The extent to which they can access and use technologies to accomplish their own goals is less clear. This review discusses access to data and technology for people with disabilities, focusing on agency and digital transinstitutionalization—the extension of institutional frameworks, such as surveillance and control, from state hospitals into community settings via data-driven technologies." (2022, Just Tech)

Navigational Apps for the Blind Could Have a Broader Appeal (2021, NYT)

Social Media

International News

Disability activists online and the worlds they're helping to build. “A social media response to a massive public health failure” (Feb, Medicinal Media)

Threads launch fails to prioritize accessibility Users question lack of basic accessibility features in Meta's new Twitter competitor, Threads. (2023)

Why disabled users joined the Reddit blackout “Some disabled users fear the API changes will threaten their ability to access the site. Because both Reddit’s website and its official app fall short of their needs, they rely on third-party applications to navigate Reddit.” (2023, The Verge)

Deaf people like me deserve better than MrBeast’s latest piece of ‘inspiration porn’. ‘After coming under fire for a video in which he helped treat 1,000 people’s blindness, Donaldson decided to double down on videos in which he would go out of his way to “help” people from the disabled community’. (2023, The Independent)

Fake sign language is spreading on TikTok. “Sign language has become trendy on TikTok, but many videos feature incorrect signs, sparking fears the trend will cause lasting damage to American Sign Language” (2023, Washington Post) see also the same problem in New Zealand.

Twitter is getting rid of its free API tier. That's a nightmare for accessibility activists. What will happen to all the good bots? (2023, Mashable)

How ableist algorithms dominate digital spaces “From clumsy social media ads to problematic automation in recruitment, algorithms are often unintentionally stacked against disabled professionals” (2023, IT Pro)

MrBeast, Welcome to the #BlindNewWorld ‘As we watched the "MrBeast cured blindness" story unfold online, we wrestled with understandably complicated feelings. Here's where we landed.’ (2023, Blind New World)

Digital Action Pack Accessible Services Social Media Toolkit (2023, Women Enabled)

More than Just a Hashtag: Disability and TikTok (2022, PBS)

Twitter Was a Lifeline for People With Disabilities. Musk’s Reign Is Changing All of That (2022, Time)

Twitter’s Layoffs Are a Blow to Accessibility among the many layoffs were the team working on accessibility. (2022, Wired)

Accessibility in the Fediverse (and Mastodon) (2022, Eric Eggert)

Slack Commits To Making The Digital Workplace ‘More Accessible And Equitable’ (2022, Forbes)

Disability takes center stage on TikTok “Disabled people's accounts are visible in a way that they are not on other platforms, as they are favored by TikTok's For You page and its discovery-oriented algorithm.” (2022, Le Monde)

LinkedIn Top Voices in Disability Advocacy: 12 creators to follow. (2022, Linkedin)

How we're improving the Discord experience for everyone (2022, Discord)

12 Disabled LGBTQIA+ Activists and Advocates Who You Need to Know (2022, World Institute on Disability)

Older people using TikTok to defy ageist stereotypes, research finds (2022, the Guardian)

Twitter reports that only .06% of images on Twitter are accessible. This too often includes tweets from organizations working on disability. (2022, Twitter)

A new TikTok feature changed the game for deaf users. Now, 'DeafTok' is a thriving, inclusive community. (2022, Business Insider)

How Captions In TikTok Videos And Dictionary.com Are Remaking Internet Culture And How We Literally Talk About Disability In Tech (2022, Forbes)

Twitter begins rollout of alt text badges for greater accessibility (2022, Engadget)

Accessibility on Twitch: the complications of streaming (2022, Euro Gamer)

Twitch streamers campaign for Disability Pride Month (2022, Euro Gamer)

Australia

Young people living with disability share experiences and create communities through social media. (2022, ABC News)

Belgium

Belgian social media star uses power of visuals to demystify disability. (2022)

Canada

Canadian goes viral for honest restaurant accessibility reviews on TikTok (2022, DH News)

China

Changing attitudes toward disability, one vlog at a time (2022, Shine)

Mexico

Disability Tiktokers video feature. (In Spanish, 2023, Yo También)

Middle East and North Africa

Youtube conversations with Mostafa Attia. (In Arabic, 2022, Youtube)

Spain

“Fake Autism” a campaign to combat disinformation on social media about autism. (In Spanish, 2023, Laboratorio de Periodismo)

United Kingdom

Teen beauty queen's TikTok account blocked over acne. (2023, BBC)

As a disabled person, social media has been a lifeline "The internet bypasses what keeps us apart: inaccessible transport, a lack of appropriate care, pain and fatigue. [...] The real power of the disability community, [comes] in the slow accumulation of knowledge that accrues from bearing witness to each other’s lives." (2022, Financial Times)

United States

People with disabilities have built a community on TikTok. They fear its loss if the app is banned. (2023, Yahoo! News)

Senator Markey Demands Musk Reinstate Twitter’s Accessibility Team, Online Features for Users with Disabilities. (2023, Ed Markey)

Twitter’s meltdown isn’t a punchline for disabled communities “Disabled users fear the loss of Twitter-based networks they’ve spent years building for communication, commerce, and connection” (2023, Prism)

Content creation can be a lifeline for disabled creators —but it can also put their mental and physical health at risk. (2022, Passionfruit)

Vietnam

‘I get yelled at a lot’: can TikTok help wheelchair users reclaim the streets of Hanoi? “As her videos went viral, VinBus responded by putting more information on their website, including photos of wheelchair users on buses, and has promised to include people with disabilities in their marketing videos.” (2022, the Guardian)

Back to top.

Disaster Risk Reduction and Crisis Response

International News

Collecting disability disaggregated data in disaster risk reduction: Findings and lessons learned. (Feb, CBM)

Disability, displacement and disaster resilience: Ensuring the rights of persons with disabilities in situations of forced displacement and statelessness. (Jan, UNDRR and UNHCR)

Advancing disability inclusion in local disaster risk reduction: Analysis and recommendations from the pilot implementation of the disaster resilience Scorecard for cities. “Cities grapple with persistent challenges, and the collective trajectory towards comprehensive disability inclusion remains limited” (Jan, UNDRR)

A Resilient Future for All: a policy brief on Advancing Disability Inclusion in Disaster Risk Reduction and Recovery for Building Resilience and Leaving No One Behind. (2023, UNDP)

2023 Global Survey Report on Persons with Disabilities and Disasters. “The results show limited progress in disability inclusion over the past 10 years, with no significant differences across the regions. [...] The world must act on unacceptable failures to protect persons with disabilities from disasters” (2023, UNDRR)

How can we enhance inclusivity in warnings? 5 elements of ensuring early warnings of disasters inclusive. (2023, Prevention Web)

Disability should not be a death sentence: global disaster response must be inclusive. (2023, The BMJ)

Midterm Review of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030: a position paper on disability. And takeaways from the midterm review. (2023, CBM Global)

Towards more inclusive disaster risk-management policies (2022, World Bank)

Feature on why are people with disabilities left out of disaster planning? (2022, Aljazeera)

Guidance Note on Disability Inclusion in Disaster Risk Management Operations An Exploration of Good Practices and Resources. (2022, Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery)

Including Persons with Disabilities in Disaster Risk Reduction: A Research Study from Eight Countries around the world:

“The study revealed that most disability-inclusive disaster risk reduction initiatives come from non-governmental stakeholders, rather than government agendas aimed at prioritizing and institutionalizing disability inclusion. These initiatives are often reactive (following disaster responses by governments and I/NGOs) or project-based (externally funded instead of being included in the annual budget planning), which raises concerns about the sustainability of these actions and the DiDRR itself.” (2022, Relief Web)

Short video on The Importance of Disability Inclusive Disaster Preparedness (2022, CBM Australia)

UNDRR webinar Disability inclusive disaster risk reduction – still a tick marking exercise? (2022)

High Risk in Conflicts for Children with Disabilities “Armed conflict takes a devastating toll on children with disabilities, yet governments and the UN have not done nearly enough to protect them." (2022, Human Rights Watch)

Working paper on the The Risks and Outcomes of Getting Help for Marginalised People: Navigating Access to Social Assistance in Crises. Includes a section on persons with disabilities. (2022, IDS)

A brief on Inclusion of Marginalised Groups in Social Assistance in Crises (2022, IDS)

Analysing Intersecting Social Inequalities in Crisis Settings (2022, IDS)

Bridging the divide understanding collaborative action in disability-inclusive disaster risk reduction through socio-cultural activity theory: exploring the collaboration between people with and without disabilities. (2022, Emerald)

UNDRR page on disability inclusion in disaster risk reduction including description of how disability is included in its Strategic Framework 2022-2025. (2022)

Disability Inclusive Disaster Risk Reduction (DIDRR) Critical Insights and Good Practices from the Field (link to pdf, 2022, CBM)

Africa

Including persons with disabilities in disaster risk reduction in Africa an issue brief on policies and practices. (Feb, UNDRR)

Asia-Pacific

Disability-inclusive disaster risk reduction and measuring progress against the Sendai Framework. (2022, The Interpreter)

Australia

Flood Response Failed to Protect Most at Risk. “Human Rights Watch found that New South Wales and local authorities did not provide adequate flood warnings, evacuation, or rescue support, leaving older people, people with disabilities, and those who were pregnant facing life-threatening circumstances with little government assistance.” (2022, Human Rights Watch)

Floods can worsen inequality. Here are 4 ways we can ensure people with disabilities aren't left behind (2022, the Conversation)

Disability sector demands inclusive disaster preparedness (2022, Probono)

Pleas for NSW flood survivors with disability to be prioritised for urgent housing, care. (2022, ABC News)

"I'm about to drown": one phone call Sam Connor received during the recent floods. (2022, Hireup)

Bangladesh

‘They forgot about me’: a powerful photo-essay exploring the stories of people with disabilities and the risks they face during natural disasters. “Which child should I carry, this one or that one?” (Jan, The World)

Volunteers evacuate people with disabilities ahead of Cyclone Mocha. (2023, Relief Web)

Interview with CBM Programmes director on how peer groups have enabled disabled people to participate in disaster risk reduction (2022, CBM Australia)

Canada

Cyclone Fiona: people with disabilities need more support in extreme storms (2022, the Conversation)

Chile

Pudahuel applies tool for inclusion of persons with disabilities. The municipality used a disaster resilience scorecard's criteria on disability inclusion. (2023, Making Cities Resilient)

Europe

Flooding: Disability Inclusion must be a priority in Disaster Risk Reduction. (2022, EDF)

Review of Disability-inclusive Disaster Risk Reduction Policy across Europe and Central Asia. As well as countries with informal links with organizations of persons with disabilities, Italy and Serbia have disabled people's representatives engaged formally in working groups on disaster management. No country systematically disaggregates information by disability in DRR information systems. See also a collection of further resources on disability-inclusive disaster risk reduction. (2021, EDF)

EDF welcomes regional roadmap to resilience on the adoption of the European Forum for Disaster Risk Reduction (EFDRR) Roadmap 2021-2030, which recognises persons with disabilities are more at risk during such crises. (2021, EDF)

India

When Disasters Strike Odisha Taking disability inclusive planning to the next level: behind the scenes on disability reporting. (2023, Lens15)

Status of Disability Inclusion in Disaster Risk Management (2022, The Sangyan)

Indonesia

A policy analysis on the inclusion of disabilities in natural disaster management (Mar, IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science)

UNDP's DX4Resilience project in Indonesia: leveraging digital technologies for collecting disability-disaggregated data in disaster risk assessment. (2023, UNDP)

Italy

Death toll mounts in Italy’s worst flooding for 100 years Older and disabled people trapped in homes as rescuers battle harsh conditions in Emilia-Romagna region (2023, the Guardian)

Kenya

We have ignored the plight of persons with disabilities (2022, Nation)

Nigeria

Flood: Farmers with Disabilities Receive Support In Anambra “The International Organization for Migration has provided support to farmers with disabilities in flood-affected areas of Anambra, offering credit cards with 30,000 naira [33 USD] each.” (2023, Inclusive News Networks)

A Bleak Future Awaits Abuja’s Disabled Community After Fire Incident
(2022, HumAngle)

Pacific

Australian NGOs enabling disability-inclusive disaster prep in Pacific (2023, Pro Bono)

Pacific Disaster Ready: Disability inclusion tip sheets. (2022, CBM Australia)

Pakistan

“We can only move forward together”: Ensuring inclusive post-disaster recovery. (2023, World Bank)

The hidden victims of Pakistan’s floods: the elderly. (2022, Aljazeera)

In response to the floods: Rapid Needs Assessment of Older People. “87% of older people in flood-affected areas of Pakistan have a health condition, but only 51% have access to health care, while government and UN assessment reports are largely ignoring their needs and rights.” (2022, HelpAge)

Women, disabled, and poor more vulnerable during natural disasters. (2022, South Asia News)

Syria

Two blind men speak about experiences of the earthquake and life afterwards. (In Arabic, with English subtitles, 2023, Institute for War and Peace Reporting)

United States

Disaster Justice A guidebook for people of color with disabilities. (Feb, Seeded Ground)

Disabled first responders are shifting priorities in disaster relief “Disability inclusion in emergency preparedness and response doesn’t just mean supporting disabled victims of extreme weather—it also means including disabled communities in disaster relief strategy” (2023, Prism)

What People With Disabilities Know About Surviving Climate Disasters Those with disabilities have long been ignored in emergency planning, despite the higher risks they face. Extreme weather is making this gap more deadly. “We’re not given survival mechanisms. So of course, we don’t survive.” (2023, Bloomberg)

Disability and disaster: Federal lawsuit charging the city of San Antonio with discrimination by “by denying equitable opportunities, outcomes, or even consideration in disaster and emergency planning, response, and recovery programs” (2023, Deceleration)

Disabled people face worse outcomes after natural disasters. “March data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Household Pulse Survey shows that, of people who had been displaced in the last year by a natural disaster, people who have a lot of difficulty walking or climbing stairs, like Jaimes, are more than three times more likely than people with no difficulty walking to experience unsanitary conditions one month after the disaster.” (2023, Earthbeat)

Majority of disabled people never go home after disasters. “Census Bureau data released Thursday shows that people with disabilities are far more likely than anyone else to face major hardships including displacement from their homes due to a major disaster.” (2023, E&E News)

California’s power outages are a life-and-death issue. The impacts of storms for people with disabilities, powerfully illustrated by Alice Wong's own experience and potential harm she would face during a power outage. (2023, High Country News)

How California’s emergency plans fail disabled communities (2023, High Country News)

New Interactive Maps Help Inform Disability-Inclusive Disaster Planning (2022, Mathematica)

Many of Hurricane Ian’s Victims Were Older Adults Who Drowned. (2022, New York Times)

Texans with Disabilities During Winter Storm Uri. A qualitative study that shows:

“the hardships people with a wide range of disabilities experienced during this cascading disaster, including the inability to power life-giving medical equipment and the intensification of pain and health problems due to the loss of heat and water. Findings also show that participants were not passive victims in the face of these life-threatening challenges; disabled people and parents of those with severe disabilities went to extraordinary lengths to survive and to help others survive the disaster, including providing and receiving critical forms of care from family and community members during the storm.” (2022, Natural Hazards Center)

Back to top.

Economics and Social Protection

Overview

International News

Trade policy does not pay sufficient attention to persons with disabilities. A report on how “disadvantaged groups, such as persons with disabilities have limited access to the opportunities generated by trade and they disproportionately shoulder adjustment.” (2023, Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland)

Things have just gotten worse The impact of the global food, fuel and finance crisis on older persons. (2023, HelpAge) See a blog on older people at the sharp end.

Poverty of disabled people: more poor, worse nutrition and little coverage of social schemes. (In Spanish, 2023, Yo También.)

Multidimensional Measures and the Extra Costs of Disability: How Are They Related? Exploring whether multidimensional poverty measures can be used to study the extra costs of disability. (2023, IJERPH)

Spark Inclusive a help-desk for resources on disability inclusion in rural economies. (2022, IFAD and LFTW)

Africa

Estimating Households’ Expenditures on Disability in Africa: The Uses and Limitations of the Standard of Living Method. “In lower-income countries, people with disabilities are likely to have fewer opportunities to spend on needed items thus resulting in substantial unmet need for disability-related goods and services. Failing to account for these unmet needs can lead to inadequate systems of social protection if they are based solely on SOL estimates.” (2022, IJERPH)

Argentina

Assistance to people with disabilities in danger due to the economic crisis. Including the stopping of transportation services. (In Spanish, Jan, Elmundo.cr)

Australia

Disability royal commission says neglect and abuse costs $46 billion a year. Analysis quantifies economic impacts: “The cost of system failures – such as lost productivity due to low employment – was calculated at $27.7 billion. [...] Interpersonal maltreatment – such as violence in the home, sexual violence, child abuse and neglect – was costed at $18.3 billion.” (2023, The Sydney Morning Herald)

The case for philanthropy in disability: “Deloitte Access Economics used HILDA data to examine benefits to health and wellbeing ($57bn), employment ($25.6bn) and education ($1.7bn) if Australia deliberately includes people with disability. This analysis shows that the cumulative inclusion dividend is $84bn per annum.” (2023, Achieve Foundation)

Bangladesh

On the Debrief: Losing what we've achieved exploring the impact of cost-of-living crisis on disabled people. (2023, Disability Debrief)

Bhutan

Working with the grain: economic inclusion of persons with disabilities in Bhutan (2022, Development in Practice)

Canada

Canadians on disability overlooked amid rising inflation (2022, CTV News)

China

Disability inclusion key to rural revitalization. On how China's poverty alleviation measures supported persons with disabilities: “between 2014 and 2019, the registered number of persons with disabilities living in extreme poverty fell from 7.19 million to 479,000, and reached zero by 2021.” (2022, China Daily)

Europe

A snapshot on the impact of the rising cost of living on service providers in the disability sector. “The report argues for the need for effective government support to help disability service providers cope with the cost of living crisis, and to catalyse their transformation into more resilient and modernised entities.” (2023)

Prioritising persons with disabilities in the action against inflation and energy costs. (2022, EDF)

Finland

147,000 People with disabilities in Finland at risk of poverty or social exclusion. Living conditions statistics. (2023, Helsinki Times)

France

Salaries for disability professionals to increase but unlikely to be enough to calm a crisis. (2022, Faire Face)

Georgia

The Cost of Raising a Child with Disabilities The Goods and Services Required for the Equal Participation of Children with Disabilities. (2023, UNICEF)

Ghana

Energy poverty and functional disability nexus: (2023, Energy for Sustainable Development)

PWDs Threaten To Demonstrate Over High Cost of Living. “Cost of food and transport fares, in particular, have gone up automatically and that has brought untold hardship on PWDs across the country. Our members spend more on transport because of the peculiar nature of our problem”. (2022, DailyGuide Network)

Emotional ‘journey’ of street beggars with vision impairment. (2022, Disability and Society)

India

Visually impaired beggar in Assam’s Guwahati goes digital, uses QR code to ask for alms. (Mar, Hindustan Times)

Ireland

Government must not forget disabled people in this cost of living crisis (2022, The Journal.ie)

Kenya

How Finance Bill 2023 might affect persons with disabilities adversely. (2023, Nation)

What are the additional costs of living to people with disabilities? (2022, Development Pathways)

New Zealand

Unaffordable home heating increases risk of severe mental distress. (2023, PHCC)

Norway

Impact of child disability on parental employment and labour income. “The results showed that caring for children with disabilities has a negative effect on mothers’ labour market participation, working hours and labour income. The more severe a child’s condition is, the more likely the mother was to work and earn less, or to stop working entirely.” (2022, BMC Public Health)

Philippines

Disability-Related Costs of Children with Disabilities in the Philippines “Using an asset index as the indicator of living standards, a child with a disability is estimated to require between 40% and 80% extra expenditure to reach the same living standard of other children. However, the size of extra costs is substantially higher when the measure of the standard of living relies on a broader set of deprivations.” (2023, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health)

The Cost of Raising Children with Disabilities. Not only do children with disabilities cause expenditure 40-80% greater than those without, poverty rates are 50% higher in households with children with disabilities. (2022, UNICEF)

Qatar

The disability price tag: The economic costs of caring for children with disabilities in Qatar:

“Quantitatively, within the small sample, the total disability price tag of raising CWNDs in Qatar was found to be between QAR 2,700 [741 USD] and 40,000 [10,987 USD] per month, which can represent between 15 and 420% of the average family’s median income.” (2023, Doha International Family Institute Journal)

South Africa

“There is no dignity in poverty and even worse in disabled poverty” First-person account of barriers to economic inclusion. (2023, Daily Vox)

Sri Lanka

The struggle for survival faced by Sri Lanka's senior citizens (2022, HelpAge)

Türkiye

Severe poverty hits the disabled and demands for an equal and fair life. “There are people who sterilize the same catheter and use it several times,” (In Turkish, translation from Google, 2022, Bir Gün)

Uganda

The economic burden incurred by families caring for a young child with developmental disability in Uganda. “Seventy-three caregivers took part in this sub-study. The average annual cost of illness to families was USD 949. The main cost drivers were the cost of seeking care and income lost due to loss of employment.” (2023, Plos Global Public Health)

United Kingdom

Empire of Normality: Neurodiversity and Capitalism a book by Robert Chapman. “Neurodivergent liberation is possible - but only by challenging the deepest logics of capitalism. Empire of Normality is an essential guide to understanding the systems that shape our bodies, minds and deepest selves - and how we can undo them.” (2023, Pluto Press)

The financial wellbeing of disabled people in the UK “Three-in-ten (27%) disabled households are in serious financial difficulty, compared to one-in-ten (11%) of non-disabled households.” (2023, University of Bristol)

‘I live in fear of debt collectors’: disabled people in England tell of toll of soaring care costs. (2023, the Guardian)

Disabled people facing a ‘cost-of-breathing’ crisis a campaign by Scope and ITV. “For disabled people, this is not just a cost of living crisis.” (2023, Scope)

Homelessness and disability “Report reveals people with physical disabilities and health conditions are at much greater risk of homelessness” (2023, University of Bristol)

Broke and disabled in Tory Britain: the reality of life on one meal a day. (2023, the Guardian)

Disabled people among hardest hit by cost of living crisis, finds study. ‘Disabled people in the UK are much more likely to struggle to heat their homes and cut back on food this winter, according to a report highlighting “massive” income gaps amid the cost of living squeeze.’ (2023, the Guardian)

Disabled young people have less upward social mobility than their peers – and class background makes this worse. (2023, the Conversation)

Disability Price Tag 2023: the extra cost of disability. “On average, disabled households (with at least one disabled adult or child) need an additional £975 a month to have the same standard of living as non-disabled households.” (2023, Scope)

Thousands of vulnerable people cut off from gas and electricity for days at a time. (2022, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism) And this is just the data from last winter.

Blind people amongst those worst affected by cost of living crisis (2022, City A.M.)

What actions are people taking because of the rising cost of living? “Around 4 in 10 disabled people experiencing rising cost of living cut back on food and essentials” (2022, ONS)

‘I see price rises of 25-50%’: how inflation is affecting people with a disability or illness (2022, the Guardian)

Disabled people's experiences with activities, goods and services. “Disabled people with invisible impairments could face a conflict between needing support but not wanting to have to identify themselves as disabled to access it, because of perceived external judgement and negative stereotypes regarding disability; this contributed to a sense of vulnerability which people felt negatively impacted their wellbeing.” (2022, ONS)

From disability to destitution devastating analysis on the economic situation of persons with disabilities. (2022, JRF)

A survey of almost 700 people What disabled consumers choose to buy and why “90 per cent were affected at the decision-making stage of purchases by either; limitations of design, limitations in available information, or how information was presented.” (2022, BDF) See also on Forbes.

Energy prices: Fears and cutbacks as hike hits disabled families (2022, BBC)

In a survey of 1,200 disabled people, more than half feel “anxious, depressed or hopeless” about financial worries and problems (2022, Yahoo! News)

Disabled people facing ‘impossible choices to survive’ in cost of living crisis, “amid a perfect storm of soaring energy prices, increasing fuel and food costs and cuts to government support”. (2022, the Guardian)

New data shows food insecurity major challenge to levelling up agenda "People who are limited a lot by disability are approximately 5 times more likely to be food insecure (in the past six months) than people who aren’t living with a disability." (2022, Food Foundation)

Rising living costs will push more disabled people into destitution "Benefits are falling far behind the extra costs associated with disability," (2022, New Statesman)

United States

The Financial Health of People with Disabilities a report on key obstacles and opportunities. “Just 10% of working-age people with disabilities are Financially Healthy, compared with 30% of working-age people without disabilities.” (2023, Financial Health Network)

How to Embed a Disability Economic Justice Policy Framework in Domestic Policy Making. (2023, The Century Foundation)

Voices of Disability Economic Justice a series led by disabled writers. “As our collaborative members work together to bring disability into the economic debate, people with disabilities who have experienced our broken systems firsthand are uniquely positioned to articulate what better public policy would mean for their lives.” (2022, TCF)

New Rule Would Expand Student Debt Relief for Disabled Borrowers (2022, TCF)

Financial Inclusion

International News

Fintech can help improve lives of people with disabilities (2022, China Daily)

Inclusive Banking: emerging practices and a call to action to enhance economic inclusion of persons with disabilities. (2022, IFC)

Key sheet on Women's Economic Empowerment and Disability Inclusion in Financial Services. (link to pdf, 2022, WOW Helpdesk)

Africa

Economic empowerment improves disability inclusion: evidence from projects in Rwanda and Uganda working with Village Savings and Loans Associations. (2023, CBM UK)

Australia

Accessibility and Inclusion Principles for Banking Services (link to pdf, 2023, Australian Banking Association)

Bangladesh

How can the financial industry address digital accessibility? (2023, Dhaka Tribune)

Egypt

Banks in Egypt improve accessibility: “According to Central Bank of Egypt, banks have made significant progress in improving the infrastructure, providing technological and digital solutions, hiring qualified professionals, and modifying internal policies and procedures to facilitate the access of people with disabilities to financial products and services.” (2023, Dailynewsegypt)

The Central Bank of Egypt introduces plastic money in Braille (in Arabic, 2022, Banky)

Europe

Enhancing the accessibility of payment terminals for people with visual impairments. (Link to pdf, 2023, European Blind Union)

Kenya

Financial inclusion for persons with disabilities in Kenya evidence for improving financial inclusion. (2023, Sightsavers)

Malawi

Persons with disabilities grapple with loan accessibility. (2022, Disability Justice Project)

Malaysia

Ras Adiba calls for introduction of more inclusive financial system for persons with disabilities. (2022, Malay Mail)

New initiative to support financial education of blind people. (2022, Disability Insider)

Nigeria

Gaining respect and financial stability: stories from Nigerian women. Village Savings and Loans Associations to help women set up their own businesses and cover expenses. (2021, CBM)

Pakistan

Bank Alfalah makes a partnership with the Network of Organizations Working for People with Disabilities Pakistan (NOWPDP) to promote financial inclusion. (2023, Pakistan Observer)

United Kingdom

Disability and financial wellbeing: barriers and accessibility. (2023, FTAdviser)

New debit card lets relatives track spending of relatives with dementia. (2023, This is Money)

Social Protection

International News

Methods for Estimating the Impact of Disability Costs for Designing Inclusive Policies “The method used for examining those extra costs should align with its purpose. For example, analysts should consider whether the aim is to assess the current impact of those expenditures on people’s lives or to determine how social protection programs should be designed.” (2023, Disabilities)

Estimating the Extra Disability Expenditures for the Design of Inclusive Social Protection Policies. “The Goods and Services Required approach, it is argued, is better than the often used Standard of Living Approach, and has implications for policy design.” (2023)

Guidance note for consultation: Towards Inclusive Social Protection Systems Enabling Participation and Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities (2023, UNICEF / ILO)

Evidence brief on ensuring older men and women with disabilities are equally included in social protection programmes. (2023, Disability Evidence Portal)

Social protection for people with disabilities: A brief overview of global approaches:

“Only one third of persons with severe disability around the world receives a disability-related benefit. Often the design of these benefits is not aligned with international standards.” (2023, ILO)

Working paper on estimating the Extra Costs for Disability for Social Protection Programs. The paper shows how extra costs can vary dramatically, shows methods to estimate extra costs and how social protection programmes can account for them. (2022, ILO and UNICEF)

ILO and UNICEF report on the role of social protection in the elimination of child labour. “Studies from Bangladesh, Nepal and Gansu Province, China, have found that children in households where adults are sick or disabled or have missed work are more likely to be in child labour within or outside the household.” (2022, ILO)

A message to the IMF and World Bank: Targeted Safety Net Programs Fall Short on Rights Protection. (2022, Human Rights Watch)

Coalition of international organizations holding a conference on Disability and Social Protection (2022, Social Protection)

Social Protection and Disability Evidence digest:

'Approaches by governments with schemes labelled for “poor people with severe disabilities who can’t work or care for themselves” have been widely internalised by disability rights activists, who often perceived social protection as demeaning expression charity rather than as rights-based support. [...] As a consequence, in many low- and middle-income countries, the disability movement and their allies did not engage significantly in framing the emergence of social protection systems. ' (2022, SD Direct)

Social protection and access to assistive technology in low- and middle-income countries by friend of the newsletter Alex Cote. (2021, Assistive Technology Journal)

Argentina

Argentina will issue disability certificates that don't expire an interview with Luis Juez: “bureaucracy hurts”. (In Spanish, 2023, Yo También)

Good news on disability: non-contributory pension scheme for persons with disabilities. (In Spanish, 2023, CTA)

Armenia

Corruption and disrespect in the process of disability assessment “The disability assessment process has been considered the most corrupt for many years. There were many stories in the media about this and criminal cases have been initiated.” (2023, Jam News)

Australia

Accessing Formal Supports in Australia: The Experiences of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) Women with Disabilities. (2023, Women With Disabilities Australia)

Working together to deliver the NDIS an independent review into the National Disability Insurance Scheme. “People with disability must be at the centre of the NDIS. But more than that, they must be at the centre of a new comprehensive disability support ecosystem.” (2023, Australian Government)

Lifeboat in the ocean: lessons from Australia Debrief exploration on the National Disability Insurance Scheme. (2023, Disability Debrief)

The NDIS Song

“what am I pissed about?
oh can you guess
what makes me scream and shout
it's the ndis” (2023, Nell Tyler Original Song)

Redesigning the NDIS an intersectional perspective on an Australian disability support system, and the need for “radical transformation”. (2023, DANA)

Careless: How the NDIS fails to protect our most vulnerable “This week's Four Corners exposes criminals, opportunists and registered providers who have been busted exploiting loopholes to overcharge and defraud the NDIS.” (2023, ABC News)

Clinic associated with cult that teaches that people with disability are experiencing 'karma' receives thousands in NDIS funds. (2023, ABC News)

Public Advocate leaves woman with dementia without heart monitor for 18 months. “The state controls her mother’s life. Katelyn’s fighting desperately to get it back.” (2023, ABC News)

Disability assessments and the algorithmic veil: lessons from the abandoned ‘independent assessments’ proposal for the National Disability Insurance Scheme. “This article concludes by asking what a rights-based disability assessment looks like, while critically examining the limits of a narrow focus on disability assessment methodology.” (2023, Australian Journal of Human Rights)

The government says NDIS supports should be ‘evidence-based’ – but can they be? (2023, The Conversation)

NDIS Review – Have your say: a snapshot of what we’ve heard so far. (2023, NDIS Review)

NDIS participants 'kidnapped' and financially abused in boarding homes for people with disability, report finds. For example ‘being "coaxed" into changing accommodation and service providers "through offers of fast-food 'treats' like KFC and McDonalds".’ (2023, ABC News)

NDIS must focus on ‘outcomes, not just providing services’ (2023, Nation)

Suggesting NDIS cuts to pay for expensive submarines is the latest attack on disabled people. “The last few weeks have seen an intensification of the predicted pre-federal budget attacks on the NDIS, with a wide range of articles and interviews being published, and the conservative social media in full agreement. These pieces are often shared alongside disgusting slurs against disabled people.” (2023, the Guardian)

“There’s been no apology for a mistake that nearly killed me.” The disability community speaks out on Robodebt. (2023, Hireup)

Disability services need to employ more people with lived experience. “New research from the University of Sydney finds almost a quarter of Australian disability services do not employ any people with disability, and 20% employ less than three people with disability.” (2023, Phys Org)

NDIS funding isn't just a one-way street – it helps participants secure work and give back to the economy. “I was disabled enough to actually qualify for the Paralympics, but not disabled enough to qualify for any assistance on the NDIS” (2022, ABC News)

Two-year wait for a wheelchair: inquiry hears of difficulty accessing NDIS for remote Indigenous communities (2022, the Guardian)

Hackers Steal a ‘Very Large’ Batch of Private Data from Australia’s Disability Scheme: “this kind of data breach puts vulnerable people at serious risk of identity theft, fraud, and scams,” (2022, Vice)

Two directors of care provider charged with criminal neglect over death of Ann Marie Smith. (2022, the Guardian)

When is a condition 'chronic' and when is it a 'disability'? The definition can determine the support you get (2022, the Conversation)

Concern millions of Australians with disability not on the NDIS have been 'forgotten' (2022, ABC News)

National Disability Insurance Agency scrutinised woman’s social media posts to challenge her eligibility for the scheme (2022, the Guardian)

Bangladesh

People with disabilities demand Tk 2,000 a month (2022, New Age Bd)

Deal inked to introduce ‘Bangabandhu Suraksha Bima’ for people with disabilities
a health insurance introduce for people with neurodevelopmental disabilities. (2022, Business Insider BD)

Bosnia and Herzegovina

MPs adopted Amendments to the Law that will significantly increase Disability Benefits up to 80 percent of the minimum wage. (2023, Sarajevo Times)

Canada

Ontario quadriplegic mother applies for MAID over lack of access to disability supports. (2023, Global News)

Canada Disability Benefit Act “enables the Government of Canada to create and deliver a new benefit to working-age persons with disabilities in Canada.” (2023, Government of Canada) Seen as a “game changer” for people with disabilities living in poverty. (Disability Without Poverty)

What happened to the Canada Disability Benefit? “It is 2022, the election has been won and done, and as the cynics predicted, the Canada Disability Benefit is still nowhere to be seen.” (2022, Canada's National Observer)

This woman with disabilities gets only $1,169 a month. She hopes the Ontario election changes that. (2022, CBC)

China

The effect of a disability-targeted cash transfer program on universal health coverage and universal access to education: A nationwide cohort study of Chinese children and adolescents with disabilities. (2022, The Lancet Regional Health)

Colombia

Food voucher programme for people with disabilities (In Spanish, Mar, el Caribe)

Estonia

Estonian government proposes car tax bill and increased allowances for disabled people. Allowance for working-age people with severe disabilities would change to €49 per month for everyone who is eligible. (Jan, ERR)

Europe

EU Disability Card goes some way to improving accessibility “EU institutions agreed on 8 February to an EU-wide disability card which aims to facilitate access to the right to free movement for persons with disabilities.” (Feb, Euractiv)

For socially fair European disability cards “The proposal fails however to tackle the key obstacles to freedom of movement for disabled people or to ensure their participation in political decisions which concern them.” (2023, Social Europe)

Proposals for European Disability and Parking Cards “The European Commission has put its disability cards on the table but it is not a full hand.” (2023, Social Europe)

EU’s disability card needs to go beyond good intentions. “Services and advantages differ locally, making the card hard to use, groups argue.” (2023, Politico)

Social protection for people with disabilities An analysis of policies in 35 countries (2023, ESPN) See a summary from EDF.

For a European Disability Card that makes the freedom of movement accessible. (2023, ENIL)

Social Protection and the Welfare State: What the EU can do to support persons with disabilities (2022, EDF)

Rebuilding for sustainability and resilience: strengthening the integrated delivery of long-term care. “ European countries must reorient care models to emphasize person-centredness, user involvement, prevention, healthy ageing and enablement. ” (2022, WHO)

France

The allowance for disabled adults has been “deconjugalized” meaning that income is assessed on an individual basis rather than together with that of your spouse. (In French, 2023, Handicap.gouv)

Georgia

Pension or disability assistance: an unfair choice? “an older person with disabilities has to choose to receive either a disability benefit or an old-age pension.” (2022, Development Pathways)

Ghana

‘Enhanced accessibility’ as online application launched for pensioners, persons living with disabilities. (Feb, News Room)

India

In Tamil Nadu, Unique Disability Identity Cards go missing (2022, DT Next)

Tangled In Red Tape, The Disability ID Card Process Is Steeped With Gender Barriers. As well as some of the expected implementation issues, this in-depth article discusses how "these problems multiply for women and transgender persons with disabilities." (2022, Behan Box)

Indonesia

Government commits to expanding social assurance coverage for disabled people. (2022, Antara)

Iran

Protests at non-payment of social protection benefits. (In Persian, 2023, @dscampaign1) See coverage on how the protests may have been attacked by police.

Iraq

Launch of new initiatives to support people with disabilities. (In Arabic, Feb, Iraqi News Agency)

Ireland

People with disabilities shouldn’t have to choose between a relationship and their benefits ‘I’m so excited about getting married, but it means I could lose all my disability allowance’ (2023, Irish Independent)

Each annual budget brings fear. The disability sector is always a target. (2022, The Irish Times)

Data accessed in Rehab disability group cyberattack (2022, Irish Times)

Israel

Israeli army veteran awaiting disability recognition commits suicide ”Or Donio takes his own life few days after similar suicide by another veteran over disability recognition” (2023)

Kenya

137,119 persons with disability to benefit from Inua Jamii cash transfer programme. (2023, The Star)

Integrated cash transfers promoting inclusion of children with disabilities in Mombasa. (2023, UNICEF)

Supporting children living with disabilities through cash transfers short video feature. (2023, UNICEF)

Social protection for disability inclusion in Kenya See also synthesis paper that compares Uganda and Kenya. (2021, Inclusive Futures)

Kyrgyzstan

Applying design thinking to develop new service models for inclusion of working age persons with disabilities in community and labour market. (2023, ILO)

Disability drives innovation in the design of social support services and access to employment programmes in Kyrgyzstan - socialprotection-pfm (2022, SP&PFM)

Latin America and the Caribbean

Disabled people and inclusion in work: the key challenges for social protection systems. (In Spanish, 2023, CEPAL)

The Buenos Aires Committment recognises the importance of autonomy and choice of persons with disabilities in receiving care. (2022, Human Rights Watch)

Lebanon

The Ministry of Social Affairs Introduces a Social Protection Programme for People with Disabilities. “At least 20,000 individuals will benefit from a monthly allowance of US$40 each over an initial period of 12 months.” (2023, ILO)

Malaysia

How an OKU card [disability card] benefits persons with disabilities (2022, Free Malaysia Today)

Maldives

The Impact of the Disability Allowance on Financial Well-Being Quasi-experimental Study:

“Overall, this study found a modest impact of the Disability Allowance, mainly in food security. Receipt of the Disability Allowance was attributable to a decrease in the use of negative coping mechanisms in response to food insecurity and an increase in the food proportion of household consumption expenditures.” (2023, The European Journal of Development Research)

Access to the Disability Allowance in the Maldives: National coverage and factors affecting uptake: “This research found that 25.6% of people with disabilities across the Maldives are receiving the Disability Allowance. Coverage was lowest for women, older adults, people living in the capital (Malé), wealthier households and people with sensory impairments. Factors affecting uptake included lack of information about the programme, perceptions of disability and eligibility criteria, geographical and financial factors, and stigma.” (2022, Global Social Policy)

Process evaluation of the Disability Allowance programme in the Maldives. “Most importantly, the absence of linkages with the Medical Welfare scheme that provides assistive devices potentially limits the likelihood of the programme achieving intended objectives.” (2022, International Social Security Review)

Malta

Man pocketing disability benefits becomes first person to be jailed. “The social benefits racket saw hundreds of people receiving monthly payments after they used falsified documents to be certified as severely disabled.” (Jan, Newsbook Malta)

Mexico

Workers with disabilities without social protection. (In Spanish, 2023, Yo También)

Irregularities in Teletón and benefits for the wellbeing of people with permanent disabilities. Also: what Teleton owes us. (In Spanish, 2023, Yo También)

New Zealand

Why we cannot let the disability support changes happen. (Mar, RNZ News)

Big gap in support funding between disabled people on Ministry of Health and the national accident compensation scheme. (2022, Stuff)

Removing Disabling Experiences a vision for a person-directed system that will “provide four enforceable rights to social and income support, habilitation, and healthcare.” (2022, Warren Forster)

How the government asked for social welfare advice, got it, ignored it, and the impact on people with disabilities. (2022, Stuff)

Disabled people missing out on 'essential' support over relationship status (2022, Stuff)

We need a welfare system that works better for people with disabilities (2022)

Nigeria

Only 4,500 out of 35.1m PWDs in Nigeria officially registered (2023, News Digest)

Nigerian govt dedicates 10% social interventions to PwDs (2023, Daily Nigerian)

In a leprosy colony residents endure stigma and neglect. “There are 64 leprosy settlements across Nigeria but most are in varying states of disrepair with little to no funding.” The article describes how conditions have deteriorated in one colony since the missionaries who founded the colony then left, but people have remained, and new support is not sufficient. (2022, Aljazeera)

Palestine

#PensionsForPalestinians: The story of Mohammad, 68. (2023, Helpage)

Russia

Russia’s Social Insurance Fund stops publishing disability data after journalists used the information to track injured soldiers. (2023, Meduza)

Saudi Arabia

How people with disabilities obtain assistance and the services available. Monthly benefits between 4,000 and 14,000 riyal [1,000 and 3,700 USD]. (In Arabic, Feb, Sabaq24)

More about what Saudi Arabia offers for persons with disabilities (In Arabic, 2023, Alarabiya)

South Africa

Former Sassa officials jailed for disability grant fraud. “The court heard that the pair had recruited unemployed people from the area, who were not disabled, to apply for disability grants.” (2023, News24)

The support needs of families raising children with intellectual disability. (2022, African Journal on Disability)

Spain

The reality of persons with disabilities and non-contributive pensions “they say you can work, but in practice it's not like that.” (In Spanish, 2023, 20 Minutos)

Sri Lanka

Chaotic Social Security Reform Denies People’s Rights “Aswesuma” Program Applies Complex and Arbitrary Targeting, Leaving Millions in Limbo (2023, Human Rights Watch)

Sweden

Austerity and identity formation: How welfare cutbacks condition narratives of sickness:

“Interviewees describe extreme stress as a result of their contacts with the Social Insurance Agency (SIA), which results in a perpetual crisis that is renewed with each new denied application. In particular, the sense of not having a future means that it is hard to construct narratives to make sense of one’s situation. To escape the perpetual crisis, some people have politicised their situation, constructing a narrative about themselves as suffering from oppressive politics. Others have escaped by not applying for sick insurance or other social insurances. But generally speaking, the most common effect of being denied sick insurance is an ongoing crisis that leads to deteriorating health.” (2022, Sociology of Health and Illness)

Thailand

Disabled man pedals his tricycle over 400km to restore his monthly disability allowance of 800 baht [22 USD]. (Feb, Bangkok Post)

Türkiye

Lower social benefits trouble Türkiye's disabled citizens. “Türkiye's disabled citizens find themselves squeezed between a lack of employment opportunities and declining social benefits.” (2023, Bianet)

Uganda

Disability Inclusion Lifts Rural Ugandan Families From Poverty description of a poverty-reduction programme by BRAC (2022, Africa.com)

Social protection for disability inclusion in Uganda. See also synthesis paper that compares Uganda and Kenya. (2021, Inclusive Futures)

Ukraine

Everyone who has received disability since 2022 must undergo re-examination “After 24 February 2022, the number of people with Group II and III disabilities increased dramatically. And there are doubts whether all of them received this disability as a result of real injuries or illnesses.” (Mar, Censor.net)

Corruption scheme exposed in Zaporizhzhia: “police uncovered a corruption scheme to issue fake disability certificates to military personnel worth $3,500”. (Mar, UNN)

United Kingdom

Disabled people are trying to tell us how benefits system is killing them. “Dr China Mills shares her experiences of pulling together decades of evidence of deaths, protests and failures in the disability benefits system for a new timeline which holds the government to account” (2023, Big Issue)

UK’s new back to work plan will make life even harder for disabled people “As part of these plans, the government is planning to implement tougher sanctions for people who are judged to not be taking appropriate steps to secure work. The proposed punitive measures include suspending benefit claims altogether and stopping access to free medical prescriptions and legal aid.” (2023, The Conversation)

Activists raise concerns over human rights record “of the outsourcing company that defeated Atos in the battle for a multi-million-pound disability benefits assessment contract.” (2023, Disability News Service)

The commodification of social security medical assessments —academic analysis and practitioner experience. (2023, Public Money and Management)

What would a fair disability benefits assessment look like? “It is apparent that the current disability benefits process isn’t working, so we asked the experts what a fair system would look like, and whether that could exist at all.” (2023, Big Issue)

The tragic deaths the British press is reluctant to cover exploring deaths linked to cuts in government benefits. (2023, Columbia Journalism Review)

A decade after the Tories demonised disabled people on benefits, it’s happening again. (2023, the Guardian) See also: open letter from Scope.

Social care costs see thousands chased for debt. “More than 60,000 adults with disabilities and long-term illnesses in England were chased for debts by councils last year after failing to pay for their social care support at home.” (2023, BBC)

UK government errors denied thousands disability benefits: “Campaigners hit out after data reveals majority of successful appeals were due to Department for Work and Pensions mistakes” (2022, the Guardian)

Five-month disability benefits delay causing hardship (2022, the Guardian)

Government spent £440m fighting disability claimants as whistleblowers claim system broken. (2022, ITV)

Secret DWP report reveals unmet needs of disability benefit claimants (2022, Disability News Service)

United States

States offer services for disabled kids, then make their families wait 10 years for them. “Across the U.S., hundreds of thousands of children, adolescents and young adults with physical or intellectual disabilities are waiting for state-covered services.” (Feb, PBS NewsHour)

Why Social Security Disability Claims Are Taking So Long It takes the Social Security Administration 228 to process an initial application, double what it was before the covid pandemic. (Jan, AARP)

Toward economic security: 2023 progress report on the Impact of Income and Asset Limits on People with Disabilities:

“As asset and income limits haven’t been scaled to inflation or revised even a penny in 34 years, it means people with disabilities have been forced, by federal policy, to be poorer and poorer, year over year, to qualify for critical supports and services,” said NCD Council member Theo Braddy. “Federal disability policies should be about helping people live independently, get to work, and get out of poverty. The current asset and income limits ensure the opposite.” (2023, National Council on Disability)

Review of Todd Carmody's book Work Requirements on Race, Disability, and the Print Culture of Social Welfare. “For Carmody, there is a direct line that connects the victimization of those at the periphery in early America with the current ideological divide that separates morally superior workers from the lazy, no-good, physically and mentally ill, criminal, visible minorities of American society.” (2023, H-Disability)

New bill aims to help low-income people with disabilities save money “The legislation would create a federal dollar-for-dollar match of up to $2,000 for new and existing ABLE accounts for individuals who earn $28,000 or less per year.” (2023, CNBC)

The Application Process for Disability Benefits Shuts Out People in Need “Most who apply for disability benefits are initially turned down. In fact, as per the SSA, only about a third on average get approved on their first try applying for SSDI, and the percentage of those who are initially approved has decreased each year.” (2023, The Century Foundation)

Booting 18-Year-Olds From Disability Rolls “About 80,000 kids on SSI turn 18 each year, and, like Gabriel, about half will lose benefits.” And it has has lifelong consequences: “Youth who lost benefits at 18 were twice as likely to be charged with a crime as they were to hold a job.” (2023, Mother Jones)

Social Security may be failing well over a million people with disabilities – and COVID-19 is making the problem worse.

“The data showed that the share of people with substantial work-limiting disabilities who received Disability Insurance, Supplemental Security Income benefits or both rose from 32% in 1998 to 47% in 2016, which was the last year the data was available. This is just a little above the average among 27 high-income countries I compared the data with.” (2023, The Conversation)

A Framework for Evaluating the Adequacy of Disability Benefit Programs and its Application to the U.S. Social Security Disability Programs. “The results indicate that more than 50 percent of older adults of working-age with work-disabilities in the U.S. do not receive SSD benefits, though rates of benefit receipt are higher than the average across other high-income countries” (2023, Journal of Social Policy)

Social Security disability benefit offices reach breaking point with huge claim backlogs. “State operations that review claims face massive backlogs, leaving disabled Americans waiting months and even years for judgments” (2022, Washington Post)

How Dehumanizing Administrative Burdens Harm Disabled People: “All of the systems are set up to really dehumanize disabled people and not to help us.” (2022, Center for American Progress)

Social Security uses obsolete job titles to deny benefits to disabled applicants. (2022, Washington Post)

‘Impending Intergenerational Crisis’: Americans With Disabilities Lack Long-Term Care Plans. (2022, Kaiser Health News)

A disability program promised to lift people from poverty. Instead, it left many homeless. (2022, Salon)

‘People will die waiting’. America’s system for the disabled is nearing collapse: “Providers for intellectually and developmentally disabled struggle to recruit and retain staff amid soaring inflation, pandemic burnout.” (2022, Politico)

Inside the Kafkaesque Process for Determining Who Gets Federal Disability Benefits. (2022, Mother Jones)

The Impacts of Disability Benefits on Employment and Crime Discontinuing benefits for children with disabilities as they become adults “increased criminal charges substantially“. (2022, NBER)

Ending the Two-Tier System of Disability Benefits. If you're not already familiar with how Supplemental Security Income (SSI) works, this article has the gruesome lowdown: benefits below the federal poverty line, and you are ineligible to receive them if you don't have other earnings or assets over $2000. (2022, Brown Political Review) See more on how policy punishes disabled people who save more than $2,000 from Full Stack Economics.

Data breach may have exposed personal information of Oklahomans on disability aid list (2022, The Oklahoman)

Millions of disabled Americans could lose federal benefits if they get married (2022, NPR)

Tax authorities raise limit allowed benefit recipients in saving accounts (2022, Disability Scoop)

One of the awful features of some disability-related benefits is a limit of the assets that a recipient can have. California just raised the assets limits for medicare from 2000 USD to 130,000 USD. (link to pdf, 2021, State of California)

Back to top.

Education and Childhood

Overview

International News

UNICEF's Guide to Disability-Inclusive Evaluations (Mar, UNICEF)

How to meaningfully measure learning outcomes of learners with disabilities 4 recommendations to make learning assessments more inclusive of learners with disabilities. (Mar, Global Partnership on Education)

Strategies for addressing the needs of children with or at risk of developmental disabilities in early childhood by 2030: a systematic umbrella review. (Feb, BMC Medicine)

Inclusive Education, Intellectual Disabilities and the Demise of Full Inclusion

“The movement for full inclusion started by focusing on the education of students with intellectual disabilities but has encountered roadblocks to the implementation of full inclusion because of the practical difficulties of addressing the unique needs of students with intellectual disabilities in mainstream schools and the accumulating evidence that special education placements appear more effective in achieving better outcomes in terms of their inclusion in their communities post school.” (Feb, Journal of Intelligence)

Do children with disabilities have the same opportunities to play as children without disabilities? Evidence from the multiple indicator cluster surveys in 38 low and middle-income countries. “Children with disabilities have approximately 9% fewer play opportunities than those without disabilities“. (Jan, eClinicalMedicine)

Global Leaders Falling Short on Commitments to Create More Inclusive Schools and Communities:

“The global state of inclusion in education in 2023 was a mixed bag. Some governments made modest progress in advancing more inclusive practices in their education systems. But far too few countries had laws on their books mandating inclusive schools, and even fewer countries had policies translating those mandates into sustainable practices.” (Jan, Special Olympics)

Disability-Inclusive Education in Emergencies: Key Concepts, Approaches, and Principles for Practice. (Jan, Education Links)

The right to education for persons with albinism Report of the Independent Expert on the enjoyment of human rights by persons with albinism, Muluka-Anne Miti-Drummond. (Jan, OHCHR)

Disability Inclusive Child Protection Competency Framework for the Social Service Workforce. (2023, UNICEF)

Bridging divides: The role of inclusive technology for learners with disabilities. (2023, Global Partnership on Education)

Always included a report on uninterrupted education for children with disabilities before, during, and after a crisis. (2023, Humanity and Inclusion)

How to make education inclusive for students with disabilities: Youth perspectives on inclusive education and what actions world leaders need to take to improve the education of students with disabilities. (2023, Global Partnership on Education)

Do children with disabilities have the same opportunities to play as children without disabilities? Evidence from the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys in 38 low and middle-income countries. “Children with disabilities have approximately 9% fewer play opportunities than those without disabilities”. (2023, MedRxiv)

Global Report on Children with Developmental Disabilities “a call for action to accelerate changes at individual, family, community and society levels to achieve inclusion and health equity.” (2023, UNICEF and WHO)

Approaches to Deliver Inclusive Education in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. “The review examines in what ways (and the extent to which) different approaches have been operationalized and contextualized to enable the inclusion of children with disabilities in mainstream education systems, focusing specifically on primary schooling.” (2023, World Bank)

Thinking critically about inclusive education in Southern contexts volume 10 of disability and the global south is a special issue dedicated to this. (2023, DGS)

Focused interventions for girls with disabilities fuelled ‘life-changing’ impact on aspirations and self-esteem. An evaluation of the Girls’ Education Challenge Phase II. (2023, Cambridge) See also a blog discussing its results.

Global leadership is needed to optimize early childhood development for children with disabilities. “UNICEF and other international bodies must produce a clear plan that prioritizes development and education for children with disabilities, especially in low- and middle-income settings, as required for achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.” (2023, Nature Medicine)

The Routledge International Handbook of Children's Rights and Disability (2023, Routledge)

For the first time, the State of the World's Children report has a statistical annex with data on children with disabilities. (2023, UNICEF)

Evidence brief on impact of collaboration between parents and teachers on children with disabilities in school. (2023, Disability Evidence Portal)

Global State of Inclusion in Education “the vision of international inclusive education is falling short of including all learners, no matter their identity, background, or ability.” (2023, Special Olympics Global Youth and Education) See also an overview: “too many children with intellectual disabilities remain marginalized.”

Measuring inclusive teaching practices that support learning for all. Includes a module with tools on disability. (2023, World Bank)

Disability Inclusive Pre-Primary Education Landscape Review. (2023, Education Links)

The Inclusion Dialogue “Based on fascinating and unique conversations with leading academic experts across the globe, Joanne Banks uses in-depth interviews to examine current debates in special and inclusive education and provides a clear overview of the key tensions which impact policy and practice across different national contexts. Her book also highlights how inclusive education policies do not always translate into inclusive practices in our schools.” (2022, Routledge)

Inclusive Interventions for Children with Disabilities. An evidence and gap map from low- and middle-income countries. See a visualization of data and gaps in different areas. (2022, UNICEF)

Inclusion is better for everyone but children with disabilities are 6 times more likely to be out of school. (2022, Plan International)

Tools to support TVET policy makers and education providers to plan and deliver inclusive TVET provision for persons with disabilities (2022, Leave No One Behind)

Inclusive Education for Learners with Multisensory Impairment: a book that “offers a synthesis of best practice with the latest theory and research”. (2022, McGraw Hill)

Transforming education: reflections on the calls made to protect the rights of persons with disabilities. (2022, Sightsavers)

Children with learning differences are being excluded (2022, World Education Blog)

Global Partnership for Education factsheet on on inclusive education for children with disabilities. (2022, Global Partnership on Education)

The world is diverse and education should reflect it by including persons with disabilities. (in Spanish, 2022, UN)

Fact Sheet on Children with Disabilities (2022, UNICEF)

Value for Money: “Why investing in children with disabilities is worth every penny” (2022, Able Child Africa)

The evidence for benefits of flexible and adaptive curricula in inclusive education. (2022, Disability Evidence Portal)

Deaf education in the developing world: what needs to change post-pandemic? (2022, Global Partnership on Education)

The Role of Parenting Interventions in Optimizing School Readiness for Children With Disabilities in Low and Middle Income Settings. “The global agenda urgently needs to move beyond token recognition of this marginalized group to inclusive early child intervention programs that consider existing practices, cultural beliefs, and developmental goals in the targeted communities. Children with disabilities in LMICs should receive culturally sensitive parenting interventions to improve learning and educational outcomes.” (2022, Frontiers in Pediatrics)

Testing a wide range of technologies to address the reading needs of marginalized children “35% of the awards supporting solutions for children with disabilities.” (2022, World Education Blog)

Education Cannot Wait Policy and Accountability Framework on Disability Inclusion: Realizing the right to inclusive and equitable quality education of children and adolescents with disabilities in emergencies and protracted crises (2022)

Dismantling barriers and advancing disability-inclusive education: an examination of national laws and policies across 193 countries:

“While strong guarantees exist across diverse countries, we find that notable gaps remain. Forty-six percent of countries do not broadly prohibit disability-based discrimination through the completion of secondary education. Legislation in 35% of countries does not guarantee persons with disabilities access to integrated education in mainstream education environments along with necessary individualized accommodations through the completion of secondary school.” (2022, International Journal of Inclusive Education)

World Vision's child protection work A visual journey of disability inclusion (2022, World Vision)

UNICEF School Guide to Supporting Marginalized Caregivers of Children with Disabilities “Inclusive practices are supported when there is meaningful family engagement.” (2022, UNICEF)

Evidence brief on utilising community resources to detect and support children with disabilities? - (2022, Disability Evidence Portal)

A research protocol for study of Effectiveness of Inclusive Interventions for Children with Disabilities in Low- and Middle-income Countries. (link to pdf, 2022, UNICEF)

A short guide on Achieving Quality Education for All (2022, Centre for Inclusive Futures.)

Further events on the CaNDER Seminar Series engaging seminars bringing researchers and practitioners together. (2022)

Students with disabilities hardest hit by school closures (2022, University of Gothenburg)

When All Truly Means Everyone: Fulfilling the Right to Education of Children with Disabilities in Our Global Education Crisis Response. ECW is "committed to reaching 10% of children with disabilities across our investment portfolio. " (2022, Education Cannot Wait)

Researching Disability-Inclusive Education: Perspectives from Researchers in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

“Northern scholarship has long dominated the policy discourse on disability-inclusive education. The continued absence of Southern scholarship and overreliance of evidence and perspectives from the North is impeding contextual understanding and action on disability-inclusive education.” (2022, IEI)

Best of UNICEF Research 2021: highlights research on support provided to children with disabilities in Montenegro and how children with developmental disabilities in Palestine experience stigma and discrimination. (2022, UNICEF)

A "landscape review" of ICT for Disability-Inclusive Education (link to pdf, 2022, World Bank)

An in-depth Inclusive Education Resources and Toolkit "reference for all staff working in education programming to mainstream inclusion in their work" (2022, Save the Children)

Evidence brief on overcoming issues of access to digital learning for primary school learners with disabilities in LMICs during Covid-19.

“Primary school learners with disabilities continue to face barriers or continue to be left behind in online/digital learning solutions as a result of the enduring implications of the ongoing COVID-19 restrictions on education. However, access can be improved if, learners with disabilities, parents and their teachers are consulted in the design and implementation of digital learning solutions.” (2022, Disability Evidence Portal)

Joint Statement on the Rights of Children with Disabilities. Adopted by the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). (link to docx, 2022, OHCHR)

A call to action from a coalition of disability organizations on Transforming Education Summit calling for “resilient and inclusive education systems, equitable financing, and the removal of institutional and social barriers to inclusion so every child can benefit from quality education.” (2022, GLAD)

A new book Global Directions in Inclusive Education Conceptualizations, Practices, and Methodologies for the 21st Century. Edited By Matthew J. Schuelka, Suzanne Carrington (2021, Routledge)

In Inclusive education, The case for early identification and early intervention in assistive technology: assistive technology enables learning and so children who need it must be identified as soon as possible. (2021, Assistive Technology Journal)

Afghanistan

Towards Inclusive Education: Narratives of Setting Up a School for Students
with Disabilities in Afghanistan (2023, Disability and the Global South)

Africa

“I Really Wanted to Further My Education but That Wasn’t Possible” Out of School Experiences of Youth with Disabilities in Ethiopia, Ghana, and South Africa:

“The strongest factor leading to the discontinuation of education across all contexts was the loss of key social support networks and relationships. Participants credited much of their success and inclusion to their supportive relationships. They indicated the essential role that family, peers, mentors, teachers, school staff, personal assistants, and other community members played in supporting them financially and emotionally, assisting them with their academics, and providing disability-related supports in their daily lives.” (Feb, International Journal of Disability, Development and Education)

Children with Disabilities in Eastern and Southern Africa: A statistical overview of their well-being (2023, UNICEF)

Mapping and Recommendations on Disability-Inclusive Education. In Eastern and Southern Africa (2023, UNICEF)

Mapping Learning to Earning Opportunities in Eastern and Southern Africa:

“Several countries in Eastern and Southern Africa provide government sponsored skills-building and training to youth with disabilities in both special and inclusive settings. Despite these efforts and emerging promising practices, limited outreach leaves youth with disabilities and their families unaware of initiatives. In addition, employers, mentors and investors often do not have processes in place to successfully onboard interns, mentees and employees with disabilities, and some may be reluctant to host them at all because of negative perceptions of disability.” (2023, UNICEF)

A Manifesto for Inclusive Education across African Countries. (2023, HI)

Cross-Country Brief on Trends in Inclusive Education (2023, Mastercard Foundation)

Manifesto on Inclusive Education made by representatives of organizations of persons with disabilities. (2022, African Disability Forum)

A needs assessment of School Violence and Bullying of Children with Disabilities in the Eastern and Southern Africa Region. I hadn't heard of this before, in Zambia, one informant reported:

“There are traditional beliefs, that having sexual relations with a person who is disabled helps you to become cured from a particular disease such as HIV and AIDS. That persons with disabilities can be used as avenues for cleansing and that takes a step further from bullying into sexual violence, sexual abuse, and so on." (link to docx, 2022, Leonard Cheshire)

Argentina

Mental health as an educational outcome: Lessons for inclusive education from the Austral in Neuquén (2023, Disability and the Global South)

Asia-Pacific

Ensuring continuity of education of children with disabilities during emergencies (2021, Global Partnership for Education)

Australia

How can segregated special schools still be a choice? (2023, Centre for Inclusive Education)

‘A form of discrimination’: Australia’s school system accused of failing neurodiverse kids. (2023, the Guardian)

Special schools should be abolished “Educators are pushing for special schools to be scrapped and for all students to be educated together, regardless of their abilities.” (2023, Herald Sun)

What we should all know about authentic inclusive classrooms (2022, EduResearch Matters)

Why do students with disability go to 'special schools' when research tells us they do better in the mainstream system? (2022, the Conversation)

Experts slam ‘culture of low expectations’ surrounding kids with disability, ‘routinely being let down by a widespread lack of support across both mainstream and specialist schools.’ (2022, The Educator)

Push for special schools to be phased out under inclusive education plan (2022, SMH)

‘Devastating impact’: Rise in proportion of disabled students expelled from Victorian government schools during COVID pandemic. “We expect it to be worse this year,” she said. “Every time students have gone back to school following a lockdown period, we have seen both formal and informal exclusions increase.” (2022, The Age)

Could a national body for ‘Scientists with Disabilities’ level the playing field? (2022, Women's Agenda)

Bangladesh

Insights from Fieldwork with Learners with Deafblindness and Women with Disabilities in Bangladesh. (2023, IDS)

Majority of children with disabilities in Bangladesh not enrolled in formal education. A national survey shows that “60 percent of children with disabilities aged 5-17 years are not in education.” (2023, The Daily Star)

Over 500,000 special needs children affected by school closure "As many as 1,700 private and 77 government special needs schools were closed all over Bangladesh, impeding the mental and physical growth of special needs children. " [Since March 2020] (2022, Dhaka Tribune)

Disability and Intrahousehold Investment Decisions in Education: Empirical Evidence from Bangladesh:

“we find the existence of disability bias on the part of parents, especially with regard to the enrollment decision for their children. Results from the direct method using the individual child dataset suggest that there is also a possibility of disability bias in investment decisions even for children who are already enrolled.” (link to pdf, 2022, Asian Development Review)

Belgium

Belgium has the most pupils in special education in all of Europe: why is that? (In Flemish, I used Google Translate, 2022, VRT)

Bhutan

Perceptions of Youth with Disabilities in Bhutan on Family Support, Attitudes, and Encouragement towards Meaningful Community Engagement: Implications for Parental Self-Efficacy. (2023, Disability, CBR & Inclusive Development)

China

Investigation of sexual assault case at a school for disabled children in Hubei Province (In Chinese, 2023, Weixin)

Discussion on Families We Need Erin Raffety's book on Disability, Abandonment, and Foster Care's Resistance in Contemporary China. (Podcast without transcript, 2023, New Books Network)

Colombia

Listening to the voices of children with disabilities in Escuela Nueva schools. (2023, Disability and the Global South)

Mother says teacher offered her money to take her autistic daughter out of class (in Spanish, 2022, Blu Radio)

Congo-Kinshasa

Violent Discipline in North Kivu: The Role of Child Gender and Disability Status in Cross-sectional Analysis: “levels of violence in conflict-affected households in North Kivu, DRC are high, with women reporting higher levels of violent discipline overall, and amplified use of violence against girl children with disabilities.” (2023, Maternal and Child Health Journal)

Cuba

How is education serving girls and boys with disabilities in Cuba? In the 2022-2023 school year, a total of 30,610 children with disabilities were enrolled in the country. (In Spanish, Mar, Granma)

Egypt

First e-library for blind people launched in Alexandria (2022, Disability Insider)

Ethiopia

China wins praise for its educational assistance to Ethiopia's vulnerable students. “This came during a special ceremony held Tuesday to mark the topping-out of a Chinese-funded, multi-purpose school building for Alpha School for the Deaf in Addis Ababa” (2023, Xinhua)

A New Lease on Life: Ensuring Education for Children with Disabilities in Ethiopia. (2023, World Bank)

Research finds “double burden” for high school students with disabilities in conflict affected Oromia region. (2023, Addis Standard) Research is on the impact of political instability on inclusive education.

Revisiting Equity COVID-19 and Education of Children with Disabilities (2021, WISE)

Europe

Children with Disabilities in Europe and Central Asia: A statistical overview of their well-being (2023, UNICEF)

Better Health, Better Lives? 10-Years on From the World Health Organization’s Declaration on the Health of Children With Intellectual Disabilities (2022, Journal of Intellectual Disabilities)

Germany

German far right’s Höcke wants to kick disabled kids out of regular schools (2023, Politico)

Translating Human Rights in Education: The Influence of Article 24 UN CRPD Comparing the meanings of inclusive education in Nigeria and Germany, and how the development of inclusive education has depended on “institutionalized special education” rather than a rights-based approach. (2022, University of Michigan Press)

Guinea-Bissau

Students with disabilities hit the books to make their parents proud “Bengala Branca is the country’s first inclusive school, bringing together children with and without disabilities.” (2023, WFP)

India

Parents of special school students take to streets in Goa. “The parents said that they were told to stop sending the students to the center based in the old SCERT building [...] following a student's death”. (Jan, Times of India)

“If he has education, there will not be any problem”: Factors affecting access to education for children with disabilities in Tamil Nadu. “Despite legislative progress, significant gaps in attendance, learning and social inclusion remain for children with disabilities” (2023, Plos One)

Could Inclusive Education for Kids With Disabilities Transform Indian Classrooms? (2023, The Better India)

A Long Road to Inclusion: Education of Children with Disabilities in Rural Indian Government Schools:

“Our findings suggest that deficit-oriented views dominated teacher thinking, but they showed a readiness to engage with disability issues, recognising the value of education for all. However, they struggled in their classroom practices in relation to meeting diverse learner needs and exclusionary practices were further amplified for children with disabilities. Teachers were unwilling to take responsibility for the learning of children with disabilities, expressing significant concerns about their own preparedness, while highlighting the lack of effective and appropriate support structures.” (2023, International Journal of Disability, Development and Education)

STEM education for blind kids is the need of the hour. (2023, News Trail)

Inclusive education in practice: disability, ‘special needs’ and the (Re)production of normativity in Indian childhoods. (2022, Children's Geographies)

Around 71% of govt schools across country made "disabled friendly" according to Ministry data (2022, Times of India)

For kids with disabilities, the pandemic may have been a reprieve “If not going to school has given them their first taste of learning in a safe and happy place, then schools have to be made safer and happier now that they are heading back” (2022, Indian Express) I'm sure this doesn't generalize, but great to see cases of people who had a better time.

Early detection of disability among children is important (2021)

Indonesia

Including Students with Disabilities in School in Rural Areas An online pilot program to assess needs of students with disabilities. (Feb, World Bank)

Policy Note on Inclusive Early Childhood Education for children with disabilities. “Inclusion in preschools needs to mean more than just access to the school building.” (2023, Inclusive Education Initiative)

Key issues for children with disabilities. A discussion paper. (2023, UNICEF)

The Hurdles to Disability-Inclusive Education (2022, Jakarta Globe)

Ireland

Children with disabilities waiting years for vital services access to disability services is full of “constant worry, uncertainty, inadequate support and endless struggle”. (2023, Irish Examiner)

Special classes not best option for students with disabilities:

“Although special classes have been in existence in Ireland since the mid-1970s, their numbers have increased dramatically over the last decade from more than 500 in 2011 to over 2,000 this year. These developments have taken place in the context of research, by the Economic and Social Research Institute and more recently the Department of Education and Skills (DES) Inspectorate, which show little evidence that students in these classes benefit from such placements.” (2022, Irish Times)

Italy

Embracing and rejecting the medicalization of autism (2022, Social Science and Medicine)

Jordan

Jordanian parents challenge government policy on disabled children. (2023, Raseef 22)

Kenya

New bill seeks to ensure children with disabilities get education “The Learners With Disabilities Bill, 2023 has undergone its first reading at the Kenyan National Assembly.” (2023, K24)

STEM Courses in Rural Kenya Open Doors for Girls With Disabilities (Short video, 2023, Voice of America)

Recommendations from a research study on inclusive education and assistive technology: “tax exemption on assistive technology would contribute to the development of education targeting learners with disabilities.” (2023, NewTimes)

Feature on ANDY's work to promote early childhood education for children with disabilities. (2023, KBC Channel)

Inclusive Early Childhood Development and Education in Kenya: what do parents, teachers and children understand, perceive and experience? (2023, Disability and the Global South)

Conversations from the field: Stakeholders’ perspectives on inclusive education in western Kenya. (2022, Canadian Journal of Disability Studies)

Task-force must address state of disability rights in schools (2022, Irungu Houghton)

Youth with disabilities decry costly learning equipment (2022, The Star)

Are ALL Our Children Learning Uwezo Learning Assessment 2021 "1 in 5 girls with disability dropped out of school due [to] Covid-19 enforced schools' closure". (2022, Usawa Agenda)

Kuwait

Experts of the Committee on the Rights of the Child Commend Kuwait’s Disability Allowance for Children (2022, OHCHR)

Latin America and the Caribbean

Educational situation of girls, adolescents and women with disabilities in Latin America: information document. (2023, UNESCO)

Lebanon

The Paper Plane animated video on inclusive education (In Arabic, with English subtitles, 2023, Walid Sarrouh)

Madagascar

Children with disabilities receive rehabilitation to walk and speak, and prepare to go to school. (2023, UNICEF)

Malawi

Short documentary film Falling Behind exploring “Mismanagement of Funds and A Lack of Accessible Financial Assistance Information Put Students with Disabilities at Risk” (2022, Disability Justice Project)

‘I might be lucky and go back to school’: Factors affecting inclusion in education for children with disabilities in rural Malawi. (2022, African Journal on Disability)

A New Challenge Chrissy Matumba Becomes the First DeafBlind Student at Prestigious Malawian Secondary School (2022, Disability Justice Project)

Mexico

Inclusive education: four years after reform, only 2% of matriculating students have disabilities. (2023, Yo También.)

Middle East and North Africa

Hard Lessons: An inquiry into children with disabilities’ exposure to protection risks in Lebanon and Northwest Syria. (2023, World Vision)

The real lives behind the data: Children with disabilities in education across Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and the occupied Palestinian territory. (link to pdf, 2022, Humanity and Inclusion)

Moldova

Turned Away From Teaching, Disabled Moldovan 'Astonished' By Discrimination. “Told she could not become a teacher because she was born without one hand and forearm, but she has never given up on her dream.” (Video feature, subtitles in English, 2023, Radio Free Europe)

Morocco

Nearly 26,000 children with disabilities enrolled in school in 2023, an increase from 16,000 in 2021. (In French, Jan, Le Matin.ma)

Mozambique

Breaking Educational Barriers for Children with Albinism (2023, Africa.com)

Myanmar

A window to the world multimedia storybooks offer new learning opportunities for children with disabilities. (2023, UNICEF)

Nepal

How schools are including children with disabilities (2022, UKFIET)

Books adapted into Nepali Sign-Language by Let's Read Asia with the Nepali Government (2021, All Children Reading)

Revisiting Equity COVID-19 and Education of Children with Disabilities (2021, WISE)

Niger

Childhood disability in rural Niger: a population-based assessment using the Key Informant Method. (2022)

Nigeria

Girls with Disability Suffer, Rejected in Lagos Special Schools a detailed look at a lack of accessible and hygienic toilets and hygiene facilities. (Jan, This Day)

Inclusive Education celebrating an amazing partnership & lasting impact (2022, CBM UK)

Translating Human Rights in Education: The Influence of Article 24 UN CRPD Comparing the meanings of inclusive education in Nigeria and Germany, and how the development of inclusive education has depended on “institutionalized special education” rather than a rights-based approach. (2022, University of Michigan Press)

Norway

An Agent-Based Simulation Model of Epidemic Spread in a Residential School. “An agent-based model of a school for deaf children was developed from Norwegian archival sources and 1918 influenza pandemic data to test impacts of non-pharmaceutical interventions. Results show differences in the timing and pattern of spread based on whether the first case is a student or staff member, while epidemics are smaller with more student bedrooms or a hospital ward.” (2023, Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research)

Palestine

Disability-Inclusive Education in the occupied Palestinian territory (2023, Relief Web / HI)

Peru

Inclusive Education For Children With Disabilities a program from UNICEF. (2023, Forbes)

Philippines

An Accessibility Conundrum in the Philippines detailed look at advocacy methods on “strategic reform to unlock the implementation of accessibility features in Philippine public schools.” (Jan, InAsia)

Intersection of Gender and Disability on Returns to Education A Case from Metro Manila, Philippines. (2023, Merits)

Qatar

Revisiting Equity COVID-19 and Education of Children with Disabilities (2021, WISE)

Rwanda

Every Child Welcome: Teaching Students of All Abilities. (2023, USAID)

Visually impaired teachers want teaching assistants (2022, The New Times)

Saudi Arabia

Quality of Life Among Family Caregivers of Disabled Children “Variations in QoL were observed among caregivers, indicating significant challenges for some individuals.” (2023, Cureus)

Sierra Leone

Collecting disability data in schools in Sierra Leone (2023, UKFIET)

Transforming learning for children with disabilities in Sierra Leone’s most remote communities. (2022, Global Partnership on Education)

South Africa

Inclusion of learners with learning disabilities in the Vaal Triangle mainstream classrooms. “This study argues that for learners with learning disabilities to be more included in mainstream classrooms, the learner population should be reduced to a maximum of 30 learners per class, and collaboration with parents should be enhanced.” (2023, African Journal of Disability)

Dire shortage of school places for autistic children “There are currently 133 children on the waiting list at Quest School for Learners with Autism, the only public specialist school in Gqeberha” (2023, GroundUp)

Accessibility to education for persons with disability ”Shocking statistics reveal how people living with disabilities in South Africa are denied a right to education.” (2023, Soweto Urban)

Towards interventions on school dropouts for disabled learners amidst and post-COVID-19 pandemic. Calls for a “a systematic multi-stakeholder local community-based intervention approach”. (2022)

Inclusive education in South Africa: path dependencies and emergences. “Addressing barriers to inclusive education seems to be less about clearing successive hurdles in a steeplechase race and more about understanding the complex ecology of education systems, and the various actors and socio-cultural, historical and economic processes that constitute these systems.” (2022, International Journal of Inclusive Education)

Too many disabled children still fall through schooling gaps. Article points to a wild range of estimates of children with disabilities out of school: from 40,000 to 600,000. (2022, Mail and Guardian)

Digital technology should be prioritised in schools for pupils with learning disabilities (2022, Sunday Times )

South Asia

Deaf children and mental health: The challenges and how we’re tackling them. (2022, Global Partnership on Education)

Mapping of Disability-Inclusive Education Practices in South Asia (2021, UNICEF)

South Sudan

Feature on supporting access to education for children with disabilities: My Wheelchair, My Journey. (2022, Education Cannot Wait)

Syria

A promising future for Ameer a blog on non-formal education programmes that reached hundreds of children with disabilities. (2022, Global Partnership on Education)

How Cognitive and Pyschosocial Difficulties Affect Learning Outcomes: A study of primary school children. “The findings suggest that psychosocial and cognitive support for children in emergencies is needed, not just for their wellbeing but to enable them to learn effectively.” (link to pdf, 2022, Journal on Education in Emergencies)

Tajikistan

Including Children with Disabilities in Early Grade Math Assessments (2022, Inclusive Development Partners)

Tanzania

Leaving no one behind an article exploring inclusive education. (2022, The Citizen)

Uganda

Facing the challenge of understanding how Northern biases and assumptions impact the research process: Considering the researcher positionality in exploring local practice of disability-inclusive education in Uganda. (2023, Disability and the Global South)

Breaking barriers: FCA Uganda ensures access to education for children with disabilities. (2023, Finn Church Aid)

Experts blame special needs poor grades on few teachers. “The poor performance among special needs learners, both in classwork and at national examinations, has been attributed to a lack of skilled teachers and inadequate learning materials and equipment, a top education official has said.” (2023, Monitor)

Concern as deaf learners perform poorly in Primary Leaving Exams. (2023, Monitor)

They may have lost sight, but digital assistive learning technologies have given learners a vision. (2022, UNICEF)

A Fundraiser by Connor Scott-Gardner to help Salama Blind School after a Devastating Fire (2022, Go Fund Me)

Understanding child disability: Factors associated with child disability at the Iganga-Mayuge Health and Demographic Surveillance Site (2022, Plos One)

United Arab Emirates

Examining culturally responsive inclusive education practices in mainstream schools in the United Arab Emirates: A preliminary study to trial an evidence-based framework. (2023, Disability and the Global South)

United Kingdom

Cropped out, banned, airbrushed: the school photos that show the ugly face of Britain today, as disabled children are edited out of school pictures. (Apr, the Guardian)

Over 50% of special school pupils could be in mainstream, an analysis of a major government intervention programme has found. (Feb, TES Magazine)

Parents urge councillors to apologise over special needs comments One councillor asked if "something in the water" was increasing special needs cases. (Feb, BBC)

History Depth Study: Fight for Rights in Modern Britain Student Book. (2023, Oxford University Press)

Wasting money, wasting potential: families are appealing a record number of decisions on not granting special educational needs, and “in 2021-22, the public sector wasted nearly £60 million losing EHCP tribunal disputes”. (2023, Pro Bono Economics)

Children with Disabilities forced to travel hundreds of miles for school. (2022, The Bureau)

Changing Children’s Attitudes to Disability through Music: "A core driver for change appeared to be sharing enjoyable musical activities with competent musicians who had disabilities." (2022, Disabilities)

United States

Creating a Welcoming Environment for Linguistically Diverse Families of Students in Special Education. (Mar, KQED)

Our Nation’s Public Schools are Failing Neurodivergent Learners.

“Setting neurodivergent students up to succeed begins by accepting them as they are, and not comparing them to the student we may think they should be. The picture of what “good learning” looks like in classrooms has a long legacy of upholding ableist, neuronormative patterns of behavior. Sitting in a chair, still, with both feet down on the floor, looking forward, and not fidgeting, does not equate to how much a student is learning. Neither does finishing all the problems in a designated time frame or being able to fit your thinking into a little box at the bottom of a worksheet or exam.” (Feb, EdSurge)

Few Interpreters, a Byzantine System, and a Child in Need of Learning —Welcome to New York. “Navigating the city’s services for students with disabilities is hard. Even more so for non-English-speaking parents.” (2023, Mother Jones)

America Promises Equality for Disabled Students. It’s Failing. A project exploring “how our country’s education system underserves them—and the fight to change that.”:

‘It has been nearly 50 years since the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) passed, guaranteeing a “free appropriate public education” to disabled students. But our system is not living up to this promise. More than one-third of these students don’t graduate high school. The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has more than 2,500 open investigations into complaints from parents of children with disabilities; some have been unresolved for over a decade.’ (2023, Mother Jones)

No Power but Deaf Power: Revitalizing Deaf Education Systems via Anarchism (2023, Social Inclusion)

How School Shooting Responses Leave Out Disabled Students. “Many schools have policies that leave behind vulnerable students and staff in the event of mass shootings, fires or other disasters.” (2023, Huffpost)

Oklahoma votes down ban of corporal punishment on disabled children. (2023, Washington Post)

Supreme Court unanimously rules for deaf student in education case. (2023, PBS)

Disability rights advocates call on Texas Legislature to better protect students from restraints. “Jeanna TenBrink said three years ago, when her daughter Leah was in middle school, she started coming home with unexplained bruises and getting upset when it was time to go to school. But because Leah is autistic and mostly nonverbal, TenBrink didn’t know why her daughter was upset until she managed to get access to camera footage.” (2023, Texas Public Radio)

How Educators Secretly Remove Students With Disabilities From School. “The removals — which can include repeated dismissals in the middle of the day or shortening students’ education to a few hours a week — are often in violation of federal civil rights protections for those with disabilities.” (2023, New York Times)

5 Helpful Resources for Teaching Students Disability History (2023, We Are Teachers)

The School That Calls the Police on Students Every Other Day “An Illinois school for students with disabilities has routinely used the police to handle discipline, resulting in the highest arrest rate of any district in the country. In one recent year, half of Garrison School students were arrested.” (2023)

New Guidance Helps Schools Support Students with Disabilities and Avoid Discriminatory Use of Discipline (2022, Department of Education)

Education Department Finds that Most States Repeatedly Fail To Meet Special Ed Responsibilities (2022, Disability Scoop)

Surveillance Tech Is Wrongly Accusing Disabled Students of Cheating on Tests (2022, Truthout)

Reflections on Disabled Students & Active Shooter Preparedness “How can we use anti-ableism in all aspects of gun violence prevention?” (2022, Crip News)

I Gave My Child a Smartphone and It's Been the Best Thing for Her. More screen time has been beneficial for my disabled 10-year-old daughter. Here are five rules that make it all work for us. (2022, Wired)

Longest Sit-In in UCLA History Ends with Massive Victory for Students: "A 16-day sit-in by a coalition of students striking for hybrid access and equity for marginalized students got results. " (2022, Knock LA)

Cost of Heaven a moving exploration through graphics and text on the closure of a deaf school and importance of its heritage. "The cultural strength of the Deaf schools enable children to learn without the constant pressure to 'overcome' disability." (text transcript also available, 2022, Adrean Clark)

Vietnam

Efforts made to ensure best care for children with disabilities (2022, Vietnam Plus)

West Africa

Information and Communication Technologies and Inclusive Education "Despite their potential to foster inclusive learning, the use of ICT in schools in the intervention countries faces a number of barriers" (2022, Humanity and Inclusion)

Yemen

How one blind boy helped rebuild his school. (Short video, 2023, BBC)

The children of a forgotten war stories of children living with injuries from the war. "Buy me a gun,” says Amir, “I will load a bullet in my gun and fire at those who took my leg.” (2023, BBC)

Zambia

A study of inclusive education provision ”Limited curriculum reform remains one of the main impediments to the implementation of the inclusive policy for children with SEN in Zambia.” (2023, African Journal of Disability)

Higher Education

International News

Chemistry is Inaccessible: How to Reduce Barriers for Disabled Scientists (2023, Educating All Learners)

Ableism in the academy “Disabled scholars say they often rely on ad hoc agreements to get the accommodations they need to do their jobs. The lack of formal recognition has left many feeling unprotected and unwelcome in the academic workplace.” (2023, UA/AU)

Moving labs: a checklist for researchers with disabilities. (2022, Nature Careers)

A discussion forum on quality higher education for persons with disabilities in low and middle income countries. (2022, CIP)

A review of the anthology Improving Accessible Digital Practices in Higher Education (2022, Disability Studies Community)

Australia

Students living with a disability are falling behind at university due to lack of accessible, flexible study options. (2023, ABC News)

Barriers facing disabled activism at university: ‘Disability is often relegated to “second-class” status in student activism. More effort, listening and discernment is needed from other activists to build a genuinely inclusive student movement.’ (2022, Honi Soit)

Women with disabilities 'underestimated' as battle for equality in science careers heats up. (2022, ABC News)

Bangladesh

A shot in the dark: The state of higher education for persons with disabilities (2023, TBS)

Bhutan

Understanding Inclusion and Accessibility in Higher Education: A Case Study from Bhutan. (2023, Fora Education)

Brazil

Changes and challenges that disabled people bring to educational institutions. Feature exploring increased rates of enrolment but gaps in policies and teaching practices. (In Portuguese, 2023, Pesquisa FAPESP) See reflections on the Debrief.

Colombia

Hundreds of young people with disabilities are learning at a new university founded by Jeison Aristizábal. (2023)

Dominican Republic

UASD inaugurates centre for inclusion of people with disabilities. (In Spanish, Jan, El Neuvo Diario)

India

Why Disabled Students Want JNU To Walk The Talk. “If I filmed a wheelchair-view video of the Jawaharl Nehru University campus, it would depict a nightmare of inclusivity, quite ironic given JNU's progressive reputation”. (2023, Times of India)

Inclusion should be a matter of policy Because people with disabilities should not be dependent on the kindness of others even for basic needs. An essay on adaptations needed in law school. (2023, The Hindu)

Indonesia

What can universities do to attract and support students with disabilities? (2023, Times Higher Education)

Mexico

Mexico failed to ensure access to inclusive tertiary education for woman with intellectual disability, UN Committee finds. “This case is not about lowering admission standards but about appropriate modifications and adjustments in assessing applications from people with disabilities during the admission process,” (2023, OHCHR)

Nigeria

UK to award Chevening scholarships to PWDs in Nigeria (2023, The Cable)

On Institutional Cultures: How Inclusive are Nigerian Universities? (2023, BONews)

Disability exclusion in Nigeria’s Students Loans Act (2023, Nigerian Tribune)

Palestine

Accessible and Inclusive Higher Education for Palestinian Students with Disability: Policies and Practices Review:

“The results showed absence of factual information about Palestinian students with disabilities, lack of support to adopting in IHE in almost all existing policies and strategic goals, a mixture of practices facilitating and hindering implementation of core elements of IHE, and experience-based policies and practices proposed by the participants to make higher education more accessible and inclusive.” (2023, Apollo)

South Africa

The subjective experiences of students with invisible disabilities at a historically disadvantaged university. (2022, African Journal on Disability)

3 ways in which universities can be more inclusive to disabled individuals during an emergency. (2022)

United Kingdom

Students with physical disabilities explain the challenges they face when they go to university. (Jan, The Conversation)

Disability landscape report highlights barriers still facing disabled chemists (2023, Chemistry World)

Deaf scholar promoted to full professor in deaf studies “Until the appointment of Annelies Kusters, UK had only hearing people as full professors in the field” (2023, the Guardian)

Improving the experience of disabled PhD students in STEM “The researchers found that out of 192 survey participants UK wide, only a third (33%) felt they had received the support they needed to be on an equal footing with their non-disabled peers” (2023, Disabled Students UK)

How to promote disabled women in academia (2023, THE)

What I’ve learned from a decade of working with a disability in academia “climbing the academic ladder in an able-bodied world” (2023, Times Higher Education)

Disabled students are being let down by universities (2022, Metro)

United States

Crip Spacetime Access, Failure, and Accountability in Academic Life, a book by Margaret Price. (Apr, Duke University Press) See a New Books Network interview, with transcript.

Experiences of faculty and scientists with disabilities at academic institutions

“Faculty with disabilities encounter systematic barriers at academic institutions, and lack of acknowledgement and research on these experiences has held back institutional and policy changes. To reduce disparities for disabled faculty, academic leadership must allocate resources to address ableism, create more inclusive environments, and raise standards beyond ADA compliance.” (Feb, MedRxiv)

Work Will Not Save Us: An Asian American Crip Manifesto (2023, Disability Studies Quarterly) See discussion on the Debrief.

UCLA has a new disability studies major (2023, Los Angeles Times)

STEM PhDs with disabilities are underpaid and underrepresented in U.S. academia, earning “$14,360 less per year in academia than those without disabilities.” (2023, HUB)

At 20, Berkeley's Disability Studies looks ahead “Launched in 2003, Disability Studies, though formally housed in the Division of Undergraduate Studies, is now present in departments across Berkeley, from art practice to linguistics to sociology.” (2023, Berkeley News)

Uncharted: stories about people with disabilities in STEM fields. (2023, The Story Collider)

The Problem With Disabling How colleges—and the law—are impairing student education and resilience through too many accommodations. [This article is shared for information, not because I agree with it.] (2023, Discourse)

Being Black and Disabled in University “Pursuing an education at the intersection of ableism and racism, Black male students with disabilities develop strategies to silence negative cultural narratives.” (2023, JSTOR Daily)

Creating Our Own Lives Young adults with intellectual disability tell the story of their own experience of higher education. (2023, University of Minnesota Press)

College students with disabilities deserve accessible spaces “Student journalists at the University of Maryland spent months scrutinizing their campus and talking to people with disabilities. More college newspapers should.” (2022, Washington Post)

Students push for Persons with Disabilities Cultural Center (2022, Yale News)

‘It’s Backdoor Accessibility’: Disabled Students’ Navigation of University Campus:

“Introducing the concept of ‘backdoor accessibility,’ this paper examines exclusionary practices and systemic ableism to propose that disabled students are routinely offered a lesser quality service that is argued to be ‘better than nothing.’ In order to navigate these barriers, many students reported the additional expenditure of time, resources and energy.” (2022)

Back to top.

Employment, Business and Work

International News

How disability self-ID can transform businesses: “Empowering employees to self-identify as having a disability paves the way for transformative change” (Mar, World Economic Forum)

Disability at sea Could owners and crewing agencies do more to support less able seafarers? Discussion of medical examinations for seafarers. (The Mission to Seafarers)

Businesses leading the way on disability inclusion a handbook compiling corporate good practices. (2023, Global Business and Disability Network)

The Why and How of National Business and Disability Networks they “can provide non-judgmental and encouraging employers-led platforms at country level. At the end of 2023 [there are] some forty NBDNs.” (Link to pdf, 2023, International Labour Organization)

Working from home has worked for people with disability. The back-to-the-office push could wind back gains. (2023, The Conversation)

Why disability-inclusive employment benefits all of us blog discussing programming promoting inclusive employment. (2023, Sightsavers)

Disability as a Source of Competitive Advantage “Employees consistently told us that working with disabled people fostered a more collaborative culture. ” (2023, Harvard Business Review)

Your Workforce Includes People with Disabilities. Does Your People Strategy? “Most organizations report that their workforce includes relatively few employees with disabilities: just 4% to 7% on average. But in our survey of nearly 28,000 employees in 16 countries, some 25% of people said they have a disability or health condition that limits a major life activity.” (2023, BCG)

The right to work versus the right to retire “Ageism is still pushing older workers out of the labor market” - a report exploring international trends in older persons work and retirement. (2023, Allianz)

Evidence Brief on what are the strategies or models that support youth with disabilities to enter into employment? (2023, Disability Evidence Portal)

ESG and Disability Data white paper a call for inclusive reporting and standardized disability inclusion key performance indicators for businesses. (2023, Valuable 500) See also a blog on why it's needed.

World's Largest Clothing Retailer To Double Its Disability Employment Inditex, the owner of Zara “is committing to dramatically increase employment of people with disabilities throughout its operations.” (2023, Disability Scoop)

Lost in Translation: A global guide to the language of disability: “seeking to apply a single set of language guidelines across a global organisation is often not the best approach. Instead, recognise cultural and linguistic differences and use the language that your audience speaks – whilst seeking to empower the disabled people you work with and serve.” (2022, BDF)

Creating an inclusive culture actions taken by Valuable 500 members for a more inclusive business culture. (2022, Valuable 500)

How can we include people with intellectual disabilities at work? (2022, Sightsavers)

Livelihood support for caregivers of children with developmental disabilities: findings from a scoping review and stakeholder survey. (2022, Disability and Rehabilitation)

Increasing Employment and Quality of Employment Among Youth with Disabilities. Evidence and good practice paper. (2022, DEEP / USAID)

Disability Inclusion in Employment Intensive Investment Programming a stocktaking and way forward on inclusion in public works initiatives. By yours truly. (2022, ILO)

Capacity to Contribute: We must do more to improve the labour market inclusion of people with disability. (2022, The OECD Forum Network)

Note on ensuring that people with disabilities are not bullied at places of work. (2022, Disability Evidence Portal)

The right of persons with disabilities to work and employment General comment by the UN Committee, clarifying what governments need to do to realize the right to work. (2022) See also a summary from European Disability Forum.

Lessons learned on improving access to employment from Kenya and Bangladesh and the i2i project. (2022, CBM UK)

A policy brief on Making Digital Skills Initiatives Inclusive of Young Persons with Disabilities. (2022, Decent Jobs for Youth)

Global Trends Report featuring Technological Innovation for Disability Inclusion. (link to pdf, 2022, Valuable 500)

Achieving disability inclusive employment – Are the current approaches deep enough? A detailed critique of recent programming in international development asking interventions to go deeper:

“Thus, shallow approaches, which do not address deep-seated cultural beliefs and assumptions about disability and disabled people (which are pervasive throughout the ecosystem), are likely to perpetuate the existence of opportunities for the already more privileged elite and further disadvantage the rest.” (2022, Journal of International Development)

Mainstreaming disability inclusive employment in international development: “a key message is that instrumental types of intervention such as policy and practice guidelines, provision of assistive devices and soft skills training for jobseekers with disabilities are necessary but not sufficient to bring about wholesale change towards disability inclusive employment.” (2022, Journal of International Development)

This year's Harkin Summit was held in Belfast (2022, BBC)

New ILO database highlights labour market challenges of persons with disabilities. From 60 countries with available data:

“The labour force participation rate of people with disabilities is very low. Globally, seven in ten persons with disabilities are inactive (that is, neither in employment nor unemployed), compared with four in ten persons without disabilities. While the inactivity rate is higher for both women and men with disabilities than for those without, it is particularly high among women with disabilities.” (2022, ILO)

Equalising access to the labor market for persons with disabilities based on a project in Bangladesh, Kenya, Uganda and Nigeria. The report makes important points on how initiatives to support employment can have negative effects:

“Too often, employment of persons with disabilities has been approached through a narrow lens of placing people into jobs, without securing preconditions for inclusive employment such as inclusive workplace culture, provision of reasonable accommodation, and accessible transportation to work. Worse, persons with disabilities have often been supported to access only a limited range of jobs based on prevailing stereotypes, usually low-wage and perceived low-skill roles, thereby perpetuating stigma and prejudice about what persons with disabilities can or cannot do. This is particularly the case for most marginalized groups, such as persons with intellectual disabilities.”

It also questions the emphasis on the ”business case” when advocating with employers, and argues for a “critical consciousness on disability amongst employers”:

“The business case approach to promote inclusive employment must be rooted in human rights and social justice to ensure that a for-profit argument does not lead to further exclusion of those with high risks of marginalization. Employers need to recognize past and present marginalization and discrimination of persons with disabilities and take active responsibility to transform the labor market to become open, accessible and inclusive for persons with disabilities.” (2022, IDA)

“This programme is nation-building” reflections at the ending of a disability-inclusive employment programme in Nigeria, Kenya, Bangladesh and Uganda. (2022, Inclusive Futures)

A review of effectiveness of interventions for improving livelihood outcomes for people with disabilities in low- and middle-income countries. The review finds studies reporting “positive impacts on livelihood impacts” but given the limited evidence it is hard to conclude about what works. This study calls for more studies. (2022, Campbell Systematic Reviews)

An Inclusive Workplaces Toolkit which gives guidance for employers how to make their workplaces inclusive of people with intellectual disabilities. “Creating a workplace that is more inclusive of people with intellectual disabilities primarily requires small tweaks and behaviour changes within a workplace that
make it easier for everyone to understand and be included in work.” (2022, Inclusion International)

Barriers to employment for people with intellectual disabilities in low- and middle-income countries: Self-advocate and family perspectives. “Self-advocates shared experiences in the focus groups of workplace bullying, mistreatment by supervisors and colleagues and exploitation in the workplace which indicates that supporting people to overcome barriers and get into a job is insufficient for ensuring inclusion.” (2022, Journal of International Development)

The Valuable 500 taking action: Inclusive moments from companies in the Valuable 500 network (2022, Valuable 500)

What is the future of work for people with disabilities? (2022, World Economic Forum)

How can public and civil services support people with disabilities into senior roles? (2022, Global Government Forum)

An ILO report Transforming enterprises through diversity and inclusion. “Overcoming inclusion as a privilege of seniority is key to fully realizing the business benefits it offers” (2022, ILO)

The Valuable 500 Launch World’s First Global Directory of Disability Inclusion Specialists (2022, Valuable 500)

Is It The Yuk Factor? Disabilty Advocacy Is Growing Up. Interview with Susan Scott Parker. (2022, Forbes)

LinkedIn Adds ‘Dyslexic Thinking’ To Skills List In Effort To Destigmatize. Dyslexic thinking being seen as ‘strengths in creative, problem-solving and communication skills’. (2022, The Drum)

A spotlight on Inclusion Breakthroughs in 2021 (2022, Valuable 500)

From the ITCILO with Cornell University, a course on Disability in the Workplace a 90 minutes training. (2022, ILO)

The upcoming G20, hosted by Indonesia will promote employment for persons with disabilities. (2022, Antara News)

What is the current evidence on promoting employment for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities? Recommends supported employment; little evidence from low- and middle-income countries. (2022, Disability Evidence Portal)

ILO Global Business and Disability Network Annual Report 2021 (2022, ILO)

The state of disability engagement survey data showing “employees with disabilities are having a far less favorable experience at work than their non-disabled counterparts. These significant differences are far greater than we have found for other diversity groups such as gender, race and sexual orientation.” (2022, Mercer)

Africa

Light For the World and Mastercard Foundation Partner to Enable Youth Employment for Young Africans with Disabilities. (2023, LFTW)

Disability inclusion in the African business community: latest trends and good practices. Includes big multinational companies Unilever and Safaricom setting recruitment targets of 5% of persons with disabilities in their workforces by 2025. (Link to pdf, 2023, ILO)

Cross-Country Brief on Trends in Inclusive Employment (2023, Mastercard Foundation)

Armenia

Work gives me my independence Rafael Martirosyan does charity work and is a senior packer at his family’s bakery business in Armenia. He has Down syndrome:

“Work makes me a better person. As my co-workers will tell you, I am responsible and work hard. The fact that I am working makes me more independent.” (2023, ILO)

Asia-Pacific

Catalysts of Change: Disability Inclusion in Business in Asia and the Pacific. “The publication presents fundamental concepts, key components of fostering disability-inclusive business, and good practices and data, and provides recommendations for businesses and governments.” (2023, UNESCAP)

Preferential Contracting for Persons with Disabilities “An in-depth look at the practice of using public procurement to promote the employment of persons with disabilities” (2022, UNESCAP)

Why Hiring Individuals With Disabilities Can Benefit Asia’s Workforce (2022, Verve Times)

A resource guide for employers on Tapping the potential of persons with disabilities (2022, ILO)

Australia

How Australia’s biggest brands made disability visible. A coalition of the country’s most well-known brands have swapped out key scenes in their commercials to include people with disabilities. (2023, Shots)

Research reveals employer attitudes to disability. “The survey of Australian Network on Disability’s 400 member organisations, including some of the country’s biggest corporations, major universities, and government departments, found 68 per cent do not have targets for the employment of people with disability.” (2023, Pro Bono)

Many Australian bosses believe disabled staff faking impairment. (2023, Daily Telegraph)

Australia is lagging when it comes to employing people with disability – “it will need to take affirmative action.” (2023, The Conversation)

Royal Commission report finds Disability Employment Services (DES) program failed to provide appropriate support. (2023, Royal Commission) Further reaction on the Guardian.

(Under)valuing lived experience in the disability workforce: “this study examined the ways in which lived experience was described as an asset in disability workforce recruitment.” (2022, Australian Journal of Social Issues)

Employment and mental health for people with and without disability. The beneficial mental health effects of part- or full-time employment were larger for disabled people. (2022, Population Health)

'The gap is widening': disability advocates say not all Australians are enjoying equal employment opportunities. (2022, SBS News)

Low staff turnover, high loyalty and productivity gains: the business benefits of hiring people with intellectual disability (2022, the Conversation)

People with disability working for legal pay as low as $2.27 an hour, inquiry hears (2022, the Guardian)

Increasing board and executive representation (2022, Australian Network on Disability)

Bangladesh

Small and medium-sized enterprises policy brief and disability-inclusive guidelines. (Link to pdf, Feb, Futuremakers by Standard Chartered)

Short video on the Inclusion Journey of Domino's Pizza Bangladesh (2023, Bangladesh Business and Disability Network)

Creating new opportunities Interview with Murteza Khan of Bangladesh Business and Disability Network. (2023, Ice Business Times)

Learning Document: Towards inclusion of persons with disabilities within BRAC’s Skills Development Programme. (2023, Light for the World International)

Capability-sensitive principles for assistive technology to support young graduates with disabilities in Bangladesh and Kenya into employment. “In Bangladesh, innovation hubs, SMEs and enterprise units are increasingly building new assistive technology solutions to strengthen capacity and assist young disabled graduates.” (2022, Journal of International Development)

Bangladesh expands tax incentive for employers of persons with disabilities and third-gender people (2022, BD News)

Conquering the challenges in employment: a film made by Bangladesh OPDs (2022, i2i)

Bhutan

Supporting Employment for Persons with Disabilities in Bhutan: Results from an Employer Survey (2023)

Microgrants used to promote entrepreneurship in a pilot project. A film was also made about the project, Dreams of Birds Flying in the Sky, trailer available on Youtube. (2022, Kuensel Online)

“I want to achieve more, so that I can inspire more people” Living and Working with a Disability in Bhutan. A nice presentation of case studies and pictures from a project supporting disabled people with small grants. (2022, Royal Thimphu College and Fora Education)

Brazil

Proposal to make quota law more flexible provokes demonstrations. (In Portuguese, Jan, Diário PCD)

Disabled people from minority groups face more inequality in the labour market. (In Portuguese, 2023, Gife)

Unilever ordered to fulfil quota of contracting persons with disabilities and making an investment to professional development. (In Portuguese, 2023, Justiça do Trabalho)

A new approach is needed to ensure equality in the work place for autistic people:

“As an autistic woman from a favela, my experience with the job market has always been an uphill struggle because the selection processes are designed for neurotypical people, who generally are at ease with oral communication normative social skills, while the specific communication styles of autistic and neurodiverse people are not considered. My work with the Black Lives with Disabilities Matter Movement (Vidas Negras com Deficiência in Portuguese), a movement that focuses on race and disability [...] has helped me to understand that these selective processes were built to prioritize white and non-disabled bodies.” (2022, Minority Rights Group International)

Inclusion with Accessibility at Work a site with quite a few resources (in Portuguese, 2022)

Cambodia

The Government sets quota of 2% for the recruitment of persons with disabilities. (2023, Khmer Times)

Cameroon

Prejudice robs disabled women of work "Laws to protect disabled people are not enforced in the central African nation, leaving many without jobs. But a local organisation is helping equip disabled women for work." (2021, New Frame)

Canada

What is the pay gap between persons with and without disabilities?

“The 2019 CIS revealed that persons with disabilities aged 16 years and older had an average annual income of about $11,500 less than persons without disabilities ($43,400 and $55,200, respectively). This results in a 21.4% pay gap between persons with and without disabilities, or persons with disabilities earned 79 cents to every dollar earned by persons without disabilities.” (2023, Statistics Canada)

Executives with disabilities in Canada, 2019 (2023, Statistics Canada)

From the Standpoint of Employees with Disabilities: An Analysis of Workplace Accommodation Processes in the Non-Profit Sector. “The use of medical documentation creates a culture of distrust, and barriers to inclusion and a sense of belonging.” (2023, Canadian Journal of Disability Studies)

Diversity Works research looking at employment journeys of black, indigenous and people of colour with disabilities. (2022, Canadian Association for Supported Employment)

Opinion: It’s time for a culture shift where disability inclusion is concerned. By friend of the Debrief, Yazmine Laroche. (2022, Globe and Mail)

Up to $270 million is available to fund projects to connect persons with disabilities with good jobs. (2022, Government of Canada)

Employers’ lessons learned in hiring, retaining and advancing employees with disabilities (2022, Public Policy Forum)

Job boards aren’t designed with disability in mind. That needs to change (2022, CareerWise)

A report on disability inclusion in MBA programs “half of the respondents had a negative perception of employers' on-campus recruitment drives“ including stereotyping and ableism. (2022, Access to Success)

Hiring more people with disabilities can address labour shortages

"Labour shortages are one of the biggest issues facing Canadian companies right now, but there’s an underrepresented and untapped pool of skilled Canadians that could help close the gap: people with disabilities." (2021, Globe and Mail)

Chile

How businesses manage law 21.015 on inclusion of disabled people in the labour market. (2022, Azarbe)

China

Taking Steps Toward Disability Inclusion in China A group of newly launched business and nonprofit coalitions are aiming to advance disability inclusion in a new way. (Mar, SSIR)

Disabled people in China's Ningxia strive to achieve self-reliance (2023, Big News Network)

Supported employment helps people with Down syndrome find jobs (2023, Xinhua News)

Ethiopia

Creating inclusive workplaces for people with disabilities exchange between a deaf disability inclusion technical officer and their supervisor. (2023, FHI 360)

Europe

The EU Disability Employment Package – impact for persons with disabilities. (2023, EDF)

Updated guide on disability in sustainability reporting. (2023, GRI)

Companies in the EU will have to report on disability inclusion “and other marginalised groups, due to the new EU Directive on Corporate Sustainability Reporting (CSRD).” (2023, EDF)

Majority of persons with disabilities locked out of quality employment review of the right to work across European countries shows a gap of 24 percentage points in employment between people with and without disabilities. (2023, EDF)

Disability and Gender Gaps: a position paper addressing unequal employment of women with disabilities. (2022, EDF)

A toolkit for Public Employment Services to combat labour market discrimination against persons with disabilities. (2022, European Commission)

EU historic agreement on minimum wage covers workers with disabilities. (2022, EDF)

Working at EU institutions not easy for ethnic minority staff “Working for the EU institutions is no walk in the park for people of colour or with disability, with almost 60 percent of respondents from both categories saying they have observed or experienced discrimination.” (2022, EU Observer)

The right to work: enabling people with disabilities to thrive in the job market (2022, Euronews)

Disability Employment Package to improve labour market outcomes for persons with disabilities (2022, European Commission)

France

The disability employment quota between social policy and antidiscrimination (2022, Anne Revillard)

Germany

A higher fee for larger employers who do not fulfil obligations to employ people with severe disabilities. (2023, Deutschlandfunk)

Honduras

Defrauded by fake offer of employment in the UN. “Forty people with disabilities were scammed by people who posed as officials of the United Nations (UN), as they were promised a job opportunity in exchange for sending 400 lempiras for the required documentation.” (In Spanish, Jan, La Tribuna)

India

Disabled candidates protest government exam in Lucknow. Protest contests seats reserved for candidates on basis of disability. (Jan, The Mooknayak)

Supreme Court gives a welcome order with problematic observations. Judges accepted inclusion of disabled people in public services they had been excluded from, but accompanied this with “seemingly discouraging remarks”. (2022, Indian Express)

Article on employment of persons with disabilities and statistics from public and private sectors. (2022, Business Standard)

Official Data Shows Central Government Jobs for Disabled Persons Have Declined Since 2018 (2022, The Wire)

The Supreme Court bats for disabled people in police force. “Experiment it for a while and if it does not work then you may not continue with it.” (2022, Times of India)

Enabling Inclusive: Best Practices in Disability Inclusion in Manufacturing Sector (link to pdf, 2022, IBDN)

Poorly Worded Ads, Apathy Are Depriving Doctors With Disabilities of Job Opportunities (2021, The Wire)

Indonesia

A Different Way of Learning feature on how “Indonesians with Autism Forge Their Own Path to Education and Employment”. (2022, Disability Justice Project)

Inside Indonesia's grassroots fight for accessibility. (2022, FairPlanet)

Out of Their Hands video feature on blind massage therapists and other employment challenges for those with visual impairments, including the impact of the pandemic. (2022, Disability Justice Project)

New skills helped my business recover from pandemic. Feature trainings for entrepreneurs with disabilities. (2022, ILO)

Iraq

Empowerment and jobs platform for people with disabilities an electronic portal launched by government. (2023, Ur Portal)

Ireland

Graduates with disabilities are less likely to be employed – and are paid less. (2023, Independent.ie)

Japan

Proxy agencies for disabled hires grow as firms try to fill quota. “Japanese firms have been using proxy agencies to employ people with disabilities, hiring them to work for unrelated farming projects in a move seen as a way to fulfill official disability quotas, according to a welfare ministry probe and a Kyodo News investigation.” (2023, Kyodo) Reaction from Barrier Free Japan (brief audio, no transcript).

Kenya

How we navigate our careers despite disability an interview with Senior Probation Officer and Football player for Kenya Women Amputee team Caren Musungu. (2023, Business Daily)

Breaking barriers to economic independence for people with disabilities in Kenya. (2023, Light for the World International)

Platform livelihoods for youth with disabilities (2023, AllAfrica)

Bridging the Gap Between Young PWDs and Technology “The academy run by Sightsavers and partners aims to have young people with disabilities transition into formal employment at IT and telecommunications firms” (2023, The Kenya Times)

The startup giving a chance to people with disabilities Riziki Source matches members' credentials and disability with potential employers (2023, The Star)

Capability-sensitive principles for assistive technology to support young graduates with disabilities in Bangladesh and Kenya into employment. (2022, Journal of International Development)

New $6 million Inclusive Futures programme launched which "aims to increase the inclusion of people with disabilities, particularly women, and improve labour rights at two large Kenyan companies. " (2022, Inclusive Futures)

Unemployment in women with psychosocial disabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic: Lessons from Tana River County. "We found that the pandemic worsened their experiences of work and employment, and they did not receive any social welfare or support from the government." (2022, Journal of International Development)

Malawi

Disability inclusive employment in urban Malawi: A multi-perspective interview study. Explores the gap between policy and practice, looks into the informal labour market, economic factors as a source of discrimination and includes a scathing remark about international NGOs that “come to Malawi”:

“They come with their agenda of inclusion. But you'd find that for them to accommodate persons with disabilities, it would not be easy for them. You'd find they have signed commitments, whatever, out there, but [when] they come to Malawi—nothing like that is happening.” (2022, Journal of International Development)

Middle East and North Africa

Regional Conference for Arab States on Inclusive Employment Representatives shared latest good corporate practices and lessons learned on the inclusion of persons with disabilities in the Arab States. (2023, ILO)

Moldova

Give people with disabilities a chance to work experience of a woman with disability working at an electronic systems company. (2022, ILO Voices)

Mozambique

Solution and Success: Felix’s Story of Farming in Gorongosa. (2023, Spark)

Nepal

From staying home to thriving entrepreneurs: stories from four young people with disabilities. (2023, CBM UK)

Lived Employment Experiences of Persons with Physical Disabilities: “over-protective behaviour from family members, discrimination by employers in recruitment, and continuance in employment were barriers.” (2022, Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research)

Niger

Economic empowerment for women and girls with disabilities (2023, UN SDG)

Nigeria

Decent work inaccessible to most workers with disabilities: a survey of 600 workers with disabilities. “Most of the 660 workers surveyed are self-employed and in the informal sector. Almost half of respondents earn less than Nigeria’s minimum wage and say their work environment is not accommodating to their disability.” (2023, Solidarity Center)

Inside the lives of professionals living with invisible disabilities in Nigerian workplaces. (2023, Techpoint)

Documentary released on women living with disabilities in mining communities (2022, Guardian Nigeria)

Norway

This is a pretty tough industry: an initiative for recruitment into IT jobs. (In Norwegian, 2023, Kode24)

Pakistan

The Human Rights Ministry wants disability quota filled “The ministry for human rights on Saturday wrote official letters to 29 government departments to implement two percent disability employment quota.” (2022, Dawn)

Poland

Survey report on 10 principles for successfully employing people with disabilities A mixture of experiences of disabled people, employers, and guidance for businesses to become more inclusive. (link to pdf, 2021, TAKpelnosprawni)

Russia

Search for people to build fortifications, including digging trenches, mentions jobs for persons with disabilities. (2022, Yahoo! News)

Barriers and Opportunities to Employment for Persons with Disabilities (2021, World Bank)

Rwanda

A video feature on Seeing Hands Rwanda which provides training and transition from training to employment. (2022, Disability Justice Project)

Singapore

Leadership commitment is key to scaling disability inclusion (2022, The Business Times)

South Africa

Barriers to the employability of people with disabilities in the public service (2023, African Journal of Disability)

In search of a landing place for persons with disabilities: A critique of South Africa’s skills development programme. One of which is that “focusing exclusively on providing hard skills fails to account for complex challenges faced by persons with disabilities”. (2023, Int Journal of Discrimination and the Law)

A labour lawyer argues that very little has been done to ensure that people with disabilities have employment opportunities. (2022, IOL)

Inclusive development: clearing up misconceptions on disability in the workplace (2022, Engineering News)

The matrix of linguistic exclusions impeding career construction for D/deaf learners: “experiences at home, school and in social contexts combined, impact negatively the process of career construction and its prospects.” (2022, African Journal on Disability)

How education, training and development support the wellness of employees with disabilities. (2022, African Journal of Disability)

South Korea

”They cancelled my job interviews because I'm disabled” a linkedin post that went viral. (2022, BBC)

South Sudan

'I want to be self-reliant' — encouraging enterprise for Internally Displaced People. (2023, Light for the World International)

Spain

"The leader of the future, if they're not inclusive, won't be a leader" (in Spanish, 2022, Ethic)

Sweden

Disability, Gender and Hiring Discrimination: an experiment sending 2,000 job applications found that “nondisabled applicants receive 33 percent more callbacks than similarly qualified wheelchair users despite applying for jobs where the impairment should not interfere with performance” (2023, IZA Institute of Labour Economics)

Switzerland

Sheltered workshops criticized for derisory pay of persons with disabilities. Some receiving as little as 5 francs per month. (2023, MA RTS)

Tunisia

"We are all different" video featuring the situation of workers with disabilities, discrimination against them, and political actions taken. Great selection of people working in different areas including entrepreneurs and artists. (in Arabic, with English subtitles, 2021, Solidarity Center and UGTT)

Uganda

Closing the Employment Gap a feature video on how Ugandans with Disabilities Advocate for a More Inclusive Work Environment (2022, Disability Justice Project)

Celebrating “Make 12,4% work” a project for economic empowerment of persons with disabilities. Report discusses the way disability inclusion facilitators implemented the program and a detailed description of methodology and lessons learned. “Disability Inclusive Development is an emerging field with no blueprint readily available for practitioners developing and implementing programmes in the sector. In addition, a high level of complexity exists due to intersectionality and the diversity in disability.” (2022, LFTW)

Banking on Inclusion the experience of Stanbic bank. See also Lekker Bakery and Riley Packaging. (2022, Make 12.4% Work)

Ukraine

Ukrainian national network “TOGETHER” joins the Global Business and Disability Network. They have a guide for employers to involve disabled people and research on challenges and opportunities. (Jan, Confederation of Employers Ukraine)

United Kingdom

Workforce Disability Equality Standard: 2023 data analysis report for NHS trusts. 23.4% of staff declared a long-term condition or illness in 2023 in the anonymous staff survey. (Mar, NHS England)

What are energy-limiting conditions? A guide for employees and their managers, and introduction to chronic illness at work. (Feb, Catherine Hale)

Autistic people held back by job interview questions according to a report on autism in the workplace. (Feb, BBC) See the full Buckland Review of Autism Employment.

Menopause in the workplace: Guidance for employers. “If menopause symptoms have a long term and substantial impact on a woman’s ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities, these symptoms could be considered a disability.” (Feb, Equality and Human Rights Commission)

Understanding unemployment: what role does ethnicity and disability play? “Unemployment varied greatly by disability status and ethnicity, with Census 2021 estimated unemployment rates for some groups as low as 2.9%, while for others it was up to 17.2%.” (Jan, ONS)

Top Disability Confident members ‘do no better on jobs than non-members’ (2023, Disability News Service)

BCS diversity report 2023: Disability industry body for IT gives a report on disabled people working in tech. (2023, BCS)

4% of large charities report their disability pay gaps, research finds (2023, Civil Society)

Do disability passports really work? “Passports will not help employees – and may present more barriers – if wider approaches to disability and adjustments are poor. The passports themselves are no substitute for sound adjustments processes or good manager attitudes to disabled employees. [...] When done as a “box ticking exercise”, as some employees and managers reported they were, passports risk being ineffective or even harmful.” (2023, Business Disability Forum)

Great Big Workplace Adjustments Survey 2023 Results

“Disabled employees are still waiting too long for the adjustments they need to reduce or remove the barriers they experience in their jobs: 1 in 8 employees have to wait more than a year for them. Employees also have to push for adjustments, or even fund them, themselves. Only ten percent of people told us it was easy to get the adjustments they needed.” (2023, BDF)

Why employer inflexibility matters for the recruitment, retention and progression of disabled workers.

“Whilst some disabled people may need specific aids, adaptions, or equipment in order to facilitate their ability to work, the vast majority only require changes in the way in which work is organised.” (2023, Disability & Society)

Disability and Small Business Report (2023, Small Business Britain)

Non-disabled workers paid 17% more than disabled peers. Disabled women face the biggest pay gap and it persists for workers throughout their careers. (2022, TUC)

Positively Purple a new book from Kate Nash on building an inclusive culture in business. (2022, KoganPage)

Employers influencing disabled people’s employment through responses to reasonable adjustments. Employer reactions to requests for adjustments in the workplace go on to influence the rest of disabled people's careers. (2022, Disability and Society)

Disability Pay Gap: “Mandatory reporting would only capture a snippet of the full picture as only large organisations would be required to report”. (2022)

The blind farmer: ‘It’s all I ever wanted to do. Now I can help others do it’ (2022, the Guardian)

‘I was dismissed as simple’: People reveal the reality of disability discrimination at work (2022, Metro.co.uk)

Disability pay gaps in the UK: 2021 “The disability pay gap, the gap between median pay for disabled employees and non-disabled employees, was 13.8% in 2021”. There is a slightly wider pay-gap for men with disabilities, and considerably wider for those with more activity limitations, or with autism listed as their main impairment. (2022, ONS)

Business Without Barriers: interviews with successful disabled entrepreneurs and personal accounts from employers who are helping to break down barriers to employment. (2022, FSB)

Disability Smart Awards (2021, Business Disability Forum)

United States

In Georgia, a Rare Bipartisan Push for Disability Rights “The Peach State might be the next to end subminimum wages for disabled workers. ” (Apr, Mother Jones)

Disability, Immigration, and Postpandemic Labor Supply “We show that the increase in the disabled labor force largely reflects a change in self-reported disability status among those already in the labor force rather than an actual increase in labor supply.” (Mar, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland)

Eliminating Barriers to Employment for Disabled Women from playbook for the advancement of women in the economy. (Mar, Center for American Progress)

Kansas Plans to Phase Out Subminimum Wage for Disabled People (Feb, Mother Jones)

Pennies on the Dollar: The Use of Subminimum Wage for Disabled Workers across the United States: “17 states have taken action to either eliminate the use of subminimum wage or are actively phasing it out.” (Feb, New America)

Disabled employment surged in COVID 2024 less certain. The disabled workforce has “climbed by more than 30% since just before the pandemic began, eclipsing broader workforce growth.” (Feb, Reuters)

Hundreds of Companies Legally Pay Disabled Workers Below Minimum Wage.

“What began as a provision of President Roosevelt’s 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act, which was meant to improve employment for disabled people — employment was seen then, same as now, as a key part of someone’s American-ness — came at a time when institutionalization was the only path for a lot of marginalized folks. But it has apparently morphed into something else entirely: a business-branded excuse to dehumanize disabled workers in yet another way.” (Jan, Teen Vogue)

Disability activists keep pretending severe autism doesn’t exist a mother argues in defense of programs that pay a subminimum wage. (2023, Washington Post)

Disability Inclusion Imperative a report showing how:

“the business case for hiring persons with disabilities has become even stronger. Specifically, companies that have led on key disability inclusion criteria over that time saw 1.6 times more revenue, 2.6 times more net income and 2 times more economic profit than other companies in the Disability Equality Index.” (2023, Accenture and Disability:IN)

A Key Tool for Disability Employment and Neuroinclusion. The key to disability employment is flexibility. (2023, Psychology Today)

Nearly half of women with disabilities report experiencing sexual harassment or assault at work 48% of women with disabilities reported this compared to 32% of women without disabilities. (2023, the 19th)

Department of Labour Invests Millions Into Helping Employ People with Disabilities, “making available more than $69 million in grants to states to develop innovative strategies to help marginalized youth and young adults with disabilities join the workforce.” (2023, SHRM)

Disability Status and Work Linkedin uses its information to explore employment and leadership trends.

“Members reporting disabilities exhibit significant differences in industry representation when compared to those without disabilities. Specifically, workers with disabilities are 1.5 times more likely to work in Consumer Services, 1.4 times as likely to work in Government Administration, and 1.3 times more likely to work in Education, in contrast to their counterparts without disabilities.” (2023, Linkedin)

How the Gig Economy impacts People with Disabilities Participating in the gig economy is a mixed bag and not even always available to people with disabilities (2023, Access * Ability)

Noise, light in stores can be harsh. Some businesses are offering special hours and events for people with sensory processing disorder that makes sights, sounds and smells feel overwhelming (2023, Washington Post)

Amazon Got a Perfect Score on Disability Inclusion—From a Group It Helps Fund – Mother Jones —From a Group It Helps Fund:

“Disability:IN released its annual “Best Places to Work” Disability Equality Index, which grades how well companies prioritize and accommodate disabled employees. One company that earned a perfect score: Amazon, which has been accused of disability discrimination by state agencies and current and former staff.” (2023, Mother Jones)

2023 Disability Equality Index Report (2023, Disability:IN)

‘An inherent indignity’: the fight to get workers with disability a living wage. “Advocates are highlighting a system of state tax credits across the US that allow employers to pay employees as low as $3 an hour” (2023, the Guardian)

Are Advocates for Corporate Disability Inclusion Anti-Worker? (2023, American Prospect)

Disability Justice—in the Workplace (and Beyond) (2023, NPQ)

My Daughter Expects to Work. Will She Make Only $3.35 an Hour? “Changing expectations, especially those informed by decades of social and economic discrimination, takes time, and ending 14(c) certificates [that permit employers to pay disabled people less than the minimum wage] is just the beginning.” (2023, New York Times)

Hearing Disabilities in the Workplace and the Americans with Disabilities Act. (2023, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission)

Disability disparities in STEM: Gaps in salaries and representation for doctorate recipients with disabilities. “Doctorate recipients working in STEM with early onset disabilities (identified <25 years of age) earned $10,580 less per year than non-disabled workers.” (2022, MedRxiv)

What the Disability Community Told Us About Sheltered Workshops in Missouri. “The respondents told me that they would be devastated if their sheltered workshops were forced to shut down. Some family members even bypassed our outreach questions and instead sent in letters expressing opposition to any changes to the federal subminimum wage law or requesting that sheltered workshops remain open in the state.” (2022, ProPublica)

For Disabled Workers, a Tight Labor Market Opens New Doors (2022, New York Times)

Human Resources software aims to make disclosing disability easier. Disclo is software for employers to “collect, verify, and manage health disclosures and employee accommodation requests”. (2022, Forbes)

Federal agencies recommend strategies to expand disability employment in state and local government. (2022, Disability Scoop)

New edited collection on Neurodiversity in the Workplace: Interests, Issues and Opportunities. “This collection provides an opportunity to look at how discrimination can occur across the employment process and what can be done to minimize the exclusionary practices that prevent neurodiverse individuals from getting into the workplace, advancing, thriving, and contributing as each of us desires to do.” The chapter on Shaping Organizational Climates to Develop and Leverage Workforce Neurodiversity is open access. (2022, Routledge)

Disability Representation on Boards Is Up, Yet Inclusion Lags. (2022, Bloomberg Law)

Making the ‘Business Case for Diversity’ Can Backfire with Underrepresented Groups by leading to a lower sense of belonging. (2022, Yale Insights)

Including Disability in Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Priorities: Building A Maturity Model (2022, AskEARN)

7 Resources for People With Disabilities to Break Into Software Engineering Careers (2022, ContainIQ)

Twenty-Two Cents an Hour a book by Doug Crandell on Disability Rights and the Fight to End Subminimum Wages (2022, Cornell University Press)

How Managers Can Support Employees With Long COVID (2022, MIT Sloan)

Unemployment Soars for New Yorkers With Disabilities as Challenges Outweigh New Opportunities. ”New technologies and an explosion of remote-work jobs hasn’t stopped the unemployment rate for New Yorkers with disabilities from jumping 10 percentage points since 2019, while funding for support groups has been slashed.” (2022, The City)

Brand activism floods 'disability awareness' holidays. But too often, it ends there as well. (2022, Business Insider)

How Employees With Disabilities Are Influencing Workplace Trends In 2022 (2022, Forbes)

The Rise In Telework During The Pandemic, An Opportunity For Accessibility And Inclusion (2022, Forbes)

Detailed report on how Economic Justice Is Disability Justice “Achieving the as-yet unrealized promises of the ADA—and finally breaking the persistent link between disability and poverty in the United States—will require applying a disability lens across the nation’s economic policymaking.” (2022, TCF) See also 7 Facts About the Economic Crisis Facing People with Disabilities in the United States.

Supporting Employees with Long COVID: A Guide for Employers (2022, EARN and JAN)

Adobe Releases Results Of Study Looking At Recruiting, Retaining, And Supporting Disabled Workers See also the adobe study results. (2021, Forbes)

U.S. Department of Labor eliminates exemption for federal contractors with disabilities to be paid less than the minimum wage (2021, Council of State Governments)

Uzbekistan

NGO Helps Pioneer Disability-Inclusive Employment “In 2021, the team launched the job-searching website IshPlus.uz. Within a year, the project successfully assisted 50 individuals with disabilities to secure employment.” (2023, Eurasia Foundation)

Barriers to disability-inclusive employment: A pilot qualitative study of disabled people's lived experiences. “The current institutional and policy framework is rooted in the Soviet legacies of disability assessment which conflates disability with the loss of working capacity.” (2022, Journal of International Development)

Zambia

Having an income reduces HIV stigma and discrimination The experience of Regina Katungu Chileshe, an entrepreneur living with HIV:

“When you have a low economic status, people generally don’t respect you. And having HIV makes it worse. Through my own experience, I have seen how having an income and running a successful business increases people’s respect and reduces HIV stigma and discrimination.” (Mar, ILO)

Back to top.

Gender Equality and Women with Disabilities

Overview

International News

BBC 100 Women 2023 among the list of inspiring and influential women are many disabled women from around the world. (2023, BBC)

Be Inclusive: learning report on including women and girls with disabilities in development and humanitarian projects. One of the lessons learned is to interrupt the assumption that participation in a project is in itself to achieve a positive outcome. (2023, Inclusive Futures)

Reaching women and girls with disabilities Practical steps and lessons learned. (2023, Inclusive Futures)

Where is a woman's place? Multimedia feature, where six women share how they’ve defied discrimination and negative attitudes to define their own place in society. (2023)

First anger, then action: why you should sign the Feminist Accessibility Protocol. (2023, Sightsavers)

Ensuring girls and women are not left behind learning series evidence brief. See also eight ways to make sure women and girls with disabilities are not left behind. (2023, LFTW)

Notions around a “Successful Woman with Disabilities”: Exploring voices of girls in Nepal, Malawi and Uganda. “Success for both girls with and without disabilities encompassed not just financial independence and accumulation of material wealth but also personal characteristics such as kindness and human connection.” (2023, Inclusive Education Initiative)

Resource guide on strengthening gender inclusion in disability rights spaces. (2023, Women Enabled)

From Beijing to the CRPD: the missing keystone. (2023, IDA)

The Feminist Accessibility Protocol: “a groundbreaking set of commitments that seek to ensure the inclusion of feminists with disabilities in gender equality spaces.” See notes on what it is, and why we need it. (2022, Women Enabled)

Laws across the world fail to consider disability and gender. A policy brief surveys legislation in 190 economies: only ten of them mention women with disabilities in both their gender equality law and disability rights law. (2022, World Bank)

A short brief from UN Women “addressing the intersection” of Gender, age, and disability. The brief focusses on older women with disabilities, which is very important to do – but I can't help but be disappointed by this brief not reflecting more deeply on how interventions on gender, age, and disability intersect. (2022, UN Women)

A Compass to Steer Our Work in Gender Transformation and Inclusion - on steps to put gender equity into practice. (2022, DRF)

Policy discussion on barriers for disability organizations, and especially women with disabilities, to be involved in discussions on gender equality. (2022, Center for Inclusive Policy)

If you stay quiet, you stay invisible Mama Cash report featuring eight profiles of feminist disability rights activism.

"The activist groups featured in this collection are doing ground-breaking work – often with relatively limited resources. Many of them depended on volunteer labour and worked from their homes before they received their first funding." (2022)

Empowering women and changing minds on CBM Germany efforts to support women with disabilities. (2022, D+C)

Asia-Pacific

Disability, Sexuality, and Gender in Asia an introduction to Asian disability activism and the experience of women and LGBTIQ people with disabilities. (Open access, 2023, Routledge)

Cameroon

Pascaline Mekati Matoko, the founder of Deaf Rights Cameroon Association, is passionate about promoting the rights and education of girls and women with disabilities. (2022, Sightsavers)

Colombia

Cultivating Autonomy Colectiva Polimorfas: ‘Donors should listen. That’s the number one thing,’ says Yoli. ‘That’s what we do ourselves – we listen to the voices of people with disabilities that may be different from ours.’ (link to pdf, 2022, Mama Cash)

Europe

Empowerment and Leadership Third EDF Manifesto on the Rights of Women and Girls with Disabilities (Mar, EDF)

Stories and voices of women and girls with disabilities winners of a photo competition. (Mar, EDF)

Intersections: a survey on experiences of LGBTI persons with disabilities in Europe. (2023, ILGA Europe)

Addressing the invisibility of women and girls with disabilities (2022, Council of Europe)

Fiji

Pride and Inclusion in the Pacific “video featuring Eve Naqio, a trans woman and deaf advocate, who is the spirited project officer for the Disability Pride Hub in Fiji.” (2023, DRF)

LGBTQI + People with Disabilities Should Not Be Left Behind “Isoa Nabainivalu from Fiji is Creating a Safe Space For Members of His Organization to Feel Comfortable About Their Sexual Orientation and Identity” (2023, Disability Justice Project)

Needs assessment on women and young people with disabilities. (2022, UNFPA)

Georgia

Exploring visions of inclusion: women’s disability activism in Georgia. (2022)

India

How Much Of A Man Is A Disabled Man? “Does patriarchy disable our ability to recognise desire?” (2023, Agents of Ishq)

Trans Persons With Disabilities Lack Enabling Social Systems and Healthcare Support: “the medical fraternity is patronising and insensitive towards their healthcare needs. It does not help that families, already struggling to cope with their disability, find it hard to come to terms with their gender identity.” (2022, BehanBox)

Women With Disabilities Have To Constantly Negotiate Between Isolation And Intrusion

“We noted in our conversations with women with disabilities that they experience social isolation and the invasion of privacy simultaneously. Their body becomes available to other people — parents, doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, groups of medical students doing the round of wards, for example.” (2022)

Kenya

Women with disability in leadership profiles of women with disabilities. (2023, Kenya Network of Women and Girls with Disabilities)

Raising the Voices of Women with Disabilities Profile of Roselyne Olewe, “a leading voice in the fight for the labour rights of persons with disabilities in Kenya.” (2023, All Africa)

Profile of Easter Achieng (2022, Inclusive Futures)

Mexico

What is the national day of women with disability? (In Spanish, 2023, Yo También)

Nepal

Feminist Visions for Disability Liberation a new Intersectional Feminist Forum and short video featuring calls of women with disabilities. (Mar, Disability Rights Fund)

Disability and Gender: Lived Experiences of Economic Hardships Faced by Women with Disabilities from Sudurpaschim Province (2022, International Journal of Social Sciences and Management)

My Lens My Reality a photovoice study on the rights of women with disabilities. I appreciated the slippers that illustrate inclusion and exclusion (p16): “The slippers symbolize there are many members in the family. Dad, mom, brother, sister who are actually going outside to work. And me, I’m inside, with my disability, I was always in my room.” (2022, SDDC)

Nigeria

I’m Changing the Status Quo For Women With Disabilities profile of Lois Auta and the Network of Women With Disabilities. “I always emphasise three types of barriers stopping women with disabilities. Attitudinal, infrastructural and institutional.” (Jan, New Telegraph)

Assessing impact of Disability Act on Nigerian women (2022, BluePrint)

Pakistan

The stigma against women with disabilities: Women with disabilities suffer from discrimination and are less likely to get married. Why? (2022, T-Magazine)

Tanzila Khan: disability rights campaigner tells young women ‘the world is yours’ (2022, the Guardian)

Rwanda

Improving gender mainstreaming efforts within organizations of persons with disabilities. (2023, African Business)

Samoa

Needs assessment of women and young people with disabilities. (2022, UNFPA)

Uganda

Leave No Woman Behind: A blog on Disability, Gender, and Employment. (2022, Disability Justice Project)

Leading the Charge a feature on Christine Oliver Dhikusooka and her work mobilizing around women with disabilities. (2022, Disability Justice Project)

United States

Book review of V. Jo Hsu's Constellating home: trans and queer Asian American rhetorics which “enfolds transnational and Black feminism, critical race, disability, queer and trans studies into its’ theoretical framework.” (2023, Disability & Society)

A federal appeals court finds that gender dysphoria is protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). (2022, CT Mirror)

Vanuatu

Needs assessment of women and young people with disabilities. (2022, UNFPA)

Yemen

Successes and Setbacks a Debrief feature on the life stories of women with disabilities. (Jan, Disability Debrief)

International Women's Day

International News

CEDAW Committee adopts General recommendation No 39 on the rights of Indigenous Women and Girls: 30 references to disability and to indigenous women and girls with disabilities. (2022, IDA)

Sightsavers joining the campaign to #BreakTheBias. (2022, Sightsavers)

CBM Australia stories from women with disabilities. (2022, CBM)

From Light for the World International: Women activists with disabilities say: "#BreakTheBias!" (2022, LFTW)

What does it take to create a space for women and girls with disabilities? content of a webinar. (2022, IDA)

Cameroon

Break the Bias: Paving the Way for Women in Healthcare features Pascaline Mekati Matoko, the founder of Deaf Rights Cameroon Association. (2022)

Europe

Gender Equality Week: outsized discrimination against women with disabilities (2022, EDF)

Mexico

Look at me, I'm also a woman demands of women with disabilities. (In Spanish, 2023, Yo También)

Women’s Disability Rights Should Not Only Exist on Paper: “demanding inclusion in services provided for women, particularly related to gender-based violence.” (2022, Human Rights Watch)

Rwanda

A journey at the intersection of gender and disability. (2023, LFTW)

Back to top.

Health

Overview

International News

Health-worker education for disability inclusion in health:

“in many settings, the competence and understanding of reasonable adjustments among health workers are inadequate to provide the same quality of care to people with disabilities as to individuals without disabilities.” (2023, The Lancet)

Report on the Assessment of National Eye Health Strategies on Inclusiveness and Health Equity for Persons with Disabilities (2023, CBM Global)

Do people with disabilities experience disparities in cancer care? A systematic review:

“Compared to people without disabilities, PwD had worse cancer outcomes, in terms of poorer survival and higher overall and cancer-specific mortality. There was also evidence that PwD received poorer quality cancer care, including lower access to state-of-the-art care or curative-intent therapies, treatment delays, undertreatment or excessively invasive treatment, worse access to in-hospital services, less specialist healthcare utilization, less access to pain medications and inadequate end-of-life quality of care.” (2023, PLoS One)

Advocacy Toolkit for Inclusive Eye Health (2023, CBM Global)

Reimagining Universal Health Coverage to Leave No One Behind. Notes from “the first-ever disability- and assistive technology-focused session at the World Health Summit”. (2023, Healthy DEvelopments)

Lack of disability data impedes health care equity. (2023, McKinsey Health Institute and Missing Billion)

IDDC reaction to the Declaration on Universal Health Coverage “A new Political Declaration on Universal Health Coverage that marks some steps forward, but demonstrates the weaknesses of global decision-making in delivering on health equity”. (2023)

What role can community health workers play in disability services in LMICs? Evidence brief. “CHWs can be utilized for education, screening and care for common disabilities and are ideally placed to reach these harder to access populations. In addition, evidence exists for effective disability service provision by CHWs for a range of tasks.” (2023, Disability Evidence Portal)

New dialogues between medical sociology and disability studies
Journal special issue (2023, Sociology of Health & Illness)

All-Inclusive Healthcare Increasing accessibility is key to ensuring that all people, including those who are blind or visually impaired, are not excluded from health services (2023, The Ophthalmologist)

How can mHealth be used to improve the health and functioning of people with disabilities? Evidence brief on healthcare provided by mobile phones. (2023, Disability Evidence Portal)

Disability is central to discrimination in health “Overlooking disability issues is not just a question of omitting one diversity marker among many. Disability brings with it a range of embodied challenges, with implications regarding functional limitations, compromised access to health care and information, and resultant health outcomes.” (2023, The Lancet)

Universal Health Coverage for All Ages An agenda for action. (2023, Age International)

WHO guideline for for meaningful engagement of people living with noncommunicable diseases, and mental health and neurological conditions. (2023, WHO)

Evidence brief on how to remove access barriers to healthcare for people with psychosocial, developmental, and neurological disabilities. (2023, Disability Evidence Portal)

The doctors selling bogus treatments to people facing blindness. (2023, BBC)

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on people with disabilities and implications for health services research. (2023, Journal of Health Services Research and Policy)

Achieving Universal Health Coverage fit for an ageing world. (2023, HelpAge)

Healthcare has to be healed Debrief feature on the impacts of health inequities and how we take revenge. (2023, Disability Debrief)

Global report on health equity for persons with disabilities. See also the press release. “Health systems should be alleviating the challenges that people with disabilities face, not adding to them.” (2022, WHO)

Reimagining health systems for a billion people with disabilities. (2022, BMZ)

Disability-Inclusive Health Care Systems: Technical Note for World Bank Task Teams. “The guide provides the rationale for disability inclusion, tips for engaging in dialogue, information and examples on disability-inclusive practices and operations, and specific guidance on integrating disability into health service programming and delivery supported by the World Bank.” (2022, World Bank)

Promoting equity in health emergencies through health systems strengthening: “Lessons learned relating to disability inclusion in the COVID-19 pandemic can inform health systems strengthening in recovery efforts, addressing underlying barriers to access and inclusion, and in turn improving preparedness for future health emergencies.” (2022, International Journal for Equity in Health)

Evidence brief on addressing intersectional stigma for people living with disability and chronic infectious diseases. (2022, Disability Evidence Portal)

World Alzheimer Report 2022 Life after diagnosis: Navigating treatment, care and support:

“A surprising number of people living with dementia indicated they had not been offered post-diagnosis support beyond the initial information provided immediately after their diagnosis. In lower-income countries, 45% indicated they had not been offered support, while 55% reported they had. In higher-income countries, although 63% reported having been offered post-diagnosis support, 37% indicated they were offered nothing” (2022, ADI)

Reimagining Health Systems that expect, accept and connect 1 billion people with disabilities. “People with disabilities have 2.4-fold higher mortality rates than those without disabilities and are missing 10 to 20 years of life expectancy.” (2022, Missing Billion)

A report on access and equity in the Future of Virtual Health and Care features discussion and practices of inclusion of persons with disabilities. (2022, Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development)

A focus on disability is necessary to achieve HIV epidemic control:

“People with disabilities often have lower levels of access and adherence to HIV treatment due to barriers with regard to the provision of services (eg, inadequate knowledge among health-care workers and inaccessibility of facilities) and the demand for services (eg, absence of autonomy and awareness of people with disabilities of HIV care needs and service availability). ” (2022, The Lancet HIV)

A selection of videos on rehabilitation from around the world shortlisted for WHO's Health For All Film Festival (2022, WHO)

Disrupting Global Health: From Allyship To Collective Liberation:

“We must understand that many disabled people across the world have experienced public health and biomedicine in violent and oppressive ways; and that that history continues to resonate today. So, we must engage meaningfully with (involve them as stakeholders) disabled people’s voices, opinions, activism, and advocacy,” (2022, Forbes)

Chronically ill face life-or-death challenges due to pandemic shortages. “Millions of chronically ill people struggle to get medical supplies amid global shortages.” (2022, Washington Post)

Lessons from Long COVID: working with patients to design better research:

"Scientific research sets the medical and care agenda for patients with chronic illnesses. It also influences the wider social and economic agenda for people living with these conditions. The more socially and economically disadvantaged people are, the greater the potential influence on their lives. This is a huge responsibility that researchers are only able to fulfil with sharp awareness of the power structures involved in conducting research, with humility and with an openness to see things from different perspectives." (2022, Nature)

Inclusive Medicine and Medical Education: Increasing the Number of Clinicians With Disabilities "Their experiences as patients position them to provide recommendations for promoting patient-centered care and reshaping healthcare systems and delivery processes to increase accessibility and improve patient outcomes." (2022, Global Public Health)

Evidence brief on what works to improve healthcare professionals’ competency on disability: “Negative healthcare professionals’ attitudes and stigma towards people with disabilities remain a major barrier in receiving equitable healthcare services. ” (2022, Disability Evidence Portal)

WHO-ITU global standard for accessibility of telehealth services: “very often telehealth platforms are not compatible with devices such as screen readers that facilitate people with vision impairment to access information, or the lack of captioning or volume control in video conferencing impedes persons who are deaf or hard of hearing to interact with health professionals virtually”. (2022, WHO)

Africa

Taking steps towards disability inclusive (sexual and reproductive) health: exploring lessons from programming in Ethiopia, Mozambique and Rwanda. One disability focal point in a health centre in Ethiopia said:

“Once we received a deaf woman who came to the center for help. We understood that she was raped and was pregnant, and as showed the test she was HIV positive. Yet, none of us could explain it to her and inform her on necessary treatment. So she left and never came again. We all remember this lady, so we are committed to learn sign language to be able to address such cases next time.” (link to pdf, 2022, See You Foundation)

Australia

‘They treat you like an it’: people with intellectual disability on seeing medical professionals. (2023, The Conversation)

Developing self-report disability questions for a voluntary patient registration form for general practice in Australia (2023, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health)

Access to general practice for people with intellectual disability in Australia: a systematic scoping review. (2022)

Hospitals only note a person's intellectual disability 20% of the time – so they don't adjust their care. “Potentially avoidable deaths (from conditions that could have been prevented through individualised care or treatment, like viral pneumonia, asthma, or diabetes) are more than twice as likely in people with intellectual disability.” (2022, the Conversation)

Bangladesh

“We bear it and accept our fate”: Gorgeous illustrations and perceptions of healthcare access from people with disabilities in Cox’s Bazar. (2022, Relief Web)

Government launch of health insurance for persons with (some?) disabilities. (2022, Asia News Network) Also on the daily star.

Brazil

The National Health Policy for People with Disabilities: An Analysis of the Content, Context and the Performance of Social Actors. “Undoubtedly, the neoliberal offensive on social policies, especially the Unified Health System, is the main obstacle to the effective implementation of the [National Health Policy for Persons with Disabilities]” (2022, Health Policy and Planning)

Canada

Dismantling systemic ableism in health research “An unheralded accessibility plan from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research is a step toward wider awareness of entrenched disability barriers.” (2023, Policy Options)

Healthcare inclusion and Indigenous people (2023, Abilities Canada)

Egypt

Opening of addiction treatment center that provides services for people with disabilities. (In Arabic, 2023, Cairo24)

Europe

Denied the right to health: persons with disabilities have more difficulty accessing healthcare. (2023, European Economic and Social Committee)

EDF position paper Recommendations on cancer screening and treatment. "Unfortunately, the mention of persons with disabilities in EU policies does not translate into concrete actions to ensure their equal access to cancer screening and care, and to address the pre-existing inequalities and factors putting them at higher risk of cancer or inadequate care." (2022, EDF)

Policy brief on disability-inclusive health systems Highlights greater risk factors in health, limited service delivery and poor health outcomes. (2021, WHO)

Finland

Young adults with severe physical disabilities Negative public health care experiences after their health care transition in Finland (2023, Alter)

Germany

Demands for more inclusion in the health and care system (In German, 2023, EU-Schwerbehinderung)

Guatemala

Healthcare Stakeholders’ Perspectives on Challenges in the Provision of Quality Primary Healthcare for People with Disabilities in Three Regions of Guatemala: A Qualitative Study:

‘What stood out in this study, however, were two sentiments expressed by healthcare providers: one, the practitioners appeared to feel the necessity for separate spaces and specially trained staff, with a particular focus on how to interact with people with disabilities; and two, the need for “empathy” in order to provide quality primary care services to people with disabilities.’ (2023, IJERPH)

How do people with disabilities make healthcare decisions? A qualitative study focusing on use of primary healthcare services in three regions. (2023)

India

Power of touch: how blind women are helping detect breast cancer in India. (2023, the Guardian)

‘Hell on earth’: India’s taboos around women’s pain leave endometriosis sufferers in agony. (2023, the Guardian)

As Covid Flares Again, India’s Disabled, Serviced By Quacks Or Not At All, Struggle To Access Healthcare and vaccinations. (2023, Article 14)

A disability-inclusive healthcare delivery system is the need of the hour (2023, Times of India)

Insurers Are Denying Health Cover For Intellectual, Developmental Disabilities. “Despite clear guidelines, insurance companies in India exclude those with intellectual and developmental disabilities from coverage”. Includes insurers denying care after the non-disclosure of conditions often unrelated to the medical need. (2023, BehanBox)

High Court rules that People with disabilities are entitled to health insurance. (2022, Times of India)

Can a Blind Doctor Become a Psychiatrist? discussion of a case that has reached the Supreme Court. (2022, The Wire)

Indonesia

Interview with Luthfi Azizatunnisa studying for her phd. (2023, Missing Billion)

Healthcare Ensured short video feature on accessing universal healthcare. (2022, Disability Justice Project)

Ireland

Ireland places disability and rehabilitation at the heart of its health system reform (2022, WHO Europe)

Jordan

Health and reproductive services are not available to women with disabilities report of a study. (In Arabic, Jan, Mena FN)

Kenya

Kenya is yet to meet the maternity needs of women with disabilities tv news report on Senate discussion of a report. (2023, KTN News)

Healthcare barriers that women with disabilities face (2023, Nation)

Latin America and the Caribbean

Access to primary healthcare services for adults with disabilities in Latin America and the Caribbean: a review and meta-synthesis of qualitative studies. (Mar, Disability and Rehabilitation)

Access to general health care among people with disabilities in Latin America and the Caribbean: a systematic review of quantitative research (Mar, The Lancet Americas)

Malawi

‘We live in fear because of our skin’: Malawians with albinism demand action to reduce cancer risk. (2023, the Guardian)

Mismanagement of public resources affecting healthcare of people with disability (2022, Malawi24)

Maldives

Disability and the achievement of Universal Health Coverage (2022, Plos One)

New Zealand

Accessibility remains an afterthought – how NZ’s digital health tools risk excluding people with disabilities. (Mar, The Conversation)

Woman wheeled herself to hospital when ambulance couldn't take her wheelchair (2022, Stuff)

Nigeria

Report on barriers to healthcare access for Deaf Nigerian Women and Girls during Emergencies. (2022, WFD)

Healthcare Services Should be Inclusive of Persons with Disabilities: Here is How. (2022, Nigeria Health Watch)

Albinism group calls for reinstatement of free skin cancer treatment. (2022, Radio Nigeria)

Norway

Balancing on a knife-edge: Experiences of older patients with acquired deafblindness when receiving existential care. "The patients can experience empowerment through the maintenance of trust and communion. However, if met with an overprotecting or neglecting attitude, older patients with acquired deafblindness can feel disempowered." (2022, Nordisk Sygeplejeforskning)

South Africa

Non-use of healthcare services among persons with mobility impairments in Cofimvaba. Challenges includes “inaccessible roads, geographic inaccessibility, financial accessibility and indirect cost of care, having little or not many health problems, physical infrastructure difficulties within facilities, and attitudinal barriers.” (2023, African Journal of Disability)

South Korea

Effects of disability-related limitations in daily living on unmet needs: a longitudinal-study. “Limitations in daily life due to disability increase the risk of having unmet [health] needs, an effect that is significantly more pronounced in men.” (Feb, BMC Public Health)

Uganda

Hospital and a home: Uganda shelters offer a lifeline to cancer patients. (2022, the Guardian)

United Kingdom

End of life care: a report “calling for urgent improvements to the process and communication surrounding do not attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation” and exploring the inequitable impact current practices have had on disabled people and older people. (Jan, Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman)

Wheelchairs and weight: 'I haven't been able to weigh myself for 22 years'. (2023, BBC)

A review of advocacy “This report covers in depth research about advocacy for people with a learning disability and autistic people who are inpatients in mental health, learning disability or autism specialist hospitals.” (2023, NDTI)

Thousands with learning disabilities trapped in hospital, some for years “because of a lack of psychological support and overly complicated treatment systems” (2023, the Guardian)

National Health Service crisis: Why are disabled people disproportionately affected? (2023, BBC)

Will the NHS Care for Me? feature by a disabled person on why people with a learning disability are more than twice as likely to die from avoidable causes than the rest of the population. (2022, BBC)

A study on avoidable mortality in children/young people with intellectual disabilities. “Children with intellectual disabilities had significantly higher rates of all-cause, avoidable, treatable and preventable mortality than their peers. The largest differences were for treatable mortality, particularly at ages 5–9 years. Interventions to improve healthcare to reduce treatable mortality should be a priority for children/young people with intellectual disabilities.” (2022, BMJ Open)

Fractured, fighting, fixed: my personal experiences in hospital as a base to reflect on why medical systems struggle with inclusion. (2022, Disability Debrief)

Recognising lived experience is essential to empowering disabled patients. (2022, BMJ)

Warning over early deaths of learning disabled: “adults with a learning disability were twice as likely to die from preventable illnesses.” (2022, BBC)

A BBC show Ellie Simmonds: A World Without Dwarfism?

“A pioneering drug is coming on the market that promises to make children with achondroplasia - Ellie’s form of dwarfism - grow closer to average height. A genetic condition, achondroplasia is the most common type of dwarfism in the UK, and the new treatment raises the question: if cutting-edge medicine can stop disability in its tracks, should we use it?” (2022, BBC)

United States

House Of Representatives Passes Bill To Ban Use Of QALYs In Federally Funded Healthcare Programs. “It’s unconscionable that a healthcare bureaucracy would so callously determine that someone’s life is worth less.” (Feb, Forbes)

Aspiring to Disability Consciousness in Health Professions Training “Future clinicians must recognize disability as an aspect of diversity, express respect for disabled patients, and demonstrate flexibility about how to care for disabled patients’ needs. These skills are currently undervalued in medical training, specifically. ” (Jan, AMA Journal of Ethics)

U.S. medical schools aren’t teaching future doctors about 7.4 million of their patients. (2023, Stat)

Why This Doctor Is Fighting for Her Patients’ Pain to Be Taken More Seriously “After her cancer diagnosis, Diana Cejas better understood ableism in the medical field. Now, she's fighting against it.” (2023, Teen Vogue)

National Institutes of Health designates people with disabilities as a population with health disparities “Designation, new research program and update to NIH mission are actions to ensure inclusion of people with disabilities.” (2023, National Institutes Of Health) See comment in the Washington Post.

Inside the Private Group Where Parents Give Ivermectin to Kids With Autism “experts have repeatedly said is designed only for large animals and is so concentrated that it can be toxic when ingested by humans.” (2023, Vice)

People With Disabilities Deserve Better Health Care. We All Do. (2023, Undark)

Why addiction should be classified as a disability. “How Treating Addiction as a Disability Could Transform Treatment” (2023, Slate)

The disability rights fight intersecting the drug pricing debate. Discussing a bill to ban use of Quality-Adjusted Life Years. (2023, Axios Pro)

National Institutes of Health advances landmark recommendations on disability inclusion and anti-ableism. (2023, Statnews)

Sickle Cell Cure Brings Mix of Anxiety and Hope (2023, New York Times)

Blind people still get medical bills they can't read. (2022, NPR)

Revenge of the gaslit patients: Now, as scientists, they’re tackling Ehlers-Danlos syndromes (2022, Stat News)

Doctors Are Failing Patients With Disabilities “Decades after the ADA passed, medical care still isn’t accessible.” (2022, The Atlantic)

Visually impaired people less likely to access health care. A study from the CDC shows that 50% of those with vision impairment reported fair or poor general health compared with 17% without vision problems. (2022, Washington Post)

‘I Am Not The Doctor For You’: important research on Physicians’ Attitudes About Caring For People With Disabilities (2022, Health Affairs) Coverage in New York Times.

Disability & Health In 10 Exhibits: Themes from Health Affairs’ October 2022 Issue. (2022, Health Affairs)

Mistreatment of physicians with disabilities is widespread, study finds. (2022, Medical Economics)

At last, medical guidelines address care for adults with Down syndrome. (2022, Washington Post)

Key groups overlooked in bias training for doctors (2022, The Boston Globe)

The autistic community is having a reckoning with Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) therapy. Includes interesting reflections on the privatization of autism services and how ‘ABA has become “the single most reliable way to make money in the human services field beyond being a physician.”’ (2022, Fortune)

Severe maternal morbidity and other perinatal complications among women with disabilities. (2022, Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology)

Committing to Health Equity for All, Including People with Disability (2022, Mathematica)

Why billions in Medicaid funds for people with disabilities are being held up (2022, NPR)

People with disabilities left behind by telemedicine and other pandemic medical innovations. (2022, CNN)

Ageism: Signs, Causes, and How to Address It (2022, Healthline)

Pregnancy among Women with Physical Disabilities: Unmet Needs and Recommendations (2022, Brandeis)

'I am a medical student with significant hearing loss. ': Here’s what the pandemic has been like for me and others with my disability (2022, AAMC)

Technical Standards from Newly Established Medical Schools: Review of Disability Inclusive Practices: "medical schools may perpetuate historically restrictive technical standards that serve as barriers to applicants with disabilities." (2022, Journal of Medical Education and Curricular Development)

Many doctors are still befuddled by accommodating people with disability (2022, Stat News)

A new book, Deaf Rhetoric “An Ecology of Health Communication” (2022, Spriner)

Program Access, Depressive Symptoms, and Medical Errors Among Resident Physicians With Disability. 'Our study establishes an association between a lack of accessibility and heightened risk for depression and self-reported medical errors during training.' (2021, JAMA Network)

An article on Ableism: Types, examples, impact, and anti-ableism. “In healthcare, ableism can affect interactions with doctors and other professionals, healthcare policies, and health outcomes. The idea that disabled people have less value or lower-quality lives contributes to damaging practices that persist today.” (2021)

Zimbabwe

A path toward disability-inclusive health in Zimbabwe Part 2: A qualitative study on the national response to COVID-19 “People with disabilities demonstrated good awareness of COVID-19 mitigation strategies, but faced difficulties accessing COVID-19 information and health services. Challenges to the implementation of COVID-19 guidelines related to a person’s functional impairment and financial ability to do so. A key supply-side constraint was the perceived de-prioritisation of rehabilitation services. Further restrictions on access to health services and rehabilitation decreased an individual’s functional ability and exacerbated pre-existing conditions.” (2022, African Journal of Disability)

A path toward disability-inclusive health in Zimbabwe

“Inclusion was facilitated by clinic staff support of people with disabilities’ access to medication through referral to mission hospitals and private clinics, and the lobbying of organisations of people with disabilities.” (2022, African Journal of Disability)

Should disability-inclusive health be a priority in low-income countries? This paper proposed four complementary arguments why it is important to focus on people with disabilities. They include a “a growing rationale that disability-inclusive health systems will work better for all“ and “that they will create cost savings“. (2022, Global Health Action)

Rehabilitation

International News

Centenary declaration from Rehabilitation International to promote “Equal Participation and Well-rounded Development of Persons with Disabilities.” Calls on the United Nations to “establish a World Disability Organization (WDO) to strengthen the coordination and advocacy for disability rights.” (2023, Rehabilitation International)

Guide for rehabilitation workforce evaluation “a suite of resources that can be applied in countries to provide information to support planning and advocacy at the national or subnational level.” (2023, WHO)

Integrating rehab and assistive technology into health systems. How can rehabilitation and health system stakeholders agree on priorities for integrating rehabilitation and AT into health systems? Shared prioritization and planning local actions. (2023, ReLAB-HS)

World Health Assembly commits to boosting global access to rehabilitation. (2023, the Guardian)

WHO board recommendation on Strengthening rehabilitation in health systems (Link to pdf, 2023, WHO)

Provision of rehabilitation for congenital conditions “We argue that the global health community must act to ensure that rehabilitation services to support functioning from birth are well established, accepted and integrated within health systems, and that disability is prioritized within child health.” (2022, Bulletin World Health Organization)

The World Rehabilitation Alliance is open to membership applications. (2022, WHO)

Factsheet on Rehabilitation through a gender lens (2021, ReLAB-HS)

Bangladesh

An assessment of disability and quality of life in people with spinal cord injury upon discharge from a rehabilitation unit. Unfortunately, post-discharge quality of life decreases and disability level increases. (2022, Spinal Cord)

Estonia

Estonia to reorganize social rehabilitation service, under the healthcare system. “According to state figures, a total of 10,688 people received social rehabilitation services in 2022, 61 percent of whom were children, at a total cost to the state of just over €16 million.” (Jan, ERR)

South Africa

A review of the framework and strategy for disability and rehabilitation services (2022, African Journal on Disability)

South Sudan

Rehabilitation centers in South Sudan restore hope for people with disabilities. (2023, Xinhua)

Food Security and Nutrition

International News

How do food insecurity, hunger, and undernutrition affect people with disabilities and how can this problem be addressed? An evidence brief. (2023, Disability Evidence Portal)

Feeding and Disability Resource Bank “A collection of resources to address feeding difficulties and disability inclusion in nutrition programs” (2022, USAID Advancing Nutrition)

Belgium

Discussion on why “Veganism isn’t ableist” (2022, Crip HumAnimal)

United Arab Emirates

Factors influencing Nutritional Needs of Children with Disabilities “The results showed ambivalence of parents and teachers on knowledge and practical skills to promote good eating habits among children with disabilities.” (Jan, DCIDJ)

United States

Why Food Sharing Is at the Heart of the Disability Justice Movement (2023, Eater)

Why the Formula Shortage Is Also a Disability Rights Issue (2022, Yes Magazine)

Back to top.

History and Memorial

Overview

International News

Disability History Resources a guide to information for the study of disability history, signposting resources from ancient history up to contemporary history. (Jan, Bodleian Libraries Oxford)

'Disability and Labour in the Twentieth Century: Historical and Comparative Perspectives' a book review:

“In the epilogue, Monika Baar explains that the ideological divide that existed between socialist Eastern European and democratic Western countries in the postwar period was less structure forming than often assumed and that the different welfare state regimes had provoked similar development trajectories on the poor employment situation for people with disabilities” (2023, H-Disability)

The Mütter and More: Why We Need to be Critical of Medical Museums as Spaces for Disability Histories. (2023, Disability Visibility Project)

Disabled people were Holocaust victims, too: they were excluded from German society and murdered by Nazi programs. (2023, The Conversation)

Moments in Disability History a timeline with highlights over the past five thousand years. (2023, Disability Social History Project)

From the wheelchair-using Black Panther to the ‘cripple suffragette’ – 10 heroes of the disabled rights movement. (2022, the Guardian)

A new book on Prosthetics and Assistive Technology in Ancient Greece and Rome. (2022, Cambridge University Press)

Reader's Block a book on the history of reading differences. (2022, Combined Academic Publishers)

Wheelchairs Through Time A visual history of the wheelchair: a look through thousands of years covering palanquins, tricycles, wheelbarrows, thrones, and much more. (2022, Wayland's Workshop)

50th Anniversary of the Independent Living Movement (2022, ENIL)

State of the Field: Disability History. An overview of many strengths of a growing field, and reflections on some of the gaps, which include:

“As impressive as disability scholarship on activism is, its lack of chronological depth obscures the full range of disabled people's political actions. Most studies focus on the last one hundred years, especially the period after the emergence of the modern DRM in the 1970s. This limits our understanding of disabled people's activism by implying that their engagement in meaningful political action is a relatively recent phenomenon, concerned primarily with the fight for disability rights. Yet, disabled people have a longer and richer history of activism than this. From factory reform to women's suffrage, they have fought for many causes, often taking up prominent roles in the process.” (2022, History)

Book review of Disease and Disability in Medieval and Early Modern Art and Literature (2022, H-Disability)

Global Stamp Issues a book exploring postage stamps marking the United Nations International Year of Disabled People, 1981. (2022, Digital Disability) See a write up and samples on Disability Arts Online.

Review of Hearing Happiness: Deafness Cures in History “a spell-binding book of research and stories” (2022, H-Disability)

Australia

Remembering Stella Young a statue of Stella in her hometown, Stawell. “I am not a snowflake. I am not a sweet, infantilising symbol of fragility and life. I am a strong, fierce, flawed adult woman. I plan to remain that way, in life and in death.” (2023, Northern Grampians Shire Council)

Remembering Stella Young a webpage dedicated to her life and memory. (2023)

Brazil

Persons with Disabilities and the Quota legislation from 1960 to 2020. A huge personal archive from Romeu Sassaki. (In Portuguese, 2023, Sociedade Inclusiva)

Romeu Sassaki died at 84 years old a vital figure working on inclusion in Brazil. (Links in Portuguese, 2022) See also an online meeting with tributes.

Bulgaria

In Memoriam: Vanya Pandieva “Vanya was one of the pioneers of the independent living movement in Bulgaria.” (2023, ENIL)

Memorial to Kapka Panayotova – a great Independent Living activist (2021, Disability Defenders Network Newsletter)

Canada

Steven Estey: A fierce advocate and champion for disability rights, who “left an unparalleled mark on the course of human rights progress both domestically and globally.” (2023, Canadian Human Rights Commission) See also obituary on Arbor Memorial.

Former lieutenant-governor of Ontario David Onley dies at 72. “Onley, who used a motorized scooter after having polio as a child, was the first visibly disabled person to hold the position when appointed in 2007.” (2023, The Star)

China

Maoism and mental illness: psychiatric institutionalization during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. (2022, History of Psychiatry)

Egypt

Recognising inequality: ableism in Egyptological approaches to disability and bodily differences (2023, World Archaeology)

How ancient history resists our stereotypes Debrief discussion of Tutankhamun and disability in ancient Egypt. (2023, Disability Debrief)

Sheikh Rafaat: A Genius in Meaning-Based Recitation of Quran. One of the blind men among the brilliant qaris of Egypt (people who recite the Quran). (2022, International Quran News Agency)

Sheikh Imam: Voice of Dissent Profile on a blind oud player his music and politics from the 60s-80s and how they resonate through history and the Middle East today. (2022, KC Network)

Europe

Review of 'Disabled Clerics in the Late Middle Ages: Un/suitable for Divine Service?' ‘In theory, to be an ordained priest, a man had to be deemed physically and mentally “perfect,” but in practice the attraction and retention of suitable people meant that what today we might call “reasonable adjustments” had to be made to allow some of these men to hold office.’ (2023, H-Disability)

Disabled Clerics in the Late Middle Ages Un/suitable for Divine Service? “The petitions received and the letters sent by the Papal Chancery during the Late Middle Ages attest to the recognition of disability at the highest levels of the medieval Church.” (2023, Amsterdam University Press)

We mourn the loss of Jolijn Santegoeds, disability activist and voice for people with psychosocial disabilities. (2023, EDF) Also from Mental Health Europe.

A book review of an interdisciplinary account of deaf history in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. (2022, H-Disability)

Fiji

Deepest condolences to the family and colleagues of Angeline Chand (Mar, Disability Rights Fund)

France

A series on disability and collective mobilizatons: a demonstration by young blind people in 1939, by the old and unwell in 1963, deaf people in 1993 and a blockage by Handi-social in 2018. (In French, 2023, Balises)

An Early Medieval Prosthetic Hand and what it might show us about violence, community and care. (2022, History Workshop)

Germany

Book review of 'What Kind of Island in What Kind of Sea' a collection of photographs of people with cognitive disabilities starting in 1980. (2023, H-Disability)

Uncovering a life deemed “unworthy of life”. “Why the Story of Hans Heinrich Festersen—Gay, Disabled, and Murdered by the Nazis—Matters” (2022, Zocalo Public Square)

Haiti

Google Doodle Celebrating Mama Cax Haitian American model and disability rights advocate. (2023, Google) See more about her (Yahoo! News).

Iceland

Discussion of a research and community project that took Multidisciplinary Approaches to Disability from late 9th to early 20th Century:

“The project provides representation of people who lived with physical, mental, and/or sensory differences across Iceland’s history not simply as a homogenous group defined by one common experience but as individuals with their own unique lives and stories. Responsible historical disability representation affects both society as a whole and disability communities, with the latter having a valuable opportunity to see their experiences reflected in the past.” (2022, Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research)

Ireland

A tribute to Selina Bonnie from ILMI “As a professional, academic and activist, Selina has been actively involved in the practical realisation of disabled people’s rights in Ireland and beyond.” (Jan, ILMI)

Maeve McCormack Nolan obituary: Celebrated artist and disability advocate. (2022, Irish Times)

Italy

Book review of 'Disability and Tourism in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Italy' (2023, H-Disability)

Japan

New film honors life and legacy of disability pioneer Mark Bookman “The American-born Bookman, who was a full-time Tokyo resident, passed away in December 2022 at 31 years of age, shortly after the filming of the documentary took place.” (Feb, The Japan Times)

Postwar Disability History of Japan key moments in the legislation of disability. (2023, Wei Yu Wayne Tan)

Shinya Tateiwa, Sociologist who Researched People with Disabilities Dies, Aged 62. (2023, Barrier Free Japan) See some of his articles on Arsvi.

Blind in Early Modern Japan: Disability, Medicine, and Identity a review of a book studying blindness in Japan from 1600 to 1868, including attention on a unique “guild” that created a social category of blind people:

“Tan reveals a dynamic environment in which some men were drawn in to the activities and influence of the guild (which continually attempted to assert its authority through innovative means, such as the making of “model” blind people and “ideal” behaviours, when membership numbers began to decline and new professions, such as acupuncture and massage, began to overtake Heike music as the dominant vocation), and the ways in which other men, and in many instances women who were excluded from the guild on account of their gender, developed their own groups that provided much-needed kinship-style support.” (2023, LSE)

Jordan

Park in honour of disability activist Aya Agabi inaugurated in Abdali.

Kenya

Rest in Power Hon. Godliver Omondi, Former Senator and sitting Member of the County Assembly. (2023, Kenya Network of Women and Girls with Disabilities)

Malaysia

Disabled activist Anthony Thanasayan passes away aged 63. (2023, The Star) Also celebrated on the Debrief.

Mexico

Review of 'Bedlam in the New World: A Mexican Madhouse in the Age of Enlightenment' “a social and micro-history of the Hospital de San Hipólito, the first hospital established in the Western Hemisphere to specialize in the care of those encountering mental disorders and madness.” (2023, H-Disability)

Netherlands

Shifting terminology and confusing representations An examination of intellectual disability terminology in Dutch newspapers from 1950 to 2020 (2023, Alter)

New Zealand

Why doesn’t every New Zealander know about Eve Rimmer? “She had a glittering international sports career and became a brave advocate for paraplegic rights, but Eve Rimmer is still largely unknown to the country she represented.” (2022, The Spinoff)

Nigeria

Demise of Danlami Bashir “Danlami will be remembered as one of the great leaders of the disability movement in Africa and in his country of Nigeria, where he was promoting the rights of people with disabilities, especially focusing on blind and deaf communities.” (2023, IDA)

Palestine

Ahmed Yassin was a quadriplegic refugee who ran a charity. How did he end up founding Hamas? (2023, ABC News)

Poland

Polish Senator and Disability Rights Defender Marek Plura passed away. (2023, EDF)

Russia

A book review of The Broken Years: Russia's Disabled War Veterans, 1904-1921. The book argues that the rights of disabled people as a minority were born out of the 1917 February revolution. (2022, H-Net)

Sierra Leone

Recaptive number 11,407: Poet Raymond Antrobus traces the lost story of a deaf man freed from slavery. (2022, BBC)

Sweden

Why did Sweden sterilise up to 30,000 people against their will? ‘Sweden set up a eugenics plan, grounded in the science of racial biology, between 1934 and 1976. “They wanted to get rid of a certain type of people: The weaker ones”.’ (2023, Euronews)

United Kingdom

Review of 'Out of His Mind: Masculinity and Mental Illness in Victorian Britain' (Apr, H-Disability)

Book review of Literature and Intellectual Disability in Early Modern England: Folly, Law and Medicine, 1500–1640. (2023, H-Disability)

Disability Histories items in the National Museums of Scotland collection (2023, National Museums Scotland)

In loving memory of Alan Benson MBE. “Alan’s work has had a lasting impact not only on transport accessibility, but the entire disabled community.” (2023, Transport for All)

Rachel Heller obituary Artist whose vivid works were lauded by the likes of David Hockney and Maggi Hambling (2023, the Guardian)

Clare Gray, 1969-2023 “Clare was hugely well regarded for her advocacy work and involvement in the Disability Power 100 [...] it is accepted across the disability community and beyond that Clare was one of the most influential disabled advocates campaigning in the UK in the last decade.” (2023, Shaw Trust)

Lame Captains and Left-Handed Admirals Amputee Officers in Nelson's Navy (2023, University of Virginia Press) See also this discussion on New Books Network (no transcript).

Slow Workers: Labelling and Labouring in Britain, c. 1909–1955

“Intellectually disabled people adopted precarious strategies of ‘getting by’ and while they commonly experienced low wages, could also sustain degrees of community inclusion at the margins of the economy.” (2023, Social History of Medicine)

Tracing Disabled Children’s Lives in 19th-Century Scotland through Public and Institutional Records. (2023, Genealogy)

Lois Keith obituary “Writer, teacher and disability rights campaigner who challenged the barriers facing disabled women” (2023, the Guardian)

In his time, Benjamin Lay may have been the most radical person on the planet. ‘Benjamin Lay’s dwarf body shaped his radicalism. For someone “not much above four feet” tall, life was a struggle to be considered equal, even to be taken seriously in many situations. Benjamin had to fight.’ (2023, Verso)

Everywhere and Nowhere short film “spotlights 10 fascinating stories, objects and sites with connections to histories of disability from the National Trust’s buildings and landscapes, and collections and historical records.” (2023, University of Leicester Research Centre)

Disabled people’s activism on exhibition at the People's History Museum (2022, Disability Arts Online)

Ebooks of Paul Hunt's writings. “Paul Hunt was one of the founders of the Disabled People's Movement in Britain, and one of the first activists to argue for the social model of disability.” (2022, GMCDP)

A review of Beholding Disability in Renaissance England a book which argues that “by focusing on disability in Renaissance texts we can collapse barriers between us and the past, while at the same time gain new perspectives on both historical and contemporary perceptions of the disabled body.” (2022, H-Disability)

Book review of Those They Called Idiots: The Idea of the Disabled Mind from 1700 to the Present Day. “The conflation of race and intelligence is vividly documented in this volume. The long and complex history of ideas that have bound these concepts together helps us understand today’s deeply institutionalized racism as well as the entrenched we/they ableism of our educational and social service institutions.” (2022, Disability Studies Community)

Book review of Shakespeare and Disability Studies, a book which argues that a disability studies view should not focus just on disabled characters but rather ‘theater as a “social phenomenon” in which both disabled and nondisabled bodyminds engage with one another and the text.’ (2022, Disability Studies Community)

Dr Peter Scott-Morgan dies: Tributes to world's first 'cyborg' ‘And when I say “Cyborg”, I don’t just mean any old cyborg, you understand, but by far the most advanced human cybernetic organism ever created in 13.8 billion years.’ (2022, Metro.co.uk)

The Jewish Deaf Association launch new website: Jewish Deaf History (London) discussion of the history and website. (2022, Limping Chicken)

‘The lady without legs or arms’: how an artist shattered Victorian ideas about disability. (2022, the Guardian)

The 1921 census is a snapshot of a post-war Britain where disability suddenly became visible: "Poignant, defiant notes by men living with war wounds show the roots of the ongoing fight for disability rights taking hold". (2022, Inews)

United States

Review of 'Miriam Hearing Sister: A Memoir' the family of two deaf sisters before, during and after the second world war. (Mar, H-Disability)

Paul Alexander, polio survivor in iron lung for over 70 years, dies at 78 (Mar, NBC News)

Brooke Ellison, Prominent Disability Rights Advocate, Is Dead at 45 “Author, professor and powerful voice for disabled people.” (Feb, New York Times)

Disability History “Interpreting disability history is one way historians and their communities, public or academic, can practice access and inclusion.” (Jan, The Inclusive Historian's Handbook)

Mark Bookman: We Miss Knowing That You're There (2023, The Datekeepers)

Ady Barkan, Health Care Activist Spurred by His Illness, Dies at 39

‘“That’s the paradox of my situation,” he told The New York Times in 2019. “As my voice has gotten weaker, more people have heard my message. As I lost the ability to walk, more people have followed in my footsteps.”’ (2023, New York Times)

How Civil War Veterans Transformed Disability an online exhibit. (2023, Emerging America) See a discussion on the Debrief.

Book review of Disability Dialogues Advocacy, Science, and Prestige in Postwar Clinical Professions. (2023, H-Disability)

How deaf education has changed in Minnesota over 160 years (2023, MPR News)

Book review of The Mark of Slavery Disability, Race, and Gender in Antebellum America. “The Mark of Slavery is an important development for histories of slavery and disability, importantly using analysis of gender to foreground disability in the history of slavery.” (2023, H-Net)

Gouverneur Morris, writer of Constitution’s ‘We the People,’ was disabled (2023, Washington Post)

$2.3m grant will fund Denver monument to historic disability rights protest “The Mile High City will create a new monument to a 1978 protest that was a landmark for the disability rights movement” (2023, The Art Newspaper)

Juneteenth and the legacy of disabled Black slaves “Finding firsthand accounts of disabled, enslaved African Americans proves to be a daunting task, but it is evident that many were unable to leave forced labor camps after the Civil War ended and remained within the institution of slavery (or its rebranding, sharecropping).” (2023, AWN)

Don Triplett, the first person diagnosed with autism, dead at 89. (2023, WLBT)

After 504: Training the Citizen-Enforcers of Disability Rights
| Disability Studies Quarterly (2023, Disabilities Studies Quarterly)

The long history of staring in the disability community personal and illustrated exploration. (2023, Washington Post)

37 years and over 100 arrests: Longtime disability rights icon Anita Cameron is retiring from protests. (2023, the 19th)

Meet Zona Roberts: The grandmother of the disability movement turns 103. (2023, University of California)

Book review of 'Public Hostage, Public Ransom: Ending Institutional America' an autobiography by William Bronston. (2023, H-Disability)

Google Doodle Spotlights Kitty O'Neil, Deaf Stuntwoman and Daredevil, on her 77th birthday. (2023, CNET)

Book review of 'Money, Marriage, and Madness: The Life of Anna Ott' “Swiss immigrant Anna Barbara Blaser Miesse Ott (1819-93) became a woman of means and a practicing doctor, only to spend her last two decades in the Wisconsin State Hospital for the Insane.” (2023, H-Disability)

Deaf Printers Pages “preserves the last of many generations of Deaf people who learned printing in school and worked at local and national newspapers around the country. From the 1970s-2000 more than 125 Deaf people found employment at The Washington Post.” (2023)

‘Disability is not a tragedy’: the remarkable life of activist and rebel Hale Zukas. “Born in an era when disabled people were routinely institutionalized, Zukas fought for – and won – access to transportation and better urban design”. (2023, the Guardian)

'Revolutionary': Remembering John Boyer a pioneer for the deaf and blind in computer science. “He foresaw very, very early that the use of computers was a way for people with disabilities, who are vastly underrepresented in the job force, to be able to work,” (2023, Wisconsin State Journal)

Mary Pinotti Kaessinger “Revolutionary, disability justice and rights fighter, labor organizer – Rest in power!” (2023, Workers World)

An Accessible City For All: History of Disability Rights in New York:

“In 1935, a small group of activists calling themselves the League for the Physically Handicapped staged a “death watch” at the Works Progress Administration offices in Manhattan. Their demand was New Deal jobs for New Yorkers with disabilities–which they won.” (2023, Museum of the City of New York)

The Curious Case of Carson McCullers: Appropriation, Allyship, and the Problem of Speaking for Others. (2023, Disability Studies Quarterly)

Disability Dialogues a book on the “Advocacy, Science, and Prestige in Postwar Clinical Professions” (2022, Johns Hopkins University Press)

How should we reckon with history’s uncomfortable truths about disability? “My research found that eugenics, a theory popular from the late nineteenth century until World War II, had an early but profound influence on educational policy that lingers to this day in the rationale for, and funding of, educational provisions for students with disability.” (2022, Monash)

Landmark disability rights figure Lois Curtis dies. (2022, NPR) See more about her legacy on 19th News.

Disability Culture So Far: “A Movement in Milestones” – highlights from disability arts. (2022, Art in America)

Carl Croneberg, Explorer of Deaf Culture, Dies at 92. Croneberg “helped write the first comprehensive dictionary of American Sign Language and was the first to outline the idea of Deaf culture as a distinct part of society and one worth studying”. (2022, New York Times)

The upsetting online market for historic asylum patient records. “These files contained details such as physicians’ notes on diagnoses, test results, and therapy notes, in addition to accounts of violent treatments like electrotherapy and hydrotherapy” (2022, Slate)

A new book: Work Requirements: Race, Disability and the Print Culture of Social Welfare: “yoking the project of social welfare to the consolidation of a work society and powerfully revealing their shared entanglement in racialized fantasies about the ‘able’ body.” (2022, Duke University Press)

The Untold Origins of the Black & Blind Musician (Video feature, 2022, PBS Origins)

Life at a Distance: Archiving Disability Cultures of Remote Participation. “Autistic self-advocacy, for instance, famously emerged in the 1990s from internet discussion boards, which allowed autistic adults to connect and form communities without having to socialize in person (Sinclair 2010). Even earlier, in the 1940s and 50s, institutionalized disabled people used technologies such as sending quilt patches to their families (as forms of storytelling), while disabled people living at home with families shared tips and tricks in print newsletters for making houses more accessible” (2022, Just Tech)

Inside the Pentagon’s shameful effort to draft mentally disabled men to fight in Vietnam (2022, Task & Purpose)

Google Doodle Honors Disability Rights Activist Stacey Park Milbern (2022, CNET)

Crip/Mad Archive Dances: Arts-Based Methods in and out of the Archive (2022, Theatre)

The Helen Keller Exorcism. Brilliant rollercoaster-ride of an episode, remembering Helen Keller and her myths today. (complete with transcript, 2022, Radiolab) See also a feature on Helen Keller's Legacy (Teen Vogue).

Disabled Ancestry Should Be Embraced With Pride (2022, NYT)

Harriet Tubman’s Disability and Why it Matters (2022, Ms Magazine)

The letter that Helen Keller wrote after she visited the Empire State Building.

“I will concede that my guides saw a thousand things that escaped me from the top of the Empire Building, but I am not envious. For imagination creates distances and horizons that reach to the end of the world. It is as easy for the mind to think in stars as in cobble-stones.” (2022, Letters of Note)

Darby Penney, Who Crusaded for Better Psychiatric Care, Dies at 68 (2021, NYT)

Neil Marcus, Whose Art Illuminated Disability, Dies at 67 See more about Neil in the introduction and the last newsletter. (2021, NYT)

Zimbabwe

Henry Maysa an advocate for rights of disabled people, passed away. (2023, Temba Mliswa)

Remembering Judy Heumann

International News

Heumann nature: a short video on the life and legacy of disability rights activist Judy Heumann (2023, Ford Foundation)

Judy Heumann Mentored the Next Generation of Disability Advocates. (2023, New Mobility)

The World Mourns the Passing of Judy Heumann (2023, Judy Heumann)

Honoring Judy Heumann’s Legacy a tribute from Michael Ashley Stein:

‘Ultimately and thoroughly, Judy was a teacher. Completely fearless, she eagerly approached anyone at any time whenever she spied a “teachable moment.” Judy would speed up to them in her power wheelchair and insist, “Excuse me, can we talk for a minute?” What followed was invariably a polite, concise, but direct lesson on how that individual could alter their behavior to be more equitable, if not disability-empowering, in similar circumstances in the future.’ (2023, Harvard Law Review)

Disability rights activist Judy Heumann dies at 75. A rich tribute and obituary by Joseph Shapiro. (2023, NPR)

Our movement is in mourning. On the Debrief: remembering Judy Heumann, and how she changed us. (2023, Disability Debrief)

Unafraid, unbowed, and unapologetic: The life and legacy of Judy Heumann. “This is how Judy changed the world: Person by person, from the corridors of New York City’s public schools to the streets of Berkeley to the halls of power around the globe.” (2023, Ford Foundation)

Remembering Judy Heumann tributes and memories. (2023, Women Enabled International)

Judy Heumann obituary: Disability rights activist who helped shape global protocols and played a decisive role in fighting discrimination in the US. (2023, the Guardian)

Human Rights Watch Mourns Loss of Judy Heumann. (2023, Human Rights Watch)

Obituary: Judy Heumann, Who Led the Fight for Disability Rights, Dies at 75 (2023, New York Times)

Brazil

World loses Judy Heumann (In Portuguese, 2023, Jornalismo Diário PcD)

Canada

Montrealers honour disability rights activist with 'Judy Promenade' It was the first of three 'Judy Promenades' this summer in the city. (2023, CBC)

United Kingdom

Samantha Renke on how Judith Heumann was, and is, my role model. (2023, Metro.co.uk)

United States

The Impact of Judy Heumann’s Legacy Within the Disability Community (2023, Women Enabled International)

"Lift Me Up" A Tribute to Judy Heumann (2023, Lachi Music)

Remembering Judy Heumann: tributes from those that knew her, introduced by Jim LeBrecht. (2023, International Documentary Association)

Remembering the mother of the disability rights movement. An interview with Sandy Ho. (2023, Slate)

Statements of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on the Passing of Judy Heumann. “Judy Heumann was a trailblazer – a rolling warrior – for disability rights in America.” (2023, The White House)

What the next generation of disability activists can learn from Judy Heumann. (2023, WBUR)

Judy Heumann’s life is a testament and a reminder personal tribute by Rebecca Cokley. (2023, CNN)

Because she made a fuss, Judy Heumann made everyone's life better segment from Rachel Maddox. (2023, MSNBC)

Obituary: Judy Heumann, disability rights activist, dies at age 75. (2023, AP News)

Super Heumann: Steve Way on the legacy of the late, great disability activist Judy Heumann. “Thank you for giving me so many opportunities to have the life that I choose for myself.” (2023, Steve Way's Substack)

“All Voices Matter” Remembering Judy Heumann with tributes from Communication FIRST. (2023, Communication First)

Judy Heumann: The Legacy of Leadership. “It is often said that true leaders don’t build followers, they build more leaders.” (2023, U.S. Department of Labor Blog)

Memories of Judy Heumann, my Oldest Friend. “Although she is a fantastic communicator, Judy didn’t always warn people about what she volunteered them to do.” (2023, Helen: The Journal of Human Exceptionality)

Back to top.

Humanitarian, Migrants and Refugees

Overview

International News

Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Anticipatory Action a report on findings and lessons learned. “It emphasizes the critical need for inclusive practices to protect and empower persons with disabilities before, during, and after disasters.” (Mar, CBM)

Technical Support and Capacity Development of Humanitarian Actors linked to Protection Clusters, a good practices paper. (Mar, Global Protection Cluster)

Disability equity within humanitarian preparedness, response and recovery “This briefing paper explores the context around disability inclusion in different elements of humanitarian action and provides recommendations and case studies of CBM Australia’s programming” (2023, CBM Australia)

Checklist to Ensure the Meaningful Engagement of Young Persons with Disabilities in Humanitarian Action (2023, UNFPA)

People with disabilities must be included in humanitarian action interview with Karen Alexander (2023, CBM Australia)

Humanitarian emergencies and situations of risk for women and girls and gender diverse persons with disabilities. (2023, Women Enabled International)

Free E-learning Course on Disability-Inclusive Humanitarian Action for Humanitarians. (2023, HI)

Profile of Aleema Shivji her work in humanitarian response and inclusion of persons with disabilities. (2023, The New Humanitarian)

Crisis response for refugee children with disability: New book published. (2023, ENIL)

Guidance note Qualitative Assessment Approaches for the Protection of Children with Disabilities Within Humanitarian Contexts. (2023, Alliance CHPA)

IDA-UNHCR Strategic Collaboration in 2022: Key Steps Towards Inclusion and Participation. (2023, IDA)

Included, Every Step of the Way Upholding the rights of migrant and displaced children with disabilities. (2023, UNICEF)

People with Disabilities in Humanitarian Emergencies and Situations of Risk a policy submission to the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. (2023, Human Rights Watch)

Key principles and recommendations for inclusive cash and voucher assistance (2023, Calp Network)

Exploring the intersectionality of International Refugee Protection and the 2006 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. “This paper highlights the multitude of barriers persons with disabilities experience in obtaining refugee protection.” (2023, IDA)

A review of evidence on disability inclusive Early Childhood Development and Education in Humanitarian Settings. (2023, Institute of Development Studies)

Disability and Inclusion Survey by IOM of IDP sites in Montepuez (2023, Relief Web)

Disability-Inclusive Humanitarian Action Toolkit Operational guidance on including children with disabilities in humanitarian response (2023, UNICEF)

Advancing disability-inclusive action on internal displacement. “This report represents a first step toward addressing the paucity of data on IDPs with disabilities.” (2022, IDMC)

Disability and Older Age Inclusion in Humanitarian Action: Innovation Catalogue. See also notes on its launching. (2022, elrha)

IASC Guidance, Addressing Suicide in Humanitarian Settings. (2022, IASC)

Discussion on inclusion of persons with disabilities in humanitarian affairs with Ricardo Pla of UNHCHR, on Ukraine and beyond. (In Spanish, 2022, En Marcha)

A scoping review of research on adolescents with disabilities’ experiences of COVID-19 and other humanitarian emergencies in low- and middle-income countries. (2022, Global Health Action)

Disabled refugee students included and visible in education. Case studies of challenges and opportunities in Uganda, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. (2022, Disabled Refugees Included)

Around the world, refugees with disabilities face an uphill battle (2022, Equal Times)

Inclusion and exclusion in humanitarian action: findings from a three-year study. A call to treat inclusion more holistically. Important reflections on a ”fragmentation of approaches”, and how it creates a siloed approach:

“In many cases, inclusion is still understood in categorical terms, focusing on specific groups of people or categories of need, such as gender, people with disabilities, people with diverse SOGIESC, religious and ethnic minorities, and beyond. This has a number of implications for how inclusion is operationalised in practice. First, seeing inclusion largely as a proliferation of different categories all requiring their own specific approaches has led to a sense of being overwhelmed and being asked to do too many things at once [... Also] it can have the unintended effect of creating hierarchies between different marginalised or vulnerable groups in terms of what or who gets prioritised. [.. . ] Breaking things down into categories can reduce inclusion to a question of ‘marketability’ in terms of what gets funded, with ‘women and girls’ competing with ‘older people’ [...] Absent altogether from these hierarchies are axes of inclusion that do not fall neatly into categories because they are not always identity-based or easily visible – such as race, social class or stigmatised occupations. In general, these aspects tend to lack the same kinds of communities of expertise and advocacy that have forcefully pushed for greater sensitivity to other aspects of inclusion over the years at both the global and response levels.” (2022, ODI)

Under the Radar: Surviving Wars With a Disability:

“I was like a double-burden to my mom. The pressure was so much that one day, she decided to get rid of me.” She threw him into a shallow body of water and was ready to move on. But Mauot’s sisters refused to leave him behind. They picked him up as he cried, until their mother relented.” (2022, Pass Blue)

UNHCR 2021 report on Age, Gender and Diversity Accountability “2021 marked an important turning point in UNHCR’s work on persons with disabilities.”:

“Enhanced reporting by operations allowed UNHCR to better capture the support provided to persons with disabilities. Cumulatively, UNHCR operations supported 479,815 persons with disabilities worldwide, including at least 7,615 children.” (2022, UNHCR)

Humanitarian Networks and Partnerships Week Resources about Inclusion (2022, HNPW)

IDMC 2022 Global Report on Internal Displacement includes a spotlight on displaced children with disabilities and promising practices. (2022)

More disasters, less inclusion: will transformation start in Bali? Calls from IDA for the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction to empower persons with disabilities. (2022, PR Web)

Statement Adopted by the Thematic Group on Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Action for the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction. (2022, IDA)

People with disabilities face 10-40% higher costs does Cash and Voucher Assistance account for this? “The way transfer values are calculated for people with disabilities must change” (2022, Calp Network)

All Under One Roof: disability-inclusive shelter and settlements in emergencies. Technical guidance for inclusion to improve on how “post disaster shelter and settlement responses are invariably designed to provide standardised solutions to an affected community”. (2022, Global Shelter Cluster)

Introductory video to the IASC Guidelines on inclusive humanitarian has been translated into Arabic, Bangla, French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swahili, Ukrainian and Russian. (2022, EDF)

"No One is Spared" Report on Older People at Heightened Risk in Conflict. Including disturbing examples of violence. (2022, Human Rights Watch)

International Rescue Committee UK: Step by step – our work to become inclusive. (2022, EDF)

Perhaps familiar to some of you, but this month I learned that physical rehabilitation centres are one of the ways that humanitarian impact bonds are being used. The idea of the impact bond is that you pay for results and they might be a means to secure different sources of funding. (2022, Government Outcomes Lab)

An overall view on Aid policy trends to watch in 2022 Diversifying aid, its staff and its workplaces are one of the key themes to explore this year. The article puts this under the "decolonisation agenda" but there are many examples where genuine gains in diversity and inclusion are made without touching colonial dynamics. (2022, The New Humanitarian)

CBM's Humanitarian Hands on Tool is now available in more languages including Ukrainian. (2022, CBM)

UNHCR's Approach to Forcibly Displaced and Stateless Persons with Disabilities. Most of this brief describes the organization's approach to disability inclusion in general. (2022, UNHCR)

Report on the role of Cash and Voucher Assistance in Increasing Equity and Inclusion for Girls and Children with Disabilities in Education in Emergencies. Report speaks to how this assistance “primarily addresses” the demand-side barriers to education in emergencies. (2022, SDC and others)

Training Package on Strengthening Protection of Persons with Disabilities in Forced Displacement (2022, UNHCR)

Good to see these six reflections on Cash and Voucher Assistance in 2021 that shows the place of disability-inclusive cash assistance in a "patchy" shift to putting people at the centre of work. (2021, CALP Network)

December Newsletter from the Reference Group on Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Humanitarian Action (2021, IDA)

Afghanistan

Taliban Takeover 1 year on: The situation is worse than ever and people with disabilities are the hardest hit. See more on the HI Kandahar Rehabilitation Centre. (2022, Humanity and Inclusion)

Cash assistance is a lifeline for older people: “many older people in Afghanistan have faced illness, disability, trauma and displacement from their homes, all of which can be barriers to accessing paid work and humanitarian support.” (2022, DEC)

Afghanistan Earthquake Response Overlooks People with Disabilities (2022, Human Rights Watch)

Humanitarian Crisis And Neglect In Afghanistan Puts People With Disabilities At Risk (2022, the OWP)

Multi-sectoral needs assessments of Households with Disability “A significant proportion of households headed by a person with disability experience life-threatening circumstances and are in need of urgent life-saving humanitarian assistance to survive.” (2022, Save the Children)

Helping the disabled in Afghanistan: rehab and assistive technology in centres staffed by people with physical disabilities (2021, ICRC)

Africa

Workshop on Including Displaced Persons with Disabilities Workshop for African OPDs (2022, IDA)

Asia-Pacific

Inclusive Participation of Persons with Disabilities in Emergency Preparedness and Response Practice Guide. (Mar, WFP)

Organizations of persons with disabilities engaging in Humanitarian Action reflections from Bangladesh, Indonesia and Nepal. (2022, CBM Global)

Australia

Small changes could bridge communication and cultural gaps for people from refugee backgrounds who need disability support. (2022, the Conversation)

The association between chronic pain and pre-and-post migration experiences in resettled humanitarian refugee women residing in Australia. “Chronic pain was reported in 45% (n = 139) of women, and among these a further 66% (n = 120) also reported having a long-term disability or health condition that had lasted 12 months.” (2022, BMC Public Health)

Bangladesh

‘Life is meaningless’: despair in Cox’s Bazar as chronic illness blights camps. (Mar, the Guardian)

Our lessons: A report on AHP III on a disability inclusion journey in the Rohingya crisis. “Substantial progress was seen in the development of Self-Help Groups and the increase in accessible services and uptake of the Washington Group Questions.” (2023, CBM Australia)

Work to include Rohingya Refugees with disabilities in humanitarian response. (Short video, 2023, AHP III Bangladesh Consortium)

Short video of Tagari's Story from Cox’s Bazar. (2023, CBM UK)

Threadbare disability support faces uncertain future in Bangladesh refugee camps. “The limited support available to Rohingya refugees with disabilities in the country’s sprawling camps is at risk as humanitarian budgets face cuts.” (2022, UNHCR)

5 Years After The Genocide: Rohingya refugees’ needs are higher than ever. Report calls for international actors to pay more attention to needs of persons with disabilities. (2022, MedGlobal)

Providing a dignified life for refugee children with disabilities. “In the Rohingya refugee camp, an accessible latrine is making a difference in Irfan’s life” (2022, UNICEF)

The Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar visited the facilities at Bhasan Char island, where Rohingya refugees are to be relocated:

“Structures, including residential housing, appear well constructed and are considerably stronger and more durable than those in Cox’s Bazar. Unfortunately, accessibility for persons with disabilities was clearly not factored into the planning and construction process.” (2022, OHCHR)

Tip sheet on inclusion in the Rohingya Refugee Response (2022, Relief Web)

East Africa

Gap Analysis on Disability Inclusive Humanitarian Action in Eastern Africa “While some organisations are making efforts to include the inclusion of persons with disabilities in their programming, challenges remain, such as a lack of inclusion of the insights of persons with disabilities, insufficient disaggregation of data and inadequate budget allocation.” (2023, CBM UK)

Urgent action needed to stop famine and the annihilation of pastoralism in the Horn of Africa, older people warn (devastating testimonies). (2022, HelpAge)

Webinar on Who Eats Last? The impact of Food Insecurity on People with Disabilities in the Horn of Africa. (2022, IDA CRPD Forum)

Egypt

42,300 Sudanese refugees in Egypt: “Local teams note that between 20 and 25% of the refugees are persons with disabilities.” (2023, Relief Web)

Ethiopia

The state of disability inclusion in refugee and IDP settings a report on the extent disability inclusion is mainstreamed in humanitarian response. (2023, UNHCR)

Humanitarian cash transfers “changing the lives of persons with disabilities affected by emergencies” (2023, UNICEF)

Empowering Dreams supporting children with disabilities affected by conflict. (2023, UNICEF)

Scaling up humanitarian support for children with disabilities and their families. “UNICEF is expanding programming in IDP camps to provide services and support for children with disabilities and their families.” (2023, UNICEF)

A rapid review of Disability inclusion for refugees in Ethiopia: an urgent need. One refugee from Jewi Camp, Gambella, said:

“The refugee camp is in rural area with harsh weather condition…It is extremely humid…. sitting on wheelchair for long time burned my back. It is very difficult to move around using wheelchair. In addition, the physical environment is not straight and flat to easily move round using wheelchair. I am sometimes trapped in ditches.” (2022, Research and Evidence Facility)

Europe

EDF calls for inclusive and participatory response to humanitarian crises. (2023, EDF)

We have a duty to promote disability inclusive refugee responses to achieve the highest attainable standard of health in the European region. (2023, The BMJ)

Refugees in Europe Need Mental Health Support (2022, Human Rights Watch)

France

Afghan Evacuees Need Mental Health Support (2022, Human Rights Watch)

Germany

Blind Syrian granted asylum, is allowed to stay in Germany (2022, InfoMigrants)

Haiti

It’s Time to Recognize the Leadership of Persons with Disabilities for Inclusive Humanitarian Response. (2022, DRF)

Iraq

Fact sheet on Accessible documents for persons with vision impairments and persons with low vision in Iraq. (2022, IOM)

Italy

How a photo of a Syrian father and son led to a new life in Italy (photo shows father and son both with physical disabilities) (2022, the Guardian)

Jordan

Jordan’s sole refuge for people with disabilities risk closure as COVID-19 dries up donations (2022, Global Voices)

Kenya

Supporting people with disabilities affected by the Kenya food crisis. (2022, QAV Global)

Profile of Racheal Njiru and her work as a project manager at Kakuma refugee camp. (2022, Inclusive Futures)

Stories from the Kenya Drought see also the second and third stories. (2022, CBM UK)

Libya

Sudanese refugee with disabled son: 'UNHCR Libya does not answer my calls'. After a journey through Chad and Egypt they faced imprisonment in Libya and are searching for assistance. (2022, InfoMigrants)

Madagascar

Crisis in Madagascar worsens following massive storms (2022, CBM Australia)

Mozambique

Addressing the needs of children with disabilities affected by emergencies. (2023, UNICEF)

IOM Disability and Inclusion Survey (2023, IOM)

Cyclone recovery brings civil society and local government together to build inclusive society. (2022, UNICEF)

Nagorno-Karabakh territory

Joint statement on the blockade of the Lachin Corridor, Nagorno-Karabakh (2023, IDA)

Nigeria

Stories of being disabled and displaced from Sokoto and Zamfara. (2022, ICIR Nigeria)

Pakistan

Afghan refugee removes obstacles barring kids with disabilities from school The Afgahn Refugee Disabled Union provides wheelchairs to help kids get to school. (2022, UNHCHR)

Philippines

Super Typhoon Rai leaves widespread destruction (2021, CBM Global)

The Humanitarian Needs and Priorities identified after Super Typhoon Rai includes mentions of persons with disabilities. (2021, Relief Web)

Somalia

Exclusive humanitarianism: Policy recommendations for genuine inclusion of persons with disabilities in humanitarian action. (2022, International Review of the Red Cross)

Study from IOM on disability inclusion in Internally Displaced People sites in Kismayo. Among other barriers:

"Access to information remains a critical barrier preventing persons with disabilities from accessing services within the IDP site and broader community. Door-to-door or shelter-level information engagement is recommended for all organizations providing support in IDP sites to ensure greater service knowledge of persons with disabilities" (2022, Relief Web)

South Sudan

Towards a Disability-Inclusive Humanitarian Response in South Sudan? See also the full version. While “tangible progress is being made”, “serious gaps and challenges to disability inclusion remain”:

“Humanitarian organizations still do not recognize the diversity of disability and lack strategies to include persons with intellectual and psychosocial impairments. Moreover, persons with disabilities rarely participate in the project design phase and seldom contribute to programme development due to persisting attitudinal, environmental and institutional barriers.” (links to pdfs, 2022, IFHV)

Sudan

As hundreds of thousands flee Sudan, inclusion must be prioritised. Refugees fleeing to South Sudan. (2023, Light for the World)

Syria

Home Modification Project Brings Hope to Palestine Refugees with Disabilities. (2023, UNRWA)

Children with Disabilities Left Unprotected report on the impact of armed conflict. “Most of the children included in this report were born just before or as the war started in 2011 and have not known a time without conflict, displacement, or difficulties in getting the services they need to grow and thrive.” And much as the international community spends billions in humanitarian response, people with disabilities “face systematic challenges in accessing humanitarian services on an equal basis with others.” (2022, Human Rights Watch)

North-West Syria Protection Analysis Update June 2022 gives a disability prevalence of 32%, increasing to 39% for displaced persons. (link to pdf, 2022, Protection Sector)

Saeed’s smile: ‘Disability should never be a reason for exclusion’, and a description of a partnership with Sesame Street. (2022, IRC)

Türkiye

Meet The 6 Disability-Led Organizations Responding To The Needs of People with Disabilities in Türkiye and Syria (2023, Gadra)

Türkiye and Syria 3/17/2023 Update: “In the weeks since the earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria, government agencies have not made resources available to meet the needs of disabled survivors, and there are no policies that directly address their disability and accessibility related needs and support their inclusion throughout response, recovery, and reconstruction.” (2023, WID)

In Solidarity with Women, Girls, and Gender Minorities with Disabilities in Turkey and Syria. Context and call for “women and gender-diverse people with disabilities are included in response efforts”. (2023, Women Enabled)

Iran amputee football team players dead in Turkey quake. (2023, Tehran Times)

Disability Inclusion Task Team (DITT) Tips on disability-inclusive emergency response (Earthquake) (2023, UNHCR)

Violent earthquakes kill thousands in Turkey, Syria. (2023)

Protection & Education Needs of Refugees with Disabilities in Southeast Turkey. “Given the often complex needs of children with a disability, access to information about public services was cited by families as being of particular importance.” (2022, Sened)

Turkish man sparks outrage for kicking 70-year-old Syrian refugee woman in the head (2022, Stockholm Center for Freedom)

Protection Needs of Refugees with Disabilities Only one of the 300 research participants had a job; 9% had part-time work. (2022, Relief Web)

Uganda

Uganda eases registration for elderly, disabled Sudanese refugees “Instead, they can now register in Kampala, easing access to essential services.” (Mar, Sudan Tribune)

United States

Refugees with Disabilities Struggle to Join the Workforce (2022, Chicago Monitor)

Yemen

Dire situation for people with disabilities. An alarming report: 81% of those surveyed could not reach or use humanitarian services. Of the 300 local organizations providing disability services before the war, “only a fraction remain, with extremely limited capacity and resources”. One person interviewed said that:

“we simply cannot escape when explosions or armed clashes take place. This is a fear of every Yemeni, yet our limitations prevent us from being able to quickly get away from such hostile situations. It is a constant fear persons with disabilities in Yemen live with, and it’s holding us back from being able to do many things such as looking for sources of income.” (2022, Humanity & Inclusion)

Migration

International News

Empowering Disabled Refugees: Mustafa Rifat's experiences navigating the refugee resettlement process as a disabled refugee, and his concrete recommendations for resettlement agencies, disability services organizations, (2023, Down to the Struts)

A Scoping Review of Needs and Barriers to Achieving A Livable Life among Refugees with Disabilities: Implications for Future Research, Practice, and Policy. (2022, Journal of Evidence-Based Social Work)

For Many Disabled People, a Battle to Stay in Australia or New Zealand (2022, New York Times)

Crossing the Border: How Disability Civil Rights Protections are “powerful tools for ensuring that disabled asylum-seekers have access to the protection and services they need in the U.S. immigration system.” (2022, American Progress)

Data on disability and migration – what do we know? estimates of 12 million displaced persons around the world being disabled, and emerging practices on data. (2022, Data 4 SDGs)

Migration data portal: Disability and human mobility (2022, Migration Data Portal)

Disability-inclusive data in migration: How far have we come? (2022, Migration Data Portal)

Argentina

A study shows violence faced by women migrants with disabilities: eight out of ten report facing violence or harassment. (In Spanish, 2023, CTA)

Australia

A migration review could close some disability discrimination loopholes A review of the threshold which is “used to refuse visas if an applicant or their child has a health condition or disability likely to incur “a significant cost to the Australian community” to treat or support.” (2023, The Conversation)

Calls for changes to migration laws as families shown the door due to high medical costs. (2023, ABC News)

Perth family facing deportation as son's Down syndrome diagnosis deemed taxpayer burden. (2023, ABC News)

Cairns family facing deportation “After living in Australia for more than a decade, a Korean couple is facing deportation because their son, who was born here, has autism.” (2022, 9 News)

Bangladeshi refugee describes 'humiliating' treatment because of disability while detained on Nauru. (2022, SBS News)

Migrants with disability are discriminated against with 'impossible' health requirements, advocacy groups say. “We're working with a young man who came to Australia as an asylum seeker and had a stroke. The federal government supports him to live in a nursing home, but they won’t allow him access to the National Disability Insurance Scheme to receive the support he needs to live a good life in the community.” (2022, SBS News)

Canada

Migration has always been a disability justice issue. (2022, Briarpatch)

Germany

Concern over rights to naturalization for migrants with disabilities “The amount of money one needs to have in their bank account to prove self-sufficiency will be raised, which could serve as a barrier to people with disabilities who receive social benefits.” (2023, Infomigrants)

Italy

Disability, Rehabilitation, and Assistive Technologies for Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Italy: Policies and Challenges. “The lack of a standardized vulnerability assessment represents the main barrier to the organization of specific services for migrants within the community.” (2023, Societies)

Mexico

Women with disabilities: the other face of migration. (2023, Yo También)

New Zealand

Calls to scrap discriminatory immigration health requirements (2023, Stuff)

Why does NZ make it so hard for disabled people to move here? By the Debrief's own Áine Kelly-Costello. “We need Aotearoa's disability communities to rally behind scrapping eugenic migration rules.” (2023, D*List)

'Inhumane': The Government policy that deports disabled children (2022, 1 News)

Time to scrap ableist migration rules down under The Debrief's own Áine Kelly-Costello arguing for fair migration rules. (2022, Overland)

New Zealand denies entry to autistic daughter of immigrant couple. “Rules do not allow people to move to New Zealand if they would impose a high cost to the health system”. (2022, the Guardian)

Girl, 12, denied residency because her autism does not meet 'acceptable standards of health'. (2022, Sky)

Government won't review 'discriminatory' immigration policy towards disabled people. (2022, Stuff)

Immigration policy discriminates against disabled “It’s become commonplace to read news stories about people with disabilities who have been denied New Zealand residency and face deportation.” (2022, Stuff)

Panama

In deadly Darién Gap, pregnant women and disabled people are increasingly vulnerable. (2023, Doctors without Borders)

South Africa

A group evicts more than 200 people from a privately owned derelict building “which has been home to over 400 occupants — mostly migrants. Many are people living with disabilities and are wheelchair [users], while others are visually impaired.” (2022, Daily Maverick)

Sweden

Sarah’s Journey an animated video of Sarah's story, “a 37-year-old disabled Syrian female refugee with a secondary education who had to flee her country of origin in 2015”. (Feb, Newcomers with disabilities)

In Search of Links: Overview of the State of Research on Disability, Migration, Employment and Health. (Jan, Independent Living Institute)

Taiwan

Disability inclusion petition launched for foreign residents in Taiwan. “Petition calls on health ministry to enable foreign permanent residents to qualify for disability certificate” (2023, Taiwan News) Government mulls over how to respond. (Focus Taiwan)

United Arab Emirates

Migrant Workers Bear The Brunt Of UAE's Extreme Heat. (2023, Human Rights Watch)

United Kingdom

London Council Breaches Human Rights Law After Subjecting Disabled Asylum Seeker to Degrading Treatment. “The bedroom was too small for him to store and use his disability-related equipment. The bathroom was inaccessible and did not have adapted toilet/shower facilities. The lack of space for him to mobilise using equipment meant he was bedbound.” (Feb, Byline Times)

See Britain’s hidden shame “Leaving disabled asylum seekers to rot in an old care home is not an aberration – it is the system working exactly as intended” (2023, the Guardian)

Disabled man in fourth week of hunger strike over ‘inhuman’ Home Office facility. “The Home Office has so far refused to take any action over the case of Basam Huzyene, originally from Jordan, who has diabetes and a serious heart condition.” (2023, Disability News Service)

Concerns raised over living conditions for family of asylum seekers from Sudan living with two disabled children in one room at Belfast hotel. (2023, The Irish News)

UK Turns its Back on Asylum Seekers with Disabilities “More than 50 asylum seekers, most of whom have disabilities, are being warehoused in a former care home in Essex, England, without access to adequate support and services.” (2023, Human Rights Watch)

Asylum seekers with disabilities ‘abandoned’ in former Essex care home. One advocate described this as “putting them in a dustbin and putting the lid on. But what they need is help. What is going on is unpardonable”. (2023, the Guardian)

Vulnerable asylum seekers 'prisoners in their own homes' after fleeing war zones. “Many claim they have been placed in unsuitable properties that are littered with tripping hazards and have broken lifts.” (2023, Mirror)

Jamaicans with disabilities facing ‘unjust’ deportation from UK. “Most of the Jamaicans facing deportation next week on a government flight live with a disability or health problem and came to Britain as children” (2022, Independent)

Non-verbal black teenager who has never left UK detained at immigration centre. “Boy who went missing from hospital arrested and held at Gatwick facility after being wrongly recorded as Nigerian” (2022, the Guardian)

A Mural on Disability and Migration bringing together the disabled movement and asylum sector. (Youtube, 2021, Disability Murals)

United States

Migrants with disabilities struggle to access the U.S. asylum system “The CBP One phone app, which most migrants use to begin the U.S. asylum process, isn’t accessible to those who are blind, deaf, have mobility issues, or have intellectual disabilities, according to a complaint.” (Mar, Texas Tribune)

Representing asylum seekers with disabilities relevant law. (2023, Human Rights First)

Immigrants with Disabilities Face Barriers in Immigration Court “as they navigate deportation proceedings in U.S. immigration courts, where they must gather and submit evidence, testify, and present their case, often without a lawyer.” (2023, Human Rights First)

Venezuelan family seeks asylum at border with baby and disabled daughter to escape cartel. (2023, WOAI)

U.S. removes Trump-era barriers to citizenship-test waivers for disabled immigrants (2022, NPR)

Back to top.

Independent Living and Deinstitutionalization

Overview

International News

Towards Dignity and Autonomy a report on personal assistance policies across nine countries. (Mar, ENIL and ILO)

Good practices of support systems enabling community inclusion of persons with disabilities (2023, OHCHR)

Care and support is about human rights reflections on the International Day of Care and Support. (2023, OHCHR)

“Support” as “care”. a response to the OHCHR report on support systems for community inclusion of persons with disabilities:

“we express our concerns here, that this report A/HRC/52/52 does not fulfil the noble mandate of the OHCHR, is not compliant with the CRPD nor does it advance our advocacy on community inclusion” (Link to pdf, 2023, TCI Global)

How do we look after each other? On the Debrief: rethinking care systems with policy and personal experience (2023, Disability Debrief)

Report on the support systems to ensure community inclusion

“The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated discussions on care systems; such discussions recognize the need to transform traditional care models so that they protect equally the rights of those receiving and providing care. [This report] highlights the human right of persons with disabilities to be included in the community within the current global developments on care, addressing in this context the specific support needs of persons with disabilities for community inclusion” (2023, OHCHR)

See also extracts and key points from the report (Inclusion Europe).

Guidelines on deinstitutionalization, UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities guidance to governments to realize independent living and deinstitutionalization. (2022, OHCHR) See also:

• Discussion of escaping institutions and their shadows (Disability Debrief)
• Commentary and explanatory video (IDA)

A discussion paper on the Disability Support Gap: Community support systems for persons with disabilities in low- and middle-income countries (Link to PDF, 2022, CIP)

A report on CBM's work on Community Based Inclusive Development (2022, CBM)

Australia

The disability paradox:

“I could go around all day with a support worker and be safe and supported. And I could continually scout ahead to locate the limited places that are accessible and go only there. But I don’t want to be confined to my own little lifeboat. I want my community to be open to all and inclusive. I want to get bogged at a beach in my wheelchair and know people will help. I want to push into a crowded, heaving mosh pit and join the other dancers.” (2023, the Guardian)

The number of reports of unauthorised restrictive practices to the NDIS is up five-fold in three years, to 1.4 million. (2023, ABC News)

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bosnia and Herzegovina Should Stop Institutionalizing People with Disabilities Changing Perceptions and Ensuring Support Services in Communities. (2023, Human Rights Watch)

China

‘They fell through the cracks’: how can Hong Kong better help mentally disabled people and their carers? Parents, experts want wider safety net for high-risk residents (2023)

Ethiopia

Family quality of life and children with disability: The role of support providers. “Ethiopian families of children with disabilities need holistic support that incorporates spirituality, the whole family’s needs and disability awareness-raising. Collaborative and committed engagement from all stakeholders is necessary to support Ethiopian families to flourish.” (2023, African Journal of Disability)

Europe

A Day in the Life of a Personal Assistant User video feature. (2023, European Network on Independent Living)

ENIL’s position on the new UN Resolution for the International Day for Care and Support: “we regret that the Resolution focuses on those providing support, rather than the people receiving it.” (2023, ENIL)

Disabled people and the right to personal assistance Coming EU guidance on independent living should not squander the chance to improve the lives of millions of disabled people. (2023, Social Europe)

Launch of ENILs´ proposal to the Commission: Guidance on Independent Living. (2023, ENIL)

Role of the European Union in deinstitutionalisation and independent living. (2023, Inclusion Europe)

Digest in plain English of a Special Issue on Independent Living in Europe and Beyond: Past, Present and Future. (2023, IJDSJ)

On Our Terms a podcast on independent living and disability activism, hosted by the Debrief's own Áine Kelly-Costello. (2022, European Network on Independent Living)

Does the European Care Strategy care about disability? “The council recommendation on long-term care needs first of all to recognise disability support as a topic distinct from care.” (2022, Social Europe)

Deinstitutionalising disabled people: making it happen. “Notably absent from the EU countries with a deinstitutionalisation strategy is the entirety of south-west Europe. None of the most populated EU member states—France, Italy, Spain and Germany—has adopted such a document.” (2022, Social Europe)

Deinstitutionalisation, disability and delay “After a decade of inertia, the EU has made little progress on the deinstitutionalisation of disabled people.” (2022, Social Europe)

Roadmap for user centered funding for long-term care and support. (2022, UNIC Project)

A Call for Change Role of the European Union funding in supporting deinstitutionalisation around the world. "The EU is in a particularly strong position to promote deinstitutionalisation reforms during the process of EU enlargement. " (2022, EDF)

Inclusion Europe's 2022 Campaign is to End Segregation.

“The situation of people with disabilities more generally has improved over time. However, this is not true for all people and more limited for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, who are more likely to be living in segregated or congregated settings and less likely to be experiencing real inclusion.” (2022, Inclusion Europe)

France

Debate over closure of establishments for disabled people has stalled. “Emmanuel Macron recently advocated "deinstitutionalization", while emptying the term of its meaning.” (In French, 2023, Libération) See discussion on the Debrief.

Georgia

Georgian court orders government to provide assistant to person with disabilities. (2022, OC Media)

Greece

The availability, accessibility, and quality of support services for older persons with disabilities: the formal and informal care services are “not clearly addressing the needs and special characteristics of older persons with disabilities” (2022, EASPD)

Hungary

We need good support to live independently - Report about a self-advocacy conference in Hungary. (2023, Inclusion Europe)

I am the director of my own 'institution': the seasonal appeal by Validity shows their own work and “depicts István’s transition to living independently with the support of people he trusts” (2022, Validity)

India

Considered a backup. On the Debrief: a feature on the overlooked power of disabled care. (2023, Disability Debrief)

Ireland

Concern over future safeguarding incidents at disability services raised in Donegal review (2022, The Irish Times)

Japan

Freeing Disabled People from institutions in Japan: conversation with Misako Yasuhara. (2023, ENIL)

Inside Japan’s long experiment in automating eldercare. “A growing body of evidence is finding that robots tend to end up creating more work for caregivers.” (2023, MIT Technology Review)

Netherlands

As Cases Soar, ‘Dementia Villages’ Look Like the Future of Home Care “A new generation of treatment facilities is aiming to integrate dementia patients with the communities around them, blurring lines between home and hospital.” (2023)

New Zealand

The joy of disabled mutual care “the ways that disabled people care for each other, from families to couples to community as a whole.” (2023, D*List)

Pakistan

Detailed article on care and the situation of persons with disabilities. (2022, Dawn)

Poland

We are talking to you: “The procedure for granting the right to a carer's benefit sounds more like a description of persecution than an example of supporting citizens in a difficult situation. [...] Contact with social workers and center directors is like traveling back in time at least 30 years ago.” (In Polish, translation by Google, 2023, Krytyka)

Romania

"Now I support others to get out of institutions" speech from Elisabeta Moldovan, gut-wrenching episodes from her time in institution herself, and how she is changing things. (2022, Inclusion Europe)

South Africa

‘People don’t understand what we go through!’: Caregiver views on South Africa’s care dependency grant. (2023, African Journal of Disability)

Challenges of caregivers providing care to children with disabilities at non-governmental organisations in Tshwane townships. (2022, African Journal on Disability)

South Korea

A column reflecting on deinstitutionalization and the leading politician from the government party who said that “deinstitutionalization is a matter of choice.” (2022, Hankyoreh)

Spain

Strategic framework for deinstitutionalization. (In Spanish, 2023, Government of Spain) See also some critique of it from the Foro de Vida Independiente y Divertad.

Thailand

Have Thailand’s Personal Assistance Services for Persons with Disabilities Evolved?

“Personal Assistant services introduced by the Thai Independent Living movement were incorporated into the law, but implementation was largely managed and delivered by government offices responsible for charitable modes of care, with an emphasis on volunteering.” (Jan, DCIDJ)

Ukraine

Best practice in deinstitutionalisation for children and young people with disabilities and high support needs. A project in one institution. (Feb, EDF)

United Kingdom

Civil society response to Bristol City Council’s draft disability policy (Feb, Doughty Street Chambers)

Watch "See Me" by MiXiT. A celebration of inclusion. (2023, Social Care Future)

The Lonely Reality of Avoiding Being Alone.

“As someone who requires skilled support 24 hours a day I’m never really on my own – but if I am it’s because I’ve failed. Failed, that is, to meet my most basic need, the continuous presence of someone who can keep me safe. [... In the last six months] I’ve cried because of care related arguments or relationship strain 30 times – including today.” (2023, Tourettes hero)

On independent living, the focus of policy should be the destination.

“The problem with ‘deinstitutionalisation’ as a goal is that it elevates a departure point over a destination and process over outcome. The destination and outcome isn’t disabled people not living in what we class as being ‘institutional care’, it is disabled people living independently & being included in the community on an equal basis with others.” (2023, Making Rights Make Sense)

Sussex disabled man breaks silence after being imprisoned and kept in 'squalor' by wife for years. (2023, ITV News Meridian)

The Disability Serviceland Song “a song about control, power and self-determination. Staring Ellie Goldstein.” (2022, Open Future Learning)

Brother, do you love me? The cry for help that sparked a care-home rescue mission. (2022, the Guardian)

Disabled People trapped waiting years for vital home adaptations (2022, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism)

Great video on how support workers can enable a social life (2022, Open Future Learning)

A new book, open access, Deprivation of Liberty in the Shadows of the Institution on how restrictive practices from institutions continued as services were provided in the community. (2022, Bristol University Press)

My Freedom A retrospective on the 10th anniversary of abuse reported at residential facility Winterbourne View. "My freedom means I go to bed when I want." (2022, Bemix)

United States

No Place Like Home: People with Disabilities' Fight to Stay Out of Institutions (Video report, Mar, CBS News)

Florida kept disabled kids in institutions. A judge is sending them home. “The ruling could have sweeping implications for thousands of disabled people across the country who rely on state-provided home health-care services” (2023, Washington Post)

How electronic visit verification discriminates against disabled Americans. “The Vast Surveillance Network That Traps Thousands of Disabled Medicaid Recipients” (2023, Slate)

After ‘losing my life’ caring for a sick partner, a professor examines the U.S. caregiver crisis. (2023, Stat News)

Alice Wong on What I've learned being reliant on a caregiver: “My well-being is tied to the well-being of the people who care for me.”:

“Care is not a checklist of tasks and responsibilities. Care is a shared value and actions operating in a larger political context within a hypercapitalist, racist, ableist society that devalues certain types of labor and bodies. Conversations by policy experts and advocates about the caregiving crisis can be too abstract, and any meaningful structural and cultural change must acknowledge the tensions, human toll, material consequences, complexities and nuances about care from the people who provide and rely on it.” (2023, CNN)

Why Nursing Home Reform Is Finally Coming (2022, Next Avenue)

Medicaid's Money Follows the Person has allowed over 90,000 people with disabilities and seniors to move out of nursing homes and back into their communities. But Congress still won’t make the funding permanent. (2022, 19th News)

Profit, Pain and Private Equity: ‘BrightSpring Health Services, which KKR bought in 2019, says it helps thousands of people with disabilities “live their best lives.”’:

‘But a yearlong BuzzFeed News investigation found that KKR focused on expanding the business even as a crisis mounted in its group home division, where conditions grew so dire that nurses and caretakers quit in droves, a state prohibited the company from accepting new residents, and some of the most vulnerable people in its care suffered and died.’ (2022, Buzzfeed News)

The Care Crisis Isn’t What You Think "When it comes to disability, we devalue care (both caregiving and paid care work) because we devalue the people who need it." (2022, Prospect)

Conditions in Institutions

International News

Deinstitutionalization as Reparative Justice: A Commentary on the Guidelines on Deinstitutionalization, including in Emergencies (Mar, Laws)

Joint Position on Large Foster Care

‘“Large” foster care, where large numbers of unrelated children are placed in one household, must not be considered a form of “family-based” care and is not acceptable as a component of state policy.’ (Mar, Global Coalition on Deinstitutionalization)

Over 450,000 children institutionalized across Europe, Central Asia. A UNICEF investigation “reveals that children with disabilities account for up to 87 per cent of those in care, where data is available.” (Jan, UN)

Redressing the harms of segregation and institutionalisation. Linda Steele and Gerard Quinn in conversation:

“Institutionalization continues to shape the present because we have policies and laws that replicate many of the dynamics of institutions. There might not be big buildings, but we have group homes. Which are smaller residential settings where people with disability continue to be congregated and segregated from the community, continue to have little choice in the supports they receive in their daily activities. They might not have a lot of privacy. They might not be able to choose who they live with. And they're also exposed to... Violence in those settings as well. We also have laws such as laws that allows sterilization and sub minimum wages and restrictive practices and forced mental health treatment. And many of the practices that happened in the big buildings in the institutions still carry on in the community as well.” (2023, Disability Dialogues)

Feeding practices of children within institution-based care: A retrospective analysis of surveillance data. “Feeding difficulties are common among children living in institution-based care (IBC), particularly but not exclusively among those children with disabilities.” (2022, Maternal & Child Nutrition)

Australia

Listening to People with Intellectual Disability about Institutions “This article provides a model of inclusive research for turning the harms of past institutionalisation into an educational and reparative experience.” (2023, International Journal of Disability and Social Justice)

People with disabilities in group homes are suffering shocking abuse. New housing models could prevent harm. “This latest report shows 17,000 Australians living in group homes are too frequently subjected to sexual misconduct, coercion, serious injury, abuse and neglect.” (2023, The Conversation) See also the lack of independent monitoring of group homes (The Guardian).

Damning aged care audit reveals abuse and neglect of residents across the country. (2022, the Guardian)

Sites of conscience redressing disability institutional violence (2022, Incarceration)

Victorian government seizes control of supported care homes over abuse, ‘uninhabitable conditions’ (2022, SMH)

Austria

Going in the wrong direction, “In Carinthia, despite all human rights recommendations, a new residential facility for disabled children is currently being built” (2023, ENIL)

Disability organisations accuse Austria of misuse of EU rural funds in plans to build a residential facility for children with disabilities. (2022, Euractiv)

How did people in institutions fare during the corona pandemic? Short animated video comparing independent living solutions to the confinement in institutions. (Youtube, in German with English subtitles, 2021, Unabhängiger Monitoringausschuss)

Bulgaria

Joint statement: Stop funding institutions in Bulgaria! (2023, EDF)

Canada

Why there is so much happiness in this long-term care home that doubles as a Grade 6 classroom. (2022, CBC)

Making the invisible visible: an interview with Megan Linton about the harms of the institutional system, COVID-19, and disability justice. (2022, Canadian Dimension)

Discussion of and key points on Sheltered Workshops and Sub-Minimum Wage Labour 'Workers on average work more than 2 years in sheltered workshops, despite their label of “training programs”.' (2022, Invisible Institutions)

Warehousing disabled people in long-term care homes needs to stop. Instead, nationalize home care. (2022, the Conversation)

Invisible Institutions Podcast “a new documentary podcast exploring the past and present of institutions for people labelled with intellectual and developmental disabilities” (2022, Invisible Institutions)

Czechia

Deaths and abuse of people with severe intellectual disabilities and autism in Czechia. “37-years old woman with intellectual disabilities was killed by a staff member of a “care” institution in Czechia”. (2022, Inclusion Europe)

From hospitals back to life An in-depth feature on pyschiatric institutions. "I've been in the hospital since I was eighteen. I'm eighty-one now." (in Czech but google translate seems to make sense, 2022, iROZHLAS)

Denmark

Denmark apologizes for abuse of people with disabilities “The Danish government has apologized to thousands of people with disabilities who were abused in state-run facilities. The ill-treatment took place over decades and left deep emotional and physical scars.” (2023, DW)

Europe

Cases of state aid being spent on institutions. “State aid is a field for which the EU has strong regulatory and enforcement competences but so far does not take into account the rights of disabled people when investigating individual measures. ” (Jan, ENIL)

The role of state aid in the maintenance of institutions for disabled people A case study on Germany and Portugal (Link to pdf, 2023, ENIL)

Why does Europe keep funding institutions and what can be done about it? (2023, EDF)

Hungary

Court rules Hungarian state authorities responsible “for multiple, grave violations of the rights of 220 adults and children with disabilities detained in the notorious Topház Social Care Home.” (Feb, Validity Foundation)

India

End Lifelong Warehousing of People with Disabilities “Authorities in the Delhi government should act on recommendations of the governing board of a shelter for people with disabilities to end the lifelong institutionalization of its nearly 1,000 residents” (Jan, Human Rights Watch)

Indonesia

‘Not To Be Feared’ Reports from one of Indonesia's last remaining leprosy settlements. (2022, Disability Justice Project)

Ireland

Regulator warned disability services provider over ‘unsafe environment’ in residential homes. (2022, Irish Times)

Ireland is tarnished by its use of prisons to house the unwanted and mentally ill (2022, The Journal)

Moldova

Institutionalised neglect and psychiatric placement for mildly disabled child in State care illustrates systemic discrimination:

“The Court found in particular that the existing Moldovan legal framework fell short of the State’s duty (“positive obligation”) to establish and apply effectively a system providing protection to intellectually disabled persons in general, and to children without parental care in particular, against serious breaches of their integrity.” (Mar, European Court of Human Rights)

Netherlands

Inspectorate sees staggering conditions in an institutional setting with abuse of clients. (In Dutch, 2023, NOS)

New Zealand

The horrors of Kimberley “For over 50 years, the Kimberley Centre in Levin billed itself as a home away from home for hundreds of vulnerable New Zealanders. Behind the facade was a site of unspeakable abuse.” (2023, The Spinoff)

‘There was no respect or effort to recognise me for who I was’:

“Artist and dancer Lusi Faiva was two when, diagnosed with cerebral palsy, she was taken to live in an institution for people with intellectual disabilities. She spent five years at the Kimberley Centre, experiencing neglect, terrible loneliness, alienation from her Sāmoan heritage and a sense of entrapment which has inspired a lifetime of seeking expression and freedom.” (2023, The Spinoff)

Complaints laid after woman found in own faeces, weighing 35kg at a residential care home. (2022, NZ Herald)

Abuse in Care: “Men raped disabled children, paid staff for access”. Testimonies from a commission of inquiry into institutional care. Further coverage at: 'a prison with no bars' and 'you can't walk away from this'. (2022, Stuff) Also on NZ Herald: 'hellhole, worse than prison'

Chief Ombudsman scathing of environment at Wakari Hospital ward "We're mixing in this facility – not just patients who are mentally ill and need caring for – but we’re mixing them with those who come from a different forensic stream who have been involved in criminal offending and who are there for a very different reason; it’s not safe." (2022, 1 News)

He Purapura Ora, he Māra Tipu. A report on survivors of abuse in care, their efforts to restore their lives and hold governments to account. (2021, Abuse in Care Inquiry)

Poland

Horror Behind Closed Doors of Polish Residential Institution. “Women and Girls with Intellectual Disabilities Beaten, Tied, and Locked in Caged Bed” (2022, Human Rights Watch)

Romania

Romania horrified by inhumane abuse in care centres for disabled “an investigation revealed that a well-established criminal network involving state officials and private individuals ran “Nazi camps-style” care centres for disabled people who were left to starve without food or care.” (2023, Euractiv)

Regarding abuses in institutions for disabled people in Romania a statement from the European Network on Independent Living. “This is the result of a continued refusal by the Romanian Government to move away from institutional care and develop services that will allow children, disabled and older people to live in their own homes in the community, with adequate independent living support.” (2023, ENIL)

South Africa

Provincial funding for many Gauteng care homes have been slashed. “Thousands of frail and vulnerable people, some with disabilities, others elderly or orphaned, may have to spend the winter on the streets as the nonprofit organisations (NPO) that have cared for them can no longer do so.” (2023, The Citizen)

South Korea

Grave concern on recent claims in Korea that institutions for disabled people in Europe are models of good practice. (2023, ENIL)

Spain

Faeces on the face and ice water baths the torture of young people with disabilities in a residence in La Palma, and a director of the residence imprisoned. (In Spanish, 2023, SER)

A fire in a care home for disabled people killled one person and injured ten more. (2023, RTVE)

United Kingdom

Inside the "barbaric" mental health units holding autistic adults and children. “Nearly 2,000 adults and hundreds of children with learning disabilities or autism are being held in mental health units, with an average stay of more than five years, despite repeated abuse scandals.” (2023, Politics Home)

Learning-disabled and autistic people are being neglected and tortured. “Across the UK, revelations of institutional abuse keep mounting up, yet people are still being denied basic respect” (2023, the Guardian)

The shameful legacy of the Lennox Castle hospital Scotland's largest institutiono for people with learning disabilities, which closed 20 years ago. (2022, BBC)

United States

Algorithms guide senior home staffing. “The nation’s largest assisted-living chain uses a staffing algorithm; some managers say they quit or were fired after they complained it left facilities dangerously short-handed” (Apr, Washington Post)

An N.C. hospital sues an 18-year-old to move to a nursing home. She says no. (Feb, NPR)

Unsafe: Abuse and neglect of Arizona's most vulnerable can happen anywhere (2022, Kjzz)

At a Remote Mental Health Facility, a Culture of Cruelty Persists Despite Decades of Warnings. (2022, Pro Publica)

Back to top.