Accessibility and Design

Overview

International News

Delivering Inclusive Design in Cities: A Global Action Report. “The aim of this report is to equip cities with practical but evidence-based actions to accelerate accessibility and inclusion in their physical infrastructure, buildings, services and operation.” (2024, AT 2030)

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

What's 'biophilic design'? Biophilic design ”incorporates natural elements into the built environment, which can benefit neurodiverse users.” (2024, World Economic Forum)

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.” (2024, Access Now)

Ontario's accessibility legislation is failing. Advocates say lack of enforcement, complaints process to blame. (2024, 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)

Czechia

Prague Streets Pose Challenges: “The death of a blind man in August at a metro station has raised questions among advocates about safety for 80,000 visually impaired Prague residents.” (2024, Prague Morning)

Ecuador

Accessibility initiatives in the canton of Baños especially in terms of people with visual disabilities. (In Spanish, 2024, Primicias)

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)

France

500,000 cafes hotels and restaurants still not accessible according to the minister for tourism. (In French, 2024, Nice-Presse)

Iceland

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

India

Over 1.4K accessibility complaints filed on govt app with approximately 75 per cent of those resolved, according to official data. (2024, Business Standard)

Hyderabad Government Dental College Faces Accessibility Issues Amid Leadership Controversy. (2024, TGNNS)

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

“Ramp up di access... show that you care” Jamaica celebrates its Labour Day spirit of volunteerism with activities to make public spaces more inclusive. (2024, Caribbean National Weekly) See for example initiatives from Jamaica Urban Transport Company and the Prime Minister's statement.

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)

Mexico

Six essential characteristics of a good ramp. Searching for the worst ramp in Mexico. (In Spanish, 2024, Yo También)

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, 2024, 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)

Ukraine

First inclusive accessibility department in Kharkiv:

“The head of the city emphasized that it is not so much about certain technical shortcomings as about the need to start forming a completely different city philosophy with the creation of conditions under which everyone who lives in Kharkiv, regardless of age, gender, or health, will be able to have free access to any service or public places.” (2024, Rubryka)

You can't just use the restroom: why Ukraine's capital is far from barrier-free. Interviews with officials and activists. (2024, UNN)

United Arab Emirates

Dubai's journey towards accessibility excellence An uncritical “look at the city's bold transformation, pioneering global standards in disability inclusivity and accessibility” (2024, Khaleej Times)

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. (2024, 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.” (2024, Craig Abbott)

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

United States

Pay Rate for Access Workers Now (PRAWN):

“Accessibility as a field is growing, however, compensation for access workers often remains stagnant or is framed as a volunteer opportunity. This benefits the inaccessible institutions and hinders progress on making long-term changes.” (2024, Madison Zalopany and Alison Kopit)

Virginia Rose on Birding and Accessibility “I really wasn't planning on starting a movement.” (2024, PopSugar)

Dungeons & Dragons taught me how to write alt text. (2024, Eric Bailey)

Disability is Human a book on the “The Vital Power of Accessibility in Everyday Life”. (2024, Stephanie W. Cawthon)

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)

Uzbekistan

How accessible are public services to disabled people in Tashkent city? Monitoring visits and photographs. (2024, Dilmurad Yusupov)

Yemen

Mainstreaming Universal Accessibility in Urban Infrastructure Projects: Engagement Approach, Process, and Results (2024, World Bank)

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

‘It is immoral’: Australian investors warned about ‘cowboys’ promising unrealistic returns on disability housing. (2024, The Guardian)

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

Disabled people overrepresented in study of evicted tenants. “Within the sample of evictees, the agency says 28 per cent reported having a disability — more than double the proportion of self-identified disabled people within the total survey population.” (2024, CBC)

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. (2024, 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

Why disabled people in India are paying higher rents “Despite legislation aimed at improving housing inclusion and accessibility, disabled people in India say they have to pay a premium to find a home equipped for their needs” (2024, Himal Southasian)

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)

Ireland

‘I’ve all but lost hope of ever being a renter or owning my home’ — how the housing crisis is affecting people with disabilities. (2024, Irish Independent)

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

Disabled high-rise residents ‘still at risk’ seven years after Grenfell fire, after the government's failure to implement evacuation plans. (2024, the Guardian)

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 Emotional Support Parrots vs. the Co-op Board “Three pet parrots at a Manhattan apartment building irritated their neighbors, who moved to evict them and their owner. The owner took the neighbors to court and was awarded $165,000 in damages.” (2024, New York Times)

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)

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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)

Bolivia

Disability and discrimination affect older adults article on elderly people living alone in Tacopaya municipality, Cochabamba. (In Spanish, 2024, Opinión)

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

Empowering Creativity for All: How Universal Design Makes Creative Aging Programs Thrive (2024, Creative Aging Resource Journal from Lifetime Arts)

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)

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Assistive Technology

International News

The Cutting-Edge Hearing Aids That You May Already Own “Apple is preparing to turn its AirPods Pro 2 into easy-to-use aids for people with mild to moderate hearing loss.” (2024, New York Times)

Disability Rights Are Technology Rights “Technological self-determination is important for every technology user, and it’s especially important for users with disabilities.”:

“Unfortunately, the same tech companies that devote substantial effort to building in assistive features often devote even more effort to ensuring that their gadgets, code and systems can’t be modified by their users.” (2024, Electronic Frontier Foundation)

Apple gets FDA authorization to turn the AirPods Pro into hearing aids. “The second-generation AirPods Pro will be able to serve as clinical-grade hearing aids later this fall.” (2024, The Verge)

Assistive Products Market Report 2024 Findings include:

• “Of the billions of people who need eyeglasses, just 36 percent can access them.”
• “Hearing aids are available to just 20 percent of the hundreds of millions of people with hearing loss.”
• “Wheelchairs are available for just 5 to 35 percent of the 80 million people who need them.” (2024, ATscale)

Guidelines for assistive technology service provision – a scoping review. (2024, AT2030 Programme)

Navigating the AT Ecosystem as Users: Findings from IDA’s Assistive Technology Survey, which received 1040 responses from over 100 countries. (2024, IDA)

Hearing aid service delivery approaches for low- and middle-income settings. (2024, WHO)

Unlock the everyday a new campaign for assistive technology in low and middle-income countries. (2024, Unlock the Everyday)

Wheelchair History a chronological visual history of wheeled chairs dating back to ancient times. (Link to pdf, 2024, Disability Action Research Kollective)

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

Development of Priority Assistive Product Lists (APLs) in Malawi, Liberia, and Sierra Leone:

“Our results found substantial differences between the APLs of the three countries, which were substantially influenced by the needs of assistive technology users in each of the respective countries (people). This was evident in the fact that product selection criteria differed across countries, with the most critical factor being population need.” (2024, IJERPH)

African Union commits to driving forward the agenda of Assistive Technology. “By committing to develop a comprehensive Assistive Technology (AT) strategy for Africa”. (2024, ATscale)

It's a Much Harder Journey: Scaling Assistive Technology Innovations to New Markets in Africa. (2024, AfriCHI '23)

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

Chinese robot 'guide dog' aims to improve independence for visually impaired

“Roughly the size of an English Bulldog but a bit wider, it can communicate by listening and speaking with a visually impaired operator with artificial intelligence technology incorporated into its voice recognition, route planning capabilities and traffic light identification.” (2024, Reuters)

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

Europe

Association between the hearing aid and mental health outcomes in people with hearing impairment:

“Hearing aid use was associated with lower rates of depression and [unmet mental health needs], bases on 17,000 participants from 28 countries.” (2024, Journal of Affective Disorders)

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)

Ireland

‘All I want is to go outside’: Man trapped at home for years while waiting for electric wheelchair. (2024, The Irish Times)

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

Five mobility aids our community are obsessed with An ice cream-grabbing walking cane and other personalised aids. (2024, The D*List)

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

Unlocking potential through Assistive Technology ATscale support in Rwanda. (2024, ATScale)

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

17 accessible sex toys and aids for anyone with a disability (2024, Disability Horizons)

Getting to grips with an extra thumb “An emerging area of future technology is motor augmentation – using motorised wearable devices such as exoskeletons or extra robotic body parts to advance our motor capabilities beyond current biological limitations.” (2024, University of Cambridge)

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 $1,000 Wheelchair. “How the YouTubers from JerryRigEverything are Making Affordable Wheelchairs Without the Red Tape” (2024, New Mobility)

Style over stigma: Designer Destiny Pinto turns medical devices, such as ostomy bags and hearing aids, into fashion accessories. (2024, Washington Post)

Paralyzed man unable to walk after maker of his powered exoskeleton tells him it's now obsolete. Repairs were only done after a media campaign:

“When one of its small parts malfunctioned, however, the entire device stopped working. Desperate to gain his mobility back, he reached out to the manufacturer, Lifeward, for repairs. But it turned him away, claiming his exoskeleton was too old”. (2024, Neoscope)

Noland Arbaugh’s Life as the First Neuralink Recipient. (2024, New Mobility)

After private equity firms gobbled up wheelchair makers, users pay the price in long repair times. (2024, STAT)

How Disabled People Get Exploited to Build the Technology of War An essay exploring the “wheelchair-to-warfare pipeline”:

“The cutting-edge products that Big Tech and the Pentagon are developing could be rebuilding an untold number of lives. Instead, they’re being sent to the battlefield to ruin more.” (2024, The New Republic)

The new norm a campaign video and photo series to change perceptions of hearing aids. (2024)

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” (2024, 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

The immovable veil of black disability: an introduction to Black disability threat theory and its application to the school to prison nexus:

“A major contribution of this theory is the notion that being visibly Black and visibly disabled causes moral panic to disabled and nondisabled populations belonging to any racial group including non-disabled Black American persons and disabled White American persons.” (2024, Race, Ethnicity and Education)

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

Long-COVID rate among disabled people double that of able-bodied:

“Over 40% of COVID-19 survivors who had disabilities before the pandemic had symptoms for 3 months or longer in 2022, compared with 19% of those without disabilities, further widening health disparities, finds a new report published in the American Journal of Public Health.” (2024, CIDRAP)

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)

Vietnam

Effect of COVID-19 on livelihoods of people with and without disabilities: Results from a cross-sectional survey in 3 urban areas of Viet Nam: “People with disabilities were three times more likely to have stopped working completely”. (2024, Disability and Health Journal)

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

First COVID-19 Inquiry Report Revealed: "Failure to Take into Account Vulnerabilities and Inequalities in Pre-Pandemic Planning”. (2024, Disability Rights UK)

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)

Zambia

At risk but not adequately included: People with disabilities’ experience of COVID-19 in Zambia:

“Interventions were largely unresponsive to the needs of people with disabilities, exacerbating the risk of exposure to infection.” (2024, African Journal of Disability)

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

‘A 30-second walk would exhaust me beyond reason’: Natacha’s life with long Covid. (2024, the Guardian)

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

Biden Dialed Back Covid Safety—Then Got It “The president’s diagnosis is a wake-up call to wider public health failures he should address.” (2024, Mother Jones)

Masks Are a Symbol of Solidarity. “Mask bans are ostensibly about public safety. The result would be disastrous for public health—but it goes beyond that, too.” (2024, The Nation)

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

True Advocacy for Dwarfism Awareness Month “Real change comes from advocacy that challenges the status quo.” (2024, Rooted in Rights)

Patriotism is Participation The constant battle between individual versus collective leadership and decision-making:

“Instead of philanthropy advancing conditions for people with disabilities, people with disabilities are improving philanthropy. Philanthropy will be most effective when the direction is set by diverse communities collaborating together to achieve transformative change.” (2024, Proximate)

Celebrating Disability and Working Toward Disability Justice “Since 2016, we have made 81 grants that have touched disability issues, totaling almost $38 million across eight programs and initiatives.” (2024, MacArthur Foundation)

Believe in Better: Shaping the future through the meaningful engagement of young persons with disabilities:

“This research document provides an overview of statistics on young persons with disabilities aged 15 to 24, identifies the main barriers for their participation in decision-making spaces, and highlights the efforts and challenges of the UN system in promoting their rights.” (2024, UNFPA)

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.” (2024, Disability Debrief)

2024 D-30 Disability Impact List (2024, Diversability)

United Blind Leaders an international coalition:

“United Blind Leaders envisions a world where blind and vision-impaired people are fully represented in leadership roles, particularly in organisations that serve the blind community. We strive for a future where our leadership drives decisions that affect us.” (2024, United Blind Leaders)

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

Africa’s 1st OPD-Led Regional Conference: 3 Key Takeaways for the Future of Inclusive Development:

“There is an urgent need for INGOs and donors to step up their support, not only through project funding but also through organisational strengthening.” (2024, CBM Global)

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)

Albania

People with disabilities protest in Elbasan

“On this day, which should serve for the rights that these people should enjoy, just like the rest of society, they presented the difficulties regarding the payment they receive, not being able to afford living, despite the fact that some of them also have a higher education.” (2024, Euronews)

Argentina

The demands behind the march of people with disabilities protesting deregulation that would make health benefits precarious or unaffordable. (In Spanish, 2024, Clarín)

Asia-Pacific

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

Australia

‘Nothing unusual’ about blindness non-profit Vision Australia being led by someone who isn’t blind, chair says. The organisation is under pressure from campaigners. (2024, the Guardian)

By us, for us: A disability messaging guide:

“advocates have an important window of opportunity to reframe conversations about the NDIS and disability supports in ways that centre the strengths of the disability community, demonstrate practical concepts of self determination, create shared values, and share a vision for the future where people with disability live fulfilling and independent lives. The guide provides disability advocates and allies with the narrative tools to advocate for these crucial changes. ” (2024, Disability Access Network Australia (DANA); Centre for Australian Progress)

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.” (2024, 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

Boy with disability not spared in wholesale arrest in government crackdown on student protests. (2024, New Age BD)

Shot in the eyes, victims of Bangladesh protest violence face dark future “Hundreds of protesters and bystanders were hit in the eyes by pellets fired by security forces, and might lose vision forever — a lasting marker of the mayhem that engulfed the nation earlier this month.” (2024, Aljazeera)

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)

Bolivia

Marching for 50 bolivianos more Persons with disabilities gathered to protest in La Paz for a 50 boliviano increase [7 USD] to the monthly benefit of 250 bolivianos [36 USD]. (In Spanish, 2024, Opinión)

Brazil

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

Cabo Verde

Petition to adopt legislation for people with disabilities (In Portuguese, 2024, Expresso das Ilhas)

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” (2024, 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

The Formation of the Deaf Community in China, 1887-1945 (2024) See comment on the Debrief.

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

Costa Rica

Persons with disabilities on the street calling for equality, employment and study opportunities. (In Spanish, short video, 2024, TV Sur)

Cuba

For a society without barriers. Celebration by the Cuban Association of People with Physical-Motor Disabilities (Aclifim). (In Spanish, 2024, Periódico 26)

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)

Ecuador

Social and Productive Pact for the New Ecuador: Agreement for tax incentive for non-profit organizations that work providing care and service to people with disabilities. (In Spanish, 2024, El Nuevo Ecuador)

Estonia

Neurodiversity movement in Estonia: an interview with cofounder of the Estonian Association of Autistic Women Birgit Soans. (2024, ERR)

Ethiopia

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

Europe

EU must stop funding care homes, people with disabilities demand, in ENIL's Freedom Drive: “Hundreds of people with disabilities gathered in Brussels to demand a strategic plan to guarantee independence outside residential care homes.” (2024, Euronews)

Guide for self-advocates and journalists in self-advocacy and disability rights. (2024, Inclusion 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

Anti-ableist activists and management associations a useful breakdown of political history of disability in France and understanding the different claims of organisations to represent disabled people. (2024, Capucine Lemaire)

The benefits of the President of APAJH denounced in the press. Reporting investigates the “delusions of grandeur”, remuneration and benefits of the President of the Association for Young People and Adults with Disabilities, which include multiple annual trips to Mayotte in the Indian Ocean. (2024, Le Media Social)

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

Protest camp pressuring for municipal policy to benefit disabled people in El Progress, Yoro. (In Spanish, 2024, Criterio) See also on El Heraldo.

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, 2024, HCH)

India

Handicapped Association holds protest in Srinagar. (2024, The Tribune)

The Unseen Emotional Toll of Self-Advocacy Disabled Folks Are Paying “Being vocal about my neurodivergence has cost me three many jobs and one friend”. (2024, Women Enabled International)

Church Not Doing Enough To Promote Disability Inclusion according to Nagaland State Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities. (2024, Eastern Mirror)

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.

Indonesia

Unite to Thrive: Milestones of Indonesia's Disability Rights Movement. (2024, Disability Rights Fund)

Bigger than the machine Ida Putri's journey into activism and creating opportunities for others. (2024, Disability Debrief)

Iran

Gathering to protest government not supporting disabled people. (In Persian, 2024, Khabara Online)

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

Disability Pride: It took me time to accept my disability, but I now feel proud of who I am. (2024, The Journal)

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)

Israel

Making Passover accessible: A disabilities charity develops interactive digital haggadah to make seder more inclusive. (2024, Jerusalem Post)

Kenya

Processing our Pains, our Traumas... Collectively “How do you show up at a collective level when you have so much pain to process at the individual level?” (2024, Kenya Network of Women and Girls with Disabilities)

New realities: Protests and disabilities. “Certainly, acquiring a disability can be devastating to say the least. But it doesn’t have to be.” (2024, Elizabeth Ombati)

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”. (2024, 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)

Nepal

Expressing solidarity with Nepal's Protest movement “As a part of disability rights movement, Nepalese disability community recently has started a street struggle demanding community support and personal assistant service.” (2024, Independent Living Centre - Pokhara)

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

An ‘awful’ year of cuts and heartbreak for disabled community:

“Disabled people, carers and whānau took to the streets of Christchurch to protest against the Government’s lack of consultation with the disabled community for the past year.” (2024, The Press)

New Zealand a very difficult place to be blind. Jonathan Mosen shares why he is leaving for the United States:

“Mosen said 30 years ago New Zealand was considered a leader for innovation in the blind world, but a deterioration of blindness services was echoed by a lack of leadership of blind people in their own foundation.” (2024, RNZ News)

Blind Low Vision NZ admits it 'slipped back' with blind people in senior positions. (2024, RNZ News)

Tāmaki Makaurau disability communities protest funding cuts a photo-series. (2024, D*List)

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.” (2024, 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

‘They wanted her to confess to witchcraft’: ending the chilling effects of dementia stigma. (2024, the Guardian)

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.” (2024, Disability Debrief)

Para Athletes protest “against unpaid allowances and unemployment in the state.” (2024, 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)

Paraguay

Disabled people chain themselves together to demand state pensions: asking for a benefit of 25% of the minimum wage to those “who really need it”. (In Spanish, 2024, ABC)

Philippines

In Conversation with Janine Cruzet on her advocacy trajectory. (2024, IDA)

“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.” (2024, 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. (2024, 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

Profile of Kyung Seok Park a daredevil and activist campaigning for 40 years:

“Since I’ve been protesting, I’ve noticed that the reaction of the police depends on our country’s leader. Now a conservative government is in power, the attitude has shifted. Authorities have stolen our placards, stopped us from riding the subway and thrown us off the trains. They mock us, damage our wheelchairs and I’ve been strangled to the point where I couldn’t breathe.” (2024, Amnesty)

Disability rights group files suit against Seoul Metro over subway protest ban. (2024)

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, 2024, 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

Empowering Voices: The Journey of an OPD Interview with Disability People's Forum Uganda (2024, Inklusion leben)

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

The 'war' on disabled people and my fight for an independent life. Musician and activist John Kelly:

“You've got to chain yourself to the busses
Show them what the fuss is.” (2024, the Guardian)

Big disability charities are ‘actively harmful’ to our movement, Disabled people’s organisations tell government:

“They say the charities “financially benefit from talking about our oppression” and that the government should instead prioritise the “authentic” views of DPOs and ensure that “those directly impacted by these issues have real authority in the decision-making process”.” (2024, Disability News Service)

DPAC are BACK: disabled people block roads, protesting against welfare reforms. (2024, Canary)

Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) returns to the streets for ‘active resistance’ to Department for Work and Pensions cuts (2024, 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

Funding disabled creatives: Takeaways from the Disability Futures Fellowship (2024, Candid)

Disabled Catholics deserve more than parish accessibility “Accessibility is only the beginning of disability justice. The church needs a whole new narrative.” (2024, US Catholic)

Three Indicted for Conspiracy to Launder Over $1 Million from Online Fraud Scams (2024, U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Columbia) The three were Deaf people and part of the Deaf community, and one of them, Chidi Olujie, was President of the Nigerian National Association of the Deaf (NNAD).

A Prominent Accessibility Advocate Worked With Studios and Inspired Change. But She Never Actually Existed. An extraordinary investigation into accessibility advocates that appear to have been fictional creations. (2024, IGN)

Disability Wrath Month

“Pride might work if you don’t want to challenge ableism and reject white supremacy culture. For many, ‘Disability Wrath’ feels like a better way to describe what’s being lost and pushed aside.” (2024, Crip News)

The Power of Participation: How Philanthropy Can Center People on the Margins. (2024, Disability & Philanthropy Forum)

DeafBlind Leadership NOW

“The DeafBlind Leadership NOW (DBLN) movement ignited on July 22, 2024, when a hearing-sighted person was appointed as the Executive Director of Helen Keller National Center (HKNC), once again passing over talented and qualified DeafBlind candidates.” (2024, DeafBlind Leadership NOW)

Direct Action Planning Resource for (and by!) Sick and Disabled Comrades (2024, This Autonomia)

MacKenzie Scott’s Open Call Awards Give Disability-Focused Nonprofits Breathing Space. (2024, Inside Philanthropy)

The Hardest Thing to Carry: On Disability and Grief “It’s a terrible and beautiful contradiction that the disabilities that bonded us in life, that put us on the path to even meet, are the same ones that snatched my friends from me too soon.” (2024, The Squeaky Wheelchair)

Dignity of Risk and Self-Determination in the Disability Rights Movement (2024, Creating Change: The Online Journal of Zines about Social Movements)

Make Neurodiversity Boring an essay reflecting on the neurodiversity movement:

“Despite neurodiversity’s cultural currency, we have won surprisingly few shifts in autism service-provision and research, the primary areas the movement emerged to target. This reflects our community’s reluctance to translate critique into actionable strategies for change. Such efforts are slow, painstaking, and frankly boring next to the social media campaigns and the rarefied academic critiques that have captured the attention of many.” (2024, Boston Review)

Assume that I can brilliant, bold video rejecting the self-fulfilling prophecy of negative assumptions about people with Down Syndrome. (2024, CoorDown)

Synagogues can better serve those with disabilities (2024, JNS)

The Road to Disability Inclusion Report three stories exploring the role of philanthropy. (2024, Disability & Philanthropy Forum)

Spaces on the Spectrum a book on “How Autism Movements Resist Experts and Create Knowledge”. (2024, Columbia University Press)

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

They don't need your charity, give them their rights! Critique of turning international day for persons with disabilities into a holiday:

‘“It just pisses me off when they make a holiday out of this day. They set tables, organise concerts, etc. On this day it would be good to demonstrate our achievements in the field of protecting the rights of people with disabilities,” says Natalia Plotnikova, head of the public association of women with disabilities “Opa-singillar” (“Sisters”).’ (2024, Dilmurad Yusupov)

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

Venezuela

At least 16 people with disabilities arrested after protests and police and militrary action following July elections. (In Spanish, 2024, El Nuevo Diario) Further details from the Confederation of the Deaf.

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

Want to tell stories at the intersection of climate change and disability justice? Tips by Áine Kelly-Costello, ideas for your next story, data and resources on climate change and disability justice (2024, Reframing Disability)

Include Disability in Planned Relocation Processes “Equitable Adaptation to Rising Sea Levels Requires Consultations and Inclusion” (2024, Human Rights Watch)

OPDs and disability activists leading the way on climate justice Global GreenGrants work in the area of disability and climate justice: “$900,000 in small grants have gone to disability activists and grassroots organisations of persons with disabilities (OPDs)” (2024, CBM Global)

People with Disabilities Taking Action on Climate Change An easy-read primer for disabled people to take action on climate change. (2024, HPOD)

Advancing disability-inclusive climate research and action climate justice, and climate-resilient development. (2024, 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.” (2024, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Finland)

Disability Inclusion in Climate Finance A Background Paper For The Disability Inclusion Approach For Climate Investment Funds. (2024, Climate Investment Funds)

What I've learned in conversation Debrief feature on conversations weaving together disability and climate justice. (2024, 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 (2024, 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” (2024, 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)

Belize

The hidden impact of climate change on children with disabilities in Belize:

“Currently, Belize has over 400 emergency shelters spread across the country, ranging from schools to churches and other buildings. However, only a handful, such as the Inspiration Centre and an educational facility in Belize City, are equipped to adequately serve persons with disabilities.” (2024, UNICEF)

The Overwhelming Impact of Climate Change on Persons with Disabilities in Belize. Interview with Kenrich Theus of the Belize Assembly for People with Diverse Abilities (BAPDA), before he passed away. (2024, Channel 5 Belize)

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

Mapping Disability Inclusive Climate Action in Europe

“Conclusively, persons with disabilities and their representative organisations are not consulted, hence their situations, requirements and voices not taken into account at all across climate action.” (2024, EDF)

Surviving the Storm: a position paper on Independent Living in the Age of Climate Change:

“The urgency of the issue, teamed with the potential of collaborative action, paints a pathway towards a more inclusive, resilient, and fair society” (2023, ENIL)

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)

Indonesia

An Inclusive Path to Dealing With Climate Disaster reflecting on the impact of Cyclone Seroja and beyond. (2024, Impakter)

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. (2024, 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

Stakeholders Canvass Inclusion Of Women With Disabilities In Climate Change Policies (2024, News Agency of Nigeria)

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

Pacific

Rising Tides, Raising Voices video documentary on the “Crucial Fight for Disability-Inclusive Climate Justice in the Pacific”. (2024, Disability Justice Project)

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)

Philippines

Lapu-Lapu City’s climate crisis plans includes persons with disabilities. Persons with disabilities “taught disaster risk reduction strategies in the event of any calamity.” (2024, ABS CBN News)

The climate realities of the deaf: evidence from a climate vulnerability assessment of the Filipino deaf community. (2024, Oscar M. Lopez Center for Climate Change Adaptation )

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” (2024, Scientific Reports)

Spain

Deaths of People with Disabilities Surge in Spain, As Does the Heat. (2024, Human Rights Watch)

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

Climate change could retrigger trauma in Sri Lanka “and some observers say people who acquired a disability during the conflict are most vulnerable.” (2024, The World)

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

UK government faces claim over alleged failure to protect people in climate crisis (2024, the Guardian)

A green future is possible: “but only if disabled people are invited in.” Update on climate action in Bristol. (2024, B24/7)

No climate action without us a toolkit on “how to make disabled people’s access to live events environmentally sustainable. ” (2024, 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

Keeping the Lights On: Marrying Disability Justice with Electric Grid Resilience. (2024, Change The Chamber)

How Extreme Heat Burns Chronically Ill Workers For the third of US workers who spend the day outdoors, “beat the heat” advice doesn’t cut it. (2024, Mother Jones)

Scorching summers bring deadly heat for people with disabilities. (2024, Stat)

Mapping Injury “Sunaura Taylor on what the environmental and disability movements can learn from one another.” (2024, Boston Review)

States Could Help Disabled People Survive Climate Change —By Involving Them. “Independent living centers save lives in extreme weather. Why won’t more agencies give them a say?” (2024, Mother Jones)

Disabled Ecologies: Lessons from a Wounded Desert. a book by Sunaura Taylor:

“What we live with in the present, and will for decades to come, even under the best-case scenarios, is mass ecological disablement of the more-than-human world. Arriving in Tucson in the summer of 2017 to research the pollution I had long understood to have caused my own disability, I recognized intimately just how utterly entangled this mass disablement of nature is with the disablement of human beings” (2024, University of California Press)

How a team of scientists is helping people hear the eclipse “We mapped the bright light of the sun to a flute sound.” (2024, CNN World)

How people with disabilities can experience the total solar eclipse 'Sight is only one of our senses' (2024, 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.” (2024, 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

Integrating disability rights into climate action – now! policy brief on disability-inclusive climate action. (2024, IDA and IDDC)

Global disability movement demands seat at the “COP table” (2024, IDDC)

Global disability movement demands seat at the “COP table”:

“The organisations explain that the UN is stalling in the creation of an official constituency of persons with disabilities, which already exists for other groups such as women and youth and for other UN frameworks.” (2024, EDF)

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)

Azerbaijan

Accessible infrastructure at COP29 for inclusive participation Organizers have a core commitment to ensure inclusivity and accessibility:

“To achieve this, the COP29 Azerbaijan Operating Company for the first time in COP history will provide sign language interpretation services at the COP29 Plenary Hall. The Baku Stadium will also have an audio induction system for individuals with hearing and speech impairments. Sign language interpreters will be on hand to facilitate accessibility during sessions and panel discussions.” (2024, Report)

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)

Australia

Facilitated communication: Does the 'miracle tool' really help non-verbal people speak? (2024, BBC)

Cambodia

Cambodia’s first information needs assessment for persons with disabilities

“Economic information was found to be of highest demand. Particularly, information related to jobs or income opportunities would be more desired.” (2024, UNESCO)

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

Going Tactile: Life at the Limits of Language A book by Terra Edwards, an ethnographic study of the DeafBlind protacticle movement:

“When the world is collapsing around you, and existence is at stake, how can language be of use, where are its limits, and how can we understand the forms of meaning that lie beyond it?” (2024, Oxford University Press)

Netflix's new top documentary 'Tell Them You Love Me' highlights a misleading promise An essay arguing that ‘“Facilitated communication” has sparked passionate debate for years. But despite overwhelming scientific evidence against the method, its persistence remains.’ (2024, MSNBC)

Augmentative and Alternative Communication: Alice Wong on how using AAC tech changed her relationships:

“As I tried to adjust to my new body. I had to adjust to the way I presented myself to the world as a nonspeaking person. I had a new disability identity and was part of a new segment of the disability community. It was a bit intimidating being an outsider who is slowly easing into a new way of being while still mourning my voice, which expressed so much of my personality. I entered a world where time has slowed down. Conversations are now stilted, extended in a way that gives me anxiety and pressure to keep up with normative speaking speeds and patterns.” (2024, Teen Vogue)

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

International Perspectives on Sign Language Translator and Interpreter Education “Leading experts in sign language translator and interpreter education present the history and current state of the field in their respective countries.” (Jan, Gallaudet University Press)

Discuss, curse and flirt Debrief discussion of signed communication in Nepal and International Sign. (2024, Disability Debrief)

Signed Away Against the commodification of deaf communication:

“A particularly egregious case study of the extraction of deaf people from deaf language has recently appeared in the form of an artificial sign-based system called Makaton.” (2024, The Baffler)

Sign Language Brokering in Deaf-Hearing Families Discussion of Jemina Napier's book. “Child language brokering (CLB) is a form of interpreting carried out informally by children, typically for migrant families.” (2024, Language on the Move)

Position Paper on the Right to Sign Language for Families of Deaf Children (2024, World Federation of the Deaf)

More than Signs: International Sign as Distributed Practice:

“This article makes a case for understanding International Sign (IS) as a distributed practice. IS, a translingual practice, arose from interactions among individuals from diverse linguistic backgrounds, integrating signs from multiple national sign languages and leveraging iconic and transparent features of sign language lexicons and grammars. At the heart of IS is the principle of calibration, an adaptive process aimed at aligning signs to foster mutual understanding.” (2024, Signs and Society)

Sign Language Machine Translation “The first book on sign language translation for machine translation developers and scholars of deaf studies” (2024, Springer)

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)

Bangladesh

New Bangla sign language makes debut at Dhaka disability theatre fest (2024, Times of India)

Canada

Possible Beings: Deaf children and linguistic justice:

“The paper first discusses the linguistic justice framework in relation to deaf children’s right to sign language, then analyses legal documents from the case for what they reveal about patterns of inaction on the part of senior educational administrators and deficiency views of American Sign Language (ASL) that are pervasive in Canadian early intervention and education systems for deaf children.” (2024, Deafness & Education International)

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)

Croatia

A breakthrough in Croatian sign language learning “Moja Prva Znakovnica is the first video dictionary of Croatian Sign Language (HZJ), designed to help hearing parents of deaf children and anyone interested in learning the language. ” (2024, Croatia Week)

Cuba

Sign language in Cuba: a new law to regulate the recognition and use of Cuban sign language. (In Spanish, 2024, Cuba Debate)

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? (2024, The AutoEthnographer)

India

What’s the sign for ‘centrifuge’? How we added scientific terms to Indian Sign Language (2024, 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 (2024, Marketing-Interactive)

Malta

The lesser known third official language of Malta

“Maltese Sign Language emerged as a formalised language around 1980, today, it serves not only as a means of everyday communication but also as a medium for education and professional conversation” (Jan, Malta Today)

Nepal

Making Sense an open access book on language ethics, and understanding in Deaf Nepal. By E. Mara Green. (2024, University of California Press)

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)

New Zealand

As te reo Māori grows, so does the search for trilingual interpreters. (2024, The Spinoff)

'World-first' as NZ Sign Language used at 35,000 feet “Deaf New Zealanders on a flight from Auckland to Wellington have — for the first time — been given flight-safety instructions in their own language.” (2024, 1 News)

Nigeria

Deaf community battles exclusion and points to gaps in use and support of sign language. (2024, Punch)

Pakistan

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

Philippines

Commission on the Filipino Language (CFL) slammed “over its plan to dissolve its Filipino Sign Language (FSL) Unit, which would effectively retrench its deaf personnel.” Apparently staff would be dismissed after demanding the timely release of their salaries. (2024, Philstar) Disabled people protested the plans.

Singapore

Deaf community welcomes study on an official sign language but educational challenges remain:

“A government study on whether to turn a local sign language into a national one is welcomed [...] The Singapore Sign Language (SgSL) is a 70-year-old home-grown mix of Shanghainese and American sign languages that also uses manually-coded English and words from the local vernacular.” (2024, Channel News Asia)

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)

South Sudan

CEPO to inaugurate first sign language learning center in Juba (2024, Sudans Post)

Uganda

When inclusion is an illusion: sign language interpreters and the pitfalls for ‘inclusive’ development. Exploring a 2018 case study:

“Yet when NGOs or government chose interpreters, they required the guarantee of ‘professionalism’ that came with being employed by the school. They did not check the quality of the interpretation, instead simply relying on the school’s reputation. Many local interpreters were never considered for ‘professional’ assignments, because they were considered part of the ‘community’, though they were sometimes asked to interpret informally and unpaid.” (2024, From Poverty to Power)

The Silenced Voices: Sign Language Interpreters Pave the Way for Deaf Access to Healthcare in Uganda. (2024, The Elephant)

​​Verifying news for the deaf community in Uganda. An initiative training sign language interpreters has wider benefits:

“The WhatsApp group has grown into a community of 400 sign language interpreters, deaf individuals, and their hearing family members. Members share suspicious information they encounter and the sign language interpreters help debunk it.” (2024, Reframing Disability)

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

UK’s biggest sign-language school opens new teaching space:

“The design is intended to optimise communication and navigability, from the horseshoe layout of the classrooms and the lack of corridors to the colour palette. It also had to work well for pupils with visual impairments or mobility issues.” (2024, Design Week)

Signature launches RE/SIGN campaign to tackle the influx of ‘Fake sign language’ on TikTok (BSL) (2024, The Limping Chicken)

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 (2024, 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.” (2024, Nature)

American Sign Language Reveals Wordplay Beyond Sound a learner of ASL finds new ways to wordplay. (2024, 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

First eBraille Public Working Draft is Published. “It is primarily meant for organizations that develop software that will read or write eBraille files.” (2024, American Printing House)

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

Braille literacy is vital to achieving equal access for blind children. (2024, ABC Education)

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

Posts celebrating the 200 anniversary. (livingbraille.eu)

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

India

Braille wave: Pancham Cajla is on mission mode to provide accessibility solutions for the disabled. (2024, The Tribune)

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

Braille 200 celebrating braille’s two hundredth anniversary. (Jan, RNIB)

‘We’d be stuck’: alarm as UK’s last braille typewriter repairer ponders retirement. (Jan, the Guardian)

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” (2024, Washington Post)

Back to top.

Conflict and Peace

Overview

International News

How NATO can advance the Disability, Peace and Security agenda:

“NATO does not, at this juncture, have a policy for the protection of persons with disabilities in conflict. Nonetheless, advancing the United Nations Disability, Peace and Security agenda is an important extension of NATO’s efforts to strengthen its human security approach related to the protection of civilians in armed conflict, and with Allied efforts to advance the human rights of persons with disabilities in peace and in conflict.” (2024, Nato Review)

Resolution on Disability Rights, Peace and Conflict, 2024 “The European Disability Forum wishes to bring attention again to humanitarian crises around the world and their continued disproportionate impact on persons with disabilities.” (2024, EDF)

Towards Greater Inclusion The devastating impact of armed conflict on children with disabilities. A discussion paper based on literature review and interviews with experts. (2024, 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)

Cameroon

Disability, War & the Peace Process in Cameroon an interview with Kesah Princely Nfortoh. (2024, The Pulse)

Congo-Kinshasa

"My disability was caused by a bomb": The life of an 18 year-old in North Kivu. (2024, Humanity & Inclusion)

Ethiopia

Disabled ex-combatants in Tigray protest early discharge from medical care in the ongoing Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) program. (2024, Addis Standard)

Healing the scars of Tigray's war Two years on, survivors of 2020-2022 conflict hope fragile peace prevails. (2024, Aljazeera)

Photo Essay: The scars we bear “The Tigray Disabled Veterans Association in Mekele, survived the war in Tigray and is rehabilitating disabled people regardless of their role in the carnage.” (No alternate text, 2024, The Continent)

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 (2024, Disability Rights Fund)

Iran

Fetishization of the Disabled War Veterans

“I indicate how the state has managed to use the disabled bodies of the injured survivors as a way to guarantee its survival by portraying them as an ideological construct called “living martyrs,” as opposed to disabled humans in need of physical and affective care.” (2024, Review of Disability Studies)

Israel

Israeli non-profit intensifies emergency efforts to support people with disabilities amid war. A profile of SHEKEL. (2024, Allisrael News)

“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.” (2024, KBC)

Lebanon

ILO and partners take shock-response measures to support persons with disabilities in Lebanon. “The ILO estimates that at least 30,000 persons with disabilities have been affected by the crisis so far and are in need of urgent support.” (2024, ILO)

Myanmar

Disability rights activist Brian Zaw fighting for those under the rule of Myanmar's military junta. (2024, ABC News)

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

For Many Returning Russian Veterans, a Long Road of Recovery Awaits:

“A large number of soldiers return as amputees, and many suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Once home, they face stigma and a grueling course of rehabilitation.” (Jan)

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.” (2024, New York Times)

Sudan

How the war in Sudan has cast its shadow on people with disabilities. (In Arabic, 2024, AlJazeera)

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. (2024)

Disabled children forced to flee fighting in Sudan video feature on how Insaf fled the fighting in Khartoum. (2024, 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)

Syria

Disabilities in northwest Syria: Stories of resilience amid hardship. (2024, The New Arab)

Ukraine

People with disabilities face some of the most brutal conditions during war. We need urgent change. (2024, The Independent)

Yemen

Yemen was already a hard place to raise an autistic daughter. Then war started. Featuring Emtenan's pencil drawings. (2024, CNN)

Israel-Palestine Conflict

International News

A tragedy within a tragedy: UN experts alarmed by harrowing conditions for Palestinians with disabilities trapped in Gaza:

”Persons with disabilities are being killed and injured by indiscriminate attacks despite posing no security threat, epitomising the deliberate assault on civilians by Israel,” (2024, OHCHR)

Open letter to the international disability rights community on Gaza “As a human rights movement, the disability rights community cannot remain silent.”

“For Gazans with disabilities, the circumstances could not be worse: the complete collapse of basic vital services, displacement, starvation, disease, and indiscriminate bombing have created a nightmare scenario in which their very survival is jeopardized. Israel’s restrictions on humanitarian aid exacerbate the challenges they face, limiting access to food, medicine, assistive devices and other vital supplies. While no official numbers are available, many children and adults with disabilities have been killed, including long-time disability rights defenders Bader Mosleh and Hashem Ghazal.” (2024, A collective of human rights activists)

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)

Australia

On the rights of people with disability in Gaza a joint statement. (2024, WWDA and NEDA )

Canada

How one Gazan mother’s tragedy has fuelled a sit-in action. (2024, Disability Visibility Project)

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

Statement of ENIL on the situation of Disabled People in Gaza “We are particularly alarmed about the humanitarian condition of disabled people in Gaza, who are disproportionately affected by the conflict escalation in the past few months, resulting in aid blockages and military attacks on civilian populations.” (2024, ENIL)

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

India

India’s Disability Movement Must Stand with Palestine (2024, News Click)

Israel

Supporting Israel’s wounded: “Creating a compassionate society for Israel’s newly disabled after the war” (2024, Jerusalem Post)

Advocating for Inclusion and Accessibility The work of Access Israel, which has evacuated over 3,000 people with disabilities, elderly and their families. (2024, Haaretz)

Because we are all equal in emergency “Two days after the war broke out, I established the Purple Emergency Center – an emergency assistance center for people with disabilities.” (2024, Jerusalem Post)

Galilee center for kids with disabilities hit by an errant missile “Mevo’ot HaHermon Treatment and Rehabilitation Campus, closed since Oct. 8 and damaged by an errant missile, includes one of the largest hydrotherapy pools of its kind in Israel” (2024, Times of Israel)

Disability rights groups campaign against UN unequal care of Israelis In a message to the UN conference of states parties on disability from Israeli NGO Beit Issie Shapiro (video):

“Much is said about the displaced with disabilities in Gaza. What about those from Israel? Tens of thousands of children and adults with disabilities have been forced to evacuate their homes. How are you promoting, protecting, and ensuring THEIR full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms?” (2024, The Jerusalem Post)

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.” (2024, 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” (2024, 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.” (2024, 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.” (2024, 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” (2024, 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

Gazans With Disabilities Face ‘Impossible Times’ of Chaos and War A family fled carrying a 9-year-old girl for hours on their backs. Sisters with visual impairments pleaded for help as Israeli airstrikes fell. “It’s a nightmare,” one wheelchair user said. (2024, New York Times)

Gazans injured in war live with disabilities but little medical support. “Tens of thousands require long-term rehabilitation, WHO officials said.” (2024, ABC News)

The Intersection of Disability and Genocide profile of Khaled Sulaiman, a 26-year-old disabled man. (2024, Disability Visibility Project)

What is life like for Palestinians with disabilities during Israel’s genocide? (2024, MEMO)

“They Destroyed What Was Inside Us” A report on Children with Disabilities Amid Israel’s Attacks on Gaza. In the words of Ghazal, a 14-year-old girl with cerebral palsy in Gaza:

“From the day the war broke out, they destroyed what was inside us. They demolished my house and my room, which held all my memories. They took everything that helped me to live, like my devices, my boot, and my wheelchair. How can I go back to how I was without all this?” (2024, Human Rights Watch)

Gaza's Deaf Community in the Face of Genocide “An anthropologist who works with deaf communities in the Arabic-speaking Middle East argues that ending Israel’s war on Gaza and occupation of Palestine is a matter of disability justice.” (2024, Sapiens)

For Gazans with disabilities, Israel’s genocide shows no mercy:

“Feeling but not hearing the bombs, displaced without their specialized equipment, mauled by army dogs: this is how Palestinians with physical and cognitive impairments are surviving and dying amid Israel’s onslaught.” (2024, +972)

Voice Notes from Palestine. Featuring testimonies of Gaza students living with disabilities. (Short video, 2024, AOAV)

Gaza’s Lost Generation The physical toll of Israel's war on Gaza has been disastrous, especially for children, with the strip's future permanently altered. (2024, Tahrir Institute)

New Gaza camp offers relief for Palestinians with disabilities amid war “A newly opened camp for displaced Palestinians with disabilities is providing some much needed help for around 100 vulnerable people in the town of Deir Al-Balah in the central area of the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, Reuters reports.” (2024, MEMO)

How the War in Gaza Makes Life Nearly Impossible for Disabled People. An interview with a Humanity & Inclusion advocacy officer based in the West Bank:

“Some children think that their legs might grow again. This is one of the saddest things that we hear on a regular basis.” (2024, Mother Jones)

Bassem al-Hebl, a deaf 27-year-old aspiring journalist from Gaza on reporting in sign-language. (2024, Middle East Eye on X)

Gaza man with Down's syndrome attacked by IDF dog and left to die, mother says:

“The Israeli military has admitted that a Palestinian man with Down's syndrome who was attacked by an army dog in Gaza was left on his own by soldiers, after his family had been ordered to leave.” (2024, BBC)

Shellshocked, attacked, left to die – this is the reality for disabled people in Gaza. “We endured months of hell to get our son, who has cerebral palsy, out of danger. For most, there is no escaping the horror”. (2024, the Guardian)

Statement on the death of Muhammed Bhar in Gaza “we have received distressing updates about the conditions for children with Down syndrome, many of whom are reportedly severely malnourished.” (2024, Down Syndrome International)

“In Gaza, we have been left behind” a blog from Haitham Saqqa on his experience of the war, and working with Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP):

“I am a person with a disability, I believe in the rights of people with disabilities, and promote this belief through education and training. However, I now decline offers to speak to media or other organisations, not because I do not believe in my cause but because I feel words are empty.

“Between January and March, there were no wheelchairs in Gaza. No one knows how the stocked wheelchairs were distributed, and people were using any available wheelchairs to transport water. This lack of wheelchairs made many people with disabilities unable to move around, so it was hard for organisations like MAP to assess their humanitarian needs or make any available services accessible to them. Even if wheelchairs were available, the scale of Israeli military violence has caused so much destruction that the streets are almost impossible to navigate on a wheelchair.” (2024, Medical Aid for Palestinians)

My House Will Always Be Open - Stories from the Gaza Siege. The story of a disabled child and an older woman. “My mother put me in a wheelchair and pushed me for more than 10 kilometers amidst Israeli tanks and military vehicles,” (2024, Palestine Chronicle)

Israel targets disabled Palestinian children’s futures “Israeli forces have critically injured thousands of Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip, creating lifelong disabilities” (2024, Defense for Children International - Palestine)

Data and resources on the situation in Gaza for Persons with Disabilities a compilaton of data and challenges faced by persons with disabilities. (2024, Breaking the silence on Gaza)

HI mourns tragic death of staff member in Gaza (2024, Humanity and Inclusion)

What it means to be Deaf and Palestinian in Gaza (2024, Overland)

“Everything has changed for her” “Palestinian children with disabilities targeted in Israeli genocide campaign” (2024, DCI Palestine)

Palestinian NGO summary of “severe repercussions” of Israeli aggression in Gaza on the lives of people with disabilities:

“hundreds of people with disabilities have been martyred and thousands injured. Additionally, ten thousand citizens have sustained various disabilities due to the Israeli aggression, along with tens of thousands of displaced individuals with disabilities facing difficult displacement conditions and severe psychological trauma.” (2024, Palestinian NGOs Network)

Gaza Mother Searches for Her Disabled Family among Rubble “For months, I have been searching for my deaf-mute son and his family, his wife and their two daughters, but I had no luck.” (2024, Palestine Chronicle)

Abeer Harkali; A life shaped by the Israeli Army. the harrowing story of a wheelchair user who, before the war, had been a founding member of a wheelchair-users Dabke band. (2024, Accessless)

Gaza mourns deaf activist Hashem Ghazal killed by Israel “Tributes have poured in for Hashem Ghazal, an accomplished carpenter and leading disability activist in the Gaza Strip, who was killed in an Israeli strike.” (2024, The New Arab)

Worsening suffering of people with disabilities especially the deaf and mute. (Short video, in Arabic, 2024, Al Jazeera)

Palestinians with disabilities fear being killed first statement from the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2024, OHCHR)

'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.” (2024, 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” (2024, Middle East Eye)

The Children Who Lost Limbs in Gaza (2024, 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.” (2024, New Internationalist)

People with disabilities and the war of starvation experiences of disabled people in Gaza. (In Arabic, 2024, Al Araby)

Inclusive Needs Assessment: Situation of the Conflict-affected Persons with and without Disabilities in the Gaza Strip (March 2024). (2024, Atlafuna)

Israeli army forces family to leave 94-year-old grandmother behind Her daughter says she 'cannot move, eat, or drink alone'. (2024, 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.” (2024, 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.” (2024, Hernan Bonomo)

Double burden on people with disabilities displaced in Gaza. (In Arabic, 2024, Wafa)

Impact of the conflict on people with disabilities in the Gaza Strip. Thematic report summarising available information. (2024, 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” (2024, 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” (2024, 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.” (2024, 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, 2024, 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

Cops arrest disabled pro-Palestine activist and force him to walk without his mobility aid. “Reports vary, but between eight to ten police violently arrested the protester as he was moving off the road”. (2024, Canary)

An Autistic Conservative Inspired by Zionism

“I made many new friends and allies both Jews and non-Jews who love my autistic Zionist advocacy. I told these Jews that I owed it to them for their custom of Tikkun Olam making autistic people integrated into Israeli society. Across the diaspora like here in Britain, Jewish people have made certain that disabled people are supported in society.” (2024, The Times of Israel)

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

Disability Divest: We Demand the Disability Establishment End Its Relationships with War Profiteers: “Disability rights organizations go further than accepting money from war profiteers: they honor them with disability inclusion awards.” (2024, Disability Divest)

Letter to Biden & Harris: Immediate Demands for Disabled Palestinians (2024, Disability Demands)

Palestine X Disability Justice Syllabus (2024, Disability Visibility Project)

Accessibility-barriers caused by pro-Palestine protest a rejection of the protests by a student with disability. (2024, Jerusalem Post)

At this student encampment, Deaf protesters built a model for accessibility

“Deaf pro-Palestine students joined their hearing peers at the now-cleared George Washington University encampment. Volunteer interpreters made that multilingual organizing possible.” (2024, The 19th)

Disabled veteran files lawsuit alleging UC Davis pro-Palestinian encampment blocks pathway. “Encampment representative claims this is a ‘lawfare’ tactic to silence students”. (2024, Daily Democrat)

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.” (2024, 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. (2024, 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

The art of audio description can turn dance into a moving experience for all. “Stopgap’s revelatory stage production Lived Fiction is committed to opening up dance for the whole audience” (2024, Guardian)

Review of 'Project(ing) Human: Representations of Disability in Science Fiction'

“The collection’s real value, rather, is in its clear presentation of sci-fi as being uniquely positioned to reflect and reflect on cultural attitudes, (mis)conceptions, and desires surrounding dis/ability.” (2024, H-Net)

Inside the world of blind musicians: how we learn music and perform with other musicians. (2024, ABC News)

Borg Diem words created by disabled people about disability experiences. (2024, Including Disability)

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”. (2024, H-Disability)

The Disabled Body in Contemporary Art. a second edition which brings ”a new focus to contemporary disabled artists and their embodied, multimedia work.” (2024, Springer Link)

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)

Andorra

Universal Accessibility in Andorra's Museums. On the Right Track?

“Despite a high degree of goodwill and sensibility, the [Museu Carmen Thyssen Andorra] lacks elements in the exhibition space to facilitate enjoyment of its displays.” (2024, International Council of Museums)

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

Adaptive musical instruments open up the world for people with disabilities and injuries:

“Modifying how we think about music to embrace people with disability can lead to new creative expressions, even new artforms.” (2024, ABC News)

The dancers with disability exploring sex and love: ‘Once you open the floodgates, it’s pretty interesting’. (2024, 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)

Congo-Kinshasa

Congolese Rapper MC Baba Is Mute and Can't Sing, Rap or Hear?

“MC Baba claims fame through his ability to produce rhythmic sounds and mouth movements, despite reportedly being unable to hear or speak. His performances do not involve traditional singing or rapping with words, but rather, mouth sounds that align with backing tracks.” (2024, Snopes)

Egypt

‘Empty Rooms’ Art Exhibit is a Reflection on Disability & Unorthodoxy “Egyptian artist WeirDo deals with the isolation, reclusion and loneliness experienced by people with disabilities.” (2024, Cairo Scene)

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)

France

Accessibility at the Philharmonie de Paris: Allowing Everyone to Experience Music. (2024, International Council of Museums)

Ghana

Photojournalist Inspires Deaf Students to Explore Visual Storytelling (Video Feature, 2024, VoA)

Greece

I’m a wheelchair pole dancer — Nina Alexandridou: “When I do pole dancing, I feel beautiful”. (2024, NY Post)

India

Review: 'And They Lived…Ever After' Rewrites Fairy Tales Through A Disability Lens (2024, Outlook)

This museum is a blueprint for disability inclusion. “The Bangalore-based Museum of Art and Photography (MAP) is one of the first museums in India to introduce cross-disability inclusion into its foundations.” (2024, Devdiscourse)

Rapunzel reimagined: the women retelling fairytales to challenge notions of perfection. Review of “And They Lived … Ever After”. (2024, the Guardian)

Please touch: “Museums as well as galleries are displaying tactile panels to make art accessible to people with disabilities.” (2024, 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)

Indonesia

Hasna Mufidah: Championing Deaf Culture Through Art and Activism. (2024, United Nations Development Programme)

Italy

Shape Arts Wants You to ‘Look Up to the Power of Crip’ The exuberant history of resistance by the Disability Arts Movement gets a historic review in Venice. (2024, Frieze)

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

Profile of Juan Carlos wheelchair-using rapper and dance teacher dreaming of equality for new generations. (In Spanish, 2024, Yo También)

Arjen Power a Mexican heroine with disability for inclusion in comics. (In Spanish, 2024, 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)

Nepal

‘Sikka’ harmonises diversity and accessibility Blind Rocks’ new music video with audio description and closed captions ensures accessibility for blind and deaf audiences. (2024, Kathmandu Post)

New Zealand

New Zealand’s Disability-Led Path to Accessibility in the Arts “Other places could learn from the island country, where measures like audio description and braille surtitling have become standard practice.” (2024, Reasons to be cheerful)

New Zealand Opera to provide braille surtitles for live performances

“NZ Opera’s general director, Brad Cohen, developed the technology alongside his company contexts.live. It sends braille surtitles to a user’s personal braille-reading machine at the same time as the sighted audience is reading the translations on screen.” (2024, the Guardian)

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)

Senegal

Book Review: My Name is Yedia “shines a much-needed spotlight on women and girls with disabilities in Senegal” (2024, Memria)

Singapore

'I just feel happy': Profile of Fern Wong, a visual artist with Down syndrome who has won several local and international competitions. (2024, CNA)

South Africa

Athenkosi Kwinana breaks the stigma about Persons Living with Albinism (PLWA) through art (2023, Biz Community)

South Korea

Big Ocean breaks barriers as the first K-pop group whose members are hard of hearing. (2024, The World by PRX)

Sign Language in K-Pop (2024, Laura Wissiak)

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”. (2024, 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, 2024, 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

Accessible Marketing Guide “We’ve gathered all of our best tips to help arts organisations make their marketing more accessible”. (2024, Unlimited)

‘The level of hate was dangerous’: Michelle Terry on the backlash to her casting as Richard III: “Artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe says much of the anger about a non-disabled actor playing the role has been misogynistic”. (2024, the Guardian)

‘I’m done with pretenders’: disabled actors on reclaiming Richard III. (2024, 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.” (2024, 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 Artist Who Has Something in Common With Her Subjects “Rachel Handlin is possibly the first person with Down syndrome to receive an M.F.A., and one of just a few to hold a bachelor’s. Her first solo show features her portraits of others like her.” (2024, New York Times)

What’s So Funny About Disability? Comedian Tina Friml on Being “Unforgettable” (2024, The Stranger)

Ford and Mellon Foundations Announce 2024 Disability Futures Fellows:

“a groundbreaking group of 20 visual and performing artists, writers, and filmmakers for their transformative cultural contributions. Each fellow will receive an unrestricted $50,000 grant” (2024, Ford Foundation)

‘A positive step forward’: Mattel launches first blind Barbie. (2024, the Guardian)

Disability Works “A cultural history of disability, performance, and work in the modern United States” (2024, NYU Press)

Wish You Were Here A roundtable on how to create radically welcoming access at the theatre. (2024, American Theatre)

What if the Disabled Characters Were Just Going About Their Day? ‘Madison Ferris and Danny J. Gomez star in the meet-cute “All of Me” — proof that depictions of disability onstage don’t have to be “a buzz kill,” as Ferris puts it.’ (2024, New York Times)

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.” (2024, New York Times)

9 Books that Center Deaf and Hard of Hearing Characters (2024, 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” (2024, Lithub)

Christine Sun Kim: Oh Me Oh My “In this monograph, the groundbreaking work of the American-born, Berlin-based artist Christine Sun Kim is explored through essays, short texts and reflections, an interview and abundant large-scale images of Kim’s work.” (2024, Tang)

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

'A disabled South Park character from 24 years ago is getting me harassed today' “My name is Alex. But increasingly young people shout “Timmy” at me in the street. This isn’t mistaken identity - it‘s mockery because I use a wheelchair.” (2024, BBC)

Changing representation of dwarfism in Disney’s live action Snow White remake.

“Many of the fans expressing disappointment that the dwarfs will now be CGI fail to realise how the role impacts people with dwarfism in public. For example, in 2012 German lawyer Silke Schönfleisch-Backofen, who has dwarfism, successfully sued a man after he started laughing and singing Hi Ho, the song the dwarfs sing in the original Disney film, at her in court.” (2024, The Conversation)

Bridgerton' season 3 captures disability, neurodiversity in regency era. (2024, ABC News)

Netflix Shows with Disabled Actors and Characters – updated for 2024. (2024, Disability Horizons)

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)

Australia

Heartbreak High's Quinni and the importance of autistic representation. “Heartbreak High feels like the representation that autistic women like myself have been seeking for so long.” (2024, D*List)

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

Seen and unseen: Disabled characters lost in cinema. An essay exploring disability in Hindi films. (2024, Hindustan Times)

Deafness, Kinship, and Formal Possibility in Bollywood Looking at two films that put Deaf protagonists at the center of romantic comedies the article finds “a space to rethink disabled kinmaking”. (2024, Disability Studies Quarterly)

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

All the silence: a Mexican film about disability in Mexican Sign Language. (In Spanish, 2024, Yo También)

‘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, 2024, 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)

Nepal

How Nepal’s films are failing blind, deaf viewers: “Lack of audio descriptions and closed captions in movies is a critical shortfall for 2.2 percent Nepalis who are living with disabilities.” (2024, Kathmandu Post)

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

Clickbait & Crutches: A fiercely disabled web series. “A new web series about disability and the internet came out of a desire to tell our own stories about who we are and how we connect online.” (2024, The D*List)

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)

Norway

‘I am valued here’: the extraordinary film that recreates a disabled boy’s rich digital life. (2024, the Guardian)

TV BRA goes live: “a rapidly growing national TV channel in Norway with and for people with intellectual disability.” (2024, Vimond) See also on the BBC.

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)

Ukraine

‘This is also about love!’: “Amputee war hero Oleksandr Budko will use his appearance as a contestant on The Bachelor to fight stigma – and hopefully find a partner”. (2024, the Guardian)

United Kingdom

‘People always ask – can she have sex?’: “We Might Regret This is one of TV’s most frank depictions of caring for a wheelchair user – and one of its funniest. Its creators talk steamy scenes, stereotypes – and getting drenched in urine”. (2024, the Guardian)

The Industry Is Questioning Where The Shows Are two-and-a-half years after the BBC and Netflix unveiled their five-year disability partnership. (2024, 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.” (2024, 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

How Wicked's Accessibility Coordinator Made the Land of Oz More Inclusive (2024, Pop Sugar)

Wicked Star Marissa Bode talks to Teen Vogue about being the first actress in a wheelchair to play the role of Nessarose in Wicked. (2024, Teen Vogue)

Audiences are Waiting for Hollywood to Greenlight Disability Breaking down barriers keeping mid-career disabled screenwriters from reaching their full commercial and creative potential. (2024, Inevitable Foundation)

Directing While Disabled: What I Learned Directing My First Short Film with A Physical Disability (2024, Respect Ability)

Disabled Kids Are Rarely In Films. We're Aiming To Fix That. “When parents see their families portrayed authentically, it fosters a sense of validation, empathy and belonging.” (2024, Huffpost)

"To Film with Your Ears": Reinventing Cinematic Language with The Tuba Thieves. A profile of Alison O’Daniel. (2024, PBS)

Oscar contender Poor Things is a film about disability. Why won’t more people say so? (2024, 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.” (2024, 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.” (2024, Hollywood Reporter)

‘Still: A Michael J. Fox’ Movie: ‘Crip Camp’ Director Praises the Film. (2024, 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.” (2024, 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

Advertising Disability a book on how advertising shapes attitudes towards disability:

“The research presented in the book provides a much-needed examination of the ways in which disability and mental health issues are depicted in different types of advertising, including charity 'sadvertisements', direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertisements and 'pro-diversity' brand campaigns. Textual analyses of advertisements from the eighteenth century onwards reveal how advertising reinforces barriers facing disabled people, such as stigmatising attitudes, ableist beauty 'ideals', inclusionism and the unstable crutch of charity.” (2024, Routledge)

How to report on disability: 6 tips for journalists (2024, LFTW)

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, 2024, Valuable 500)

Disability equality in the media: a practical manual exploring representation, accessibility, and management. Featuring examples from around the world. (2024, UNESCO)

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

Shaping Perceptions: How Australian Media Reports on Ageing. (2024, Australian Human Rights Commission)

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)

Belgium

Ableism, media and society: how media participates in the marginalization of people with disabilities. (In French, 2024, Média Animation)

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)

Switzerland

Profession: disabled:

“12 years in journalism, 348 applications, 4 job interviews and zero fixed contracts. If the media encourage him to “advance ‘his’ cause”, why don’t they hire him? Malick Reinhard denounces the hypocrisy of the professional world regarding disability.” (Translated from French, 2024, Sous Les Roues)

Tanzania

Here’s Why Most of Tanzania’s Journalists Shy Away From Disability Reporting (2024, The Chanzo)

Ukraine

UNDP helps develop methodological recommendations for ensuring accessibility in the media sector. (2024, UNDP)

United Kingdom

A bold new project is reclaiming disabled people’s history that’s previously been erased: profile of Disability Action Research Kollective. (2024, Canary)

A new wave of disability media Debrief feature on navigating tensions between art, activism and access. (2024, Disability Debrief)

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

I’m Co-Founding a Feminist Media Collective: Here’s Why Disability Will Be All Over It from the Start. Launching the Flytrap. (2024, Disability Visibility Project)

A guide for reporting on how young disabled and chronically ill people use online communities. (2024, J-Source)

How Young Disabled and Chronically Ill People Use Online Communities A Guide for Reporting. (2024, Julia Métraux)

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.” (2024, New York Times)

Reporting Guide to Investigating Disability Issues “Virtually every reporting beat has a disability angle.” (2024, Global Investigative Journalism Network)

Investing in the disability beat

“To create an accurate record of history, news organizations in 2025 must become serious about the disability beat by understanding and actively resisting ableism.” (2024, Nieman Journalism Lab)

Disabled And Here a disability-led stock image and interview series celebrating disabled Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC). (2024, Affect)

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

Fashion, Disability, and Co-design a collection of illustrated case studies edited by Grace Jun:

“engagement with disability communities to co-design clothing and accessories can lead to functional, wearable solutions for people of all abilities without compromising style.” (2024, Bloomsbury)

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.” (2024, 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

Adaptive fashion’s inclusivity problem a critical exploration of current initiatives and their limitations. (2024, Fashion Dive)

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

UN Flagship Report On Disability And Development 2024 An important overview of available evidence on disability:

“The report indicates that persons with disabilities are often left behind in the efforts to achieve Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, with wide gaps persisting between persons with and without disabilities, particularly on food security, health, and access to energy and ICT. Considering COVID-19, the report assesses the different ways the pandemic impacted progress towards achieving these goals and identifies concrete steps forward that is inclusive for all.” (2024, UNDESA)

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

The percentage of Australians with disability has surged in a few years

“According to the Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers, gathered in 2022, the number of Australians living with a disability increased to 5.5 million or 21.4% of the population. This is a striking increase from 17.7% in 2018, a figure that had remained relatively consistent for two decades (15% in 1998)” (2024, Phys)

Reasons why the percentage of Australians with disability has surged (2024, The Conversation)

Australian Bureau of Statistics releases new disability statistics

“As of 2022, there are now 5.5 million Australians with disability 2022. This represents 21.4% of the total population. This is an increase from 4.4 million (17.7% of the population) in 2018. Prevalence of disability is roughly the same for men and women (21.0% for men and 21.8% for women).” (2024, People with Disability 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)

Cameroon

Localizing inclusive data: Lessons from Sightsavers' work in Cameroon (2024, Data 4 SDGS)

Canada

Household food insecurity among persons with disabilities in Canada: Findings from the 2021 Canadian Income Survey:

“HFI prevalence among CIS participants with disabilities was higher than for persons without disabilities, even after adjustment for well-documented sociodemographic risk factors.” (2024, Statistics Canada)

A profile of 2SLGBTQ+ persons with disabilities, 2022 “Among [Canadians with disabilities], approximately 8.7%, or 694,090 individuals reported being a 2SLGBTQ+ person, representing 2.3% of the Canadian population aged 15 years and over.” (2024, Statistics Canada)

Canada Is Still Failing People With Disabilities analysis of recent statistics: “Disabled people continue to experience worse employment outcomes and higher rates of poverty than those without disabilities.” (2024, The Maple)

A demographic, employment and income profile of persons with disabilities aged 15 years and over in Canada, 2022. Canadian Disability Survey finds that the disability rate for persons aged 15 years and over in Canada was 27%, 30% of women, 24% of men. (2024, Statistics 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)

Costa Rica

17.2% of the Costa Rican population has a disability according to the results of the second national survey on disability. “Employment for the disabled population was estimated at 40.7% versus 66% of people without disabilities who have jobs.” (In Spanish, 2024, El Observador)

Results of the 2023 National Disability Survey

“It is estimated that 17.2% of people aged 18 and over in Costa Rica have a disability. Of the total number of people with disabilities, approximately 58% are women. 40.7% of people with disabilities have jobs.” (In Spanish, 2024, INEC)

Dominican Republic

Proposal approved for a national census to identify all people with disabilities resident in the country. (In Spanish, 2024, Diario Libre)

Ecuador

Disability in numbers 1.1 million persons with disabilities, 7% of the population. The majority are women, and half only completed the ten years of general basic education. (In Spanish, 2024, Primicias)

El Salvador

Half of Salvadorean households have a person with disability findings from a UNFPA situation analysis of persons with disabilities. (In Spanish, 2024, El Salvador)

Europe

Disability statistics - poverty and income inequalities “In 2023 in the EU, 28.8% of people with a disability were at risk of poverty or social exclusion, compared with 18.0% among people with no limitations.” (2024, Eurostat)

It just became easier to find EU-level data on persons with disabilities (2024, EDF) See the new eurostat thematic section on disability.

Gabon

Gabon has nearly 16,00 people living with disability, 27% of whom are children. Results of a census of people living with disability. (In French, 2024, Info 241)

Germany

Young people with disabilities are less satisfied than others. Among youth surveyed, aged between 14 to 27, 53 percent of young people with disabilities are satisfied with their lives, compared to 78 percent of young people without disabilities. (In German, I used google translate, 2024, Zeit Online)

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. (2024, Washington Group on Disability Statistics)

Exploring demographic and health survey data (2023, Disability Data Initiative)

Latin America and the Caribbean

Children with Disabilities in Latin America and the Caribbean: A statistical overview of their well-being: 19 million, or ten per cent of children in Latin America and the Caribbean have disabilities. (2024, UNICEF)

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.” (2024, LuxTimes)

Malaysia

Person with Disability Statistics, Malaysia 2023 finds 736,607 people registered as disabled with the Department of Social Welfare. (2024, Department of Statistics Malaysia)

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)

New Zealand

Child disability data and life outcomes One of the damning statistics:

“In the June 2017 quarter, 42.3% of disabled youth aged 15–24 years were not in employment, education, or training (NEET) [...] four times that of non-disabled youth”. (2024, DR Bex's Substack)

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

How Pakistan is championing inclusive data: the experience of Sightsavers and partners in advocating for disability-inclusive data. (2024, The Data Values Digest)

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)

Paraguay

What is the percentage of people with disabilities in Paraguay? The statistics agency presents an atlas of disability, which gives 5.3% of the population as having a “severe” disability. (In Spanish, 2024, ABC)

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)

Russia

Russia sees first rise in disability registrations in 11 years — but wartime injuries are only part of the story. An investigation of the possible causes. (2024, Meduza)

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

Around 50% of people with disabilities aged 65 or above “According to the Health Ministry’s report [...] up to 2.65 million of the total population were registered as having some sort of disability.” (2024, The Korea Herald)

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

“Frivolous, erroneous and obnoxious”: persons with disabilities critique the Uganda Bureau of Statistics which found in 2024 a reduced prevalence of disability of 5.7%. (2024, New Vision)

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

When Designing Disability Survey Questions, Align Measurement To Purpose A Response To Landes et al:

“Focusing on functional difficulties in core domains makes it possible to produce an overall indicator but also provides information that is specific enough to be directly useful in removing key barriers that contribute to domain-specific difficulties. For example, people who cannot see face very different barriers than people who cannot hear; they require different accommodations or design elements.” (2024, HealthAffairs)

Millions of people are missing from U.S. disability data:

“The first step in moving disability measurement forward is recognizing that defining disability solely by someone’s functioning is inadequate. While measures of functioning are important to understand the limitations certain disabled people experience and could identify disabled people who may benefit from specific programs or benefits, these surveys still fail to capture many disabled people. Using this data to determine national estimates of disability is akin to using data on languages used in the home to determine the national race and ethnicity estimates.” (2024, Stat)

To Reduce Disability Bias in Technology, Start With Disability Data. “This paper identifies the various ways in which data sets may exclude, inaccurately count, or be non-representative of disabled people.” (2024, Center for Democracy & Technology)

Over 70 Million U.S. Adults Reported Having a Disability:

“The latest data, from the 2022 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), reveal that more than 1 in 4—over 70 million—adults in the United States reported having a disability in 2022.” (2024, CDC Newsroom)

Current Approaches to Measuring Disability Status in Federal Surveys May Limit Understanding of Economic and Health Disparities (2024, Urban Institute)

Counting disability in the National Health Interview Survey and its consequence: Comparing the American Community Survey to the Washington Group disability measures:

“We find that when compared to their predecessor, the American Community Survey disability questions, the Washington Group questions accounted for less than half of disabled people, primarily counting disabled people with more than one disability status, but not counting many disabled people with only one disability status.” (2024, Disability and Health Journal)

Next Steps on the American Community Survey Disability Questions in response to push-back on proposed adoption of the internationally-standard Washington-Group questions. (2024, Census Bureau)

Working-Age Adults with Disabilities Living in the Community. Analysis of the American Community Survey. (2024, KFF)

Charting Equality: Why Demographic Disability Data is Good for Everyone. A detailed exploration. (2024, DREDF)

Annual Disability Statistics Collection gathering disability statistics from many federal agencies. (2024, Center for Research On Disability)

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

The Routledge International Handbook of Critical Disability Studies (2024, Routledge)

Challenging the “norm”: a critical look at deaf-hearing comparison studies in research:

“Upon reviewing the 20 most-cited deaf-hearing comparison studies, we identified recurring fallacies such as the presumption of hearing ideological biases, the use of heterogeneously small samples, and the misinterpretation of critical variables.” (2024, Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education)

How Wikipedia Systematically Misleads People About Autism

“Taking neurodiversity seriously has far-reaching implications for how we talk about autism and other kinds of neurodivergence, and also what is important to discuss. Recognizing the importance of neurodiversity suggests that it is a mistake to assume these differences are disorders or collections of deficits, for example; and that in many ways, a medical framing of something like autism is unhelpful. In line with the social model of disability, it suggests that it is more useful to talk about how best to accommodate neurodivergent people than to hunt for “cures.” The causes of autism might be of scientific interest, but they are not particularly interesting to most autistic people, our families, or those who work with us; what matters more is understanding what it takes for autistic people to thrive.” (2024, Thinking Person's Guide to Autism)

Disability, the Environment, and Colonialism An edited collection:

“The editor and contributors provide a careful analysis of the intersection of disability, the environment, and colonialism to understand issues such as eco-ableism, environmental degradation, homogenized approaches to environmentalism, and climate change. They also look at the body as a site of colonial oppression and environmental exploitation.” (2024, Combined Academic Publishers)

The Palgrave Handbook of Research Methods and Ethics in Neurodiversity Studies. (2024, SpringerLink)

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

Participatory research with youth with disabilities: Experiences from sub-Saharan Africa. (2024, African Journal of Disability)

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

Strengthening Research Capacity National Disability Research Partnership plan to strengthen disability research capacity. (2024, NDRP)

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

Discrimination and vulnerabilities: dialogues in the context of people with disabilities and elderly people bringing together research from different disciplines. (In Portuguese, 2024, Flávia Piva Almeida Leite et al)

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)

India

Disability as Diversity in India an edited collection on Theory, Practice, and Lived Experience. (2024, Routledge India)

Russia

Intercorporeal Togetherness: On Russian Blind Activists’ Technology of Disability Inclusion. (2022, Cultural Anthropology)

United Kingdom

Midgetism: a book by Erin Pritchard on exploitation and discrimination of people with dwarfism:

“This book introduces the critical term ‘midgetism’, which the author has coined, to demonstrate that the socio-cultural discrimination people with dwarfism experience is influenced by both heightism and disablism.” (2024, Routledge)

Beyond Disability Stigma: Examining Tolerance and Intolerance toward Disability Issues:

“Recent advances from social psychology suggest that intolerance is conceptually distinct from stigma and prejudice and results from value-driven reasons to interfere with a person’s beliefs or practices that have little to do with their identity or characteristics like impairment. However, study of (in)tolerance has so far been neglected in the disability context. In this paper, we address this gap. We argue that studying disability-related (in)tolerance is crucial for understanding disability discrimination and designing interventions to combat it.” (2024, Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research)

Rethinking Crip time and Embodiment in Research (2024, the polyphony)

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 (2024, Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research)

Back to top.

Digital Accessibility and Technology

Overview

International News

Designing For Neurodiversity Resources Roundup (2024, DigitalA11Y)

Coding accessibility: Software by the blind, for the blind feature on the NVDA screen reader. (2024, GitHub)

Accessibility Training at Microsoft “Today, we’re excited to announce the launch of our updated Accessibility Fundamentals learning path, free for all.” (2024, Microsoft)

Alt Text Selfies a beautiful collection of self-descriptions. (2024, Alt Text Selfies)

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”. (2024, 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)

Germany

New German accessibility law targets inclusive digital products and services by 2025: challenges and opportunities for economic operators. (2024, DLA Piper)

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)

Kyrgyzstan

Creating Digital Accessibility in Kyrgyzstan (2024, UNDP)

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. (2024, 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

Why America is obsessed with subtitles A survey of 1,260 people shows 50% use subtitles most of the time. (2024, Preply)

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

Avoiding the Discriminatory Use of Artificial Intelligence resource for schools to ensure “artificial intelligence (AI) is used in a nondiscriminatory manner” at all levels of education. Includes a detailed section on disability. (Link to pdf, Department of Education)

Disability Data: Improving Representation to Drive AI Innovation A collaboration between Microsoft and Be My Eyes ”to bring high-quality, disability representative data to help train AI systems.” (2024, Microsoft)

Disability community has long wrestled with ‘helpful’ technologies – lessons for everyone in dealing with AI. “Consider another way to look at AI: as an assistive technology – something that helps you function.” (2024, Yahoo!)

Researchers from Google DeepMind Introduce YouTube-SL-25: A Multilingual Corpus with Over 3,000 Hours of Sign Language Videos Covering 25+ Languages. (2024, MarkTechPost)

ChatGPT is biased against resumes with credentials that imply a disability — but it can improve:

‘researchers found that ChatGPT consistently ranked resumes with disability-related honors and credentials — such as the “Tom Wilson Disability Leadership Award” — lower than the same resumes without those honors and credentials. But when researchers customized the tool with written instructions directing it not to be ableist, the tool reduced this bias for all but one of the disabilities tested.’ (2024, UW News)

AI can turn text into sign language – but it’s often unintelligible. (2024, New Scientist)

How AI is advancing assistive technology (2024, 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.” (2024, 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

United against algorithms: a primer on disability-led struggles against algorithmic injustice.

“Algorithmic decision-making (ADM) poses urgent concerns regarding the rights and entitlements of people with disability from all walks of life. As ADM systems become increasingly embedded in government decision-making processes, there is a heightened risk of harm, such as unjust denial of benefits or inadequate support, accentuated by the expanding reach of state surveillance.” (2024, Data Justice Lab)

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

A disability-inclusive Artificial Intelligence Act: A guide to monitor implementation in your country. (2024, EDF)

Jamie and the impact of Artificial Intelligence on persons with disabilities. (A short animation, 2024, EDF)

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

How to write text descriptions (alt text) in news articles guidance for BBC News staff. (2024, BBC)

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

Inside Sign Speak’s Mission To Make Accessibility Out Of American Sign Language And Artificial Intelligence. (2024, Forbes)

AI and the Future of Work: Legal Perspectives on Disability Accommodation and Employment Equity (2024, Ohio Northern University Law Review)

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

Dataviz accessibility principles, demonstrated by the 2024 presidential election dashboards. (2024, Sarah L. Fossheim)

25 Accessibility Tips to Celebrate 25 Years a nice collection of actionable tips. (2024, WebAIM)

Accessible and ‘a pleasure to read’: how Apple’s podcast transcriptions came to be. (2024, the Guardian)

A Brief Introduction to Keyboard Accessibility (2024, AFixt)

How People with Disabilities Use the Web updated resource to help “developers, designers, content creators, and others understand the reasons behind creating accessible digital products”. (2024, W3C Web Accessibility Initiative)

A complete guide for content creators to start making accessible content. (2024, Pope Tech Blog)

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.” (2024, Tech Policy)

Web Accessibility Cookbook:

“dozens of recipes to help you build common components on the web, such as navigations, forms, filters, tables, and dialogs, in an accessible manner.” (2024, Manuel Matuzović)

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.” (2024, 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. (2024, Equal Entry)

India

Why does India fail to address digital accessibility gaps? “There has been no progress in the number of accessible central government websites, which remains at 95 since 2020.” (2024, Newslaundry)

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

Six out of 10 Irish businesses ‘not prepared’ for European Accessibility Act. (2024, The Irish Times)

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%.” (2024, UNDP)

United Kingdom

Accessibility as a cyber security priority Want security that works better for people? Make it accessible. (2023, NCSC)

United States

FTC Order Requires Online Marketer to Pay $1 Million for Deceptive Claims that its AI Product Could Make Websites Compliant with Accessibility Guidelines:

“According to the complaint, despite the company’s claims, accessWidget did not make all user websites WCAG-compliant and these claims were therefore false, misleading, or unsubstantiated, in violation of the FTC Act. In addition, the complaint alleges that accessiBe deceptively formatted third-party articles and reviews to appear as if they were independent opinions by impartial authors and failed to disclose the company’s material connections to the supposedly objective reviewers.” (Jan, Federal Trade Commission)

Google Accused of Collecting California Disabled Drivers’ Data: “Google LLC was hit with a proposed class action alleging the tech giant collected and monetized personal information about users’ disabilities via the California Department of Motor Vehicles website.” (2024, Bloomberg Law)

How Level Access Acquiring UserWay Transforms The Web Accessibility Market Tim Springer, CEO of Level Access explains why they acquired a firm specialising in web accessibility overlays, a controversial way to provide online accessibility:

“When it comes to overlays, within disability and accessibility, there’s always been a very vocal minority that says, ‘Look, these things are bad.’ They want to view the world as black and white but the reality is that the world is a bunch of shades of grey and there is an appropriate place for artificial intelligence and automation in digital accessibility.” (2024, Forbes)

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

Sony Wants to Make VR More Accessible for Deaf Gamers (2024, Game Rant)

Introduction to Extended Reality (XR) Accessibility: “key considerations for designing and developing inclusive XR experiences”. (2024, TetraLogical)

Xbox Unveils Four New Accessibility Offerings “Three new accessibility devices and 3D printable files for adaptive thumbstick toppers will join our current lineup.” (2024, Microsoft)

Empowering navigation for the visually impaired through Augmented Reality. A device that helps users recognise the environment and avoid obstacles. (2024, Tech Xplore)

Apple announces new accessibility features “including Eye Tracking, Music Haptics, and Vocal Shortcuts”. (2024, Apple)

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.” (2024, 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. (2024, Disability Justice Project)

United States

“I Know What the Apple Vision Pro Is For” The headset is already changing disabled users’ lives, with “unprecedented control” over their visual environments. (2024, Intelligencer)

Javier in Frame Google Pixel Super Bowl Commercial 2024 of their guided frame feature. (2024, 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

“Tell Me You Have ADHD Without Telling Me You Have ADHD”: Neurodivergent Identity Performance on TikTok:

“I argue that in user-generated ADHD TikTok videos the performance strategies of creators and platform affordances of TikTok indicate these videos function as identity work rather than health information.” (2024, Social Media + Society)

“You’ve Got to Put in the Time”: Neoliberal-Ableism and Disabled Streamers on Twitch:

“I argue that Twitch reifies forms of neoliberal-ableism through its prioritizing of individual labour, precarious forms of monetization that necessitate cultures of overwork and ‘grinding’, and targeted harassment, known as hate raids, against disabled and other marginalized streamers to ultimately create a kind of integrative access where disability is tolerated but not valued.” (2024, Societies)

Disability activists online and the worlds they're helping to build. “A social media response to a massive public health failure” (2024, 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

Short statured Australians are facing increased online abuse. They're asking for the public's help to stop it.

“Three times in the last few weeks, Samantha Lilly has stumbled across pictures of herself online that she didn't know had been taken. The photos had been posted alongside derogatory captions, attracting dozens of comments from people laughing along and mocking her appearance.” (2024, ABC News)

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)

Oman

Omanis with disabilities and social media. Reflections from research. (In Arabic, 2024, Oman Daily Observer)

Spain

“Fake Autism” a campaign to combat disinformation on social media about autism. (In Spanish, 2023, Laboratorio de Periodismo)

Ukraine

Social media discourse on needs of people with disabilities. A report. “During the war, special attention is paid to men, while the issues of women and the elderly are not covered sufficiently”. (2024, League of the Strong)

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

Meet the Wheelchair User Making Google Maps More Accessible. (2024, New Mobility)

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

Disability Justice in Public Health Emergencies “the first book to highlight contributions from critical disability scholarship to the fields of public health ethics and disaster ethics.” (2024, Routledge)

Collecting disability disaggregated data in disaster risk reduction: Findings and lessons learned. (2024, CBM)

Disability, displacement and disaster resilience: Ensuring the rights of persons with disabilities in situations of forced displacement and statelessness. (2024, 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” (2024, 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. (2024, UNDRR)

Asia-Pacific

Disability-inclusive disaster risk reduction and measuring progress against the Sendai Framework. (2022, The Interpreter)

Australia

Crisis communication saves lives – but people with disability often aren’t given the message. “Clearer and more comprehensive national legislation requiring the production of accessible information would give people with disability the information they need to stay safe in times of crisis.” (2024, The Conversation)

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

‘I couldn’t carry my son who has physical disabilities, so I left him behind hoping he’ll be safe’: Families in Bangladesh forced to flee homes as floods wreak havoc. (2024, ActionAid)

‘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?” (2024, 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)

Cameroon

GADRA Activates to Support Disability-Led Organization in Cameroon: Words from the Community Creative Center on its founding and response to the fire at Bamenda Main Market in the North West region. (2024, World Institute on Disability)

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 (2024, 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)

New Zealand

How I survived evacuating Dunedin floods in the middle of the night. “You know things are bad when politicians are contacting you directly.” (2024, The D*List)

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)

South Sudan

Floods are battering South Sudan. This aid worker helps villagers plan for the worst. (2024, Christian Science Monitor)

Call to protect people with disabilities in ‘unprecedented’ floods.

“People with disabilities in South Sudan are among the hardest hit as the country faces flooding on a scale “unprecedented in the last century”.” (2024, Light for the World)

South Sudanese living with disability bear the brunt of floods. (Short video feature, 2024, Africanews)

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

Altadena family says disabled father and son were left to burn in fire. ‘Nobody was coming’ (Jan, Los Angeles Times)

Fleeing the LA fires alone on a wheelchair: ‘I had to take my chances’. (Jan, the Guardian)

The nightmare of evacuations for the elderly and disabled in the path of the fires. (Jan, Los Angeles Times)

Disaster Justice A guidebook for people of color with disabilities. (2024, 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

Make trade inclusive for persons with disabilities a global call to action. (2024, ILO)

Disability Inclusive Trade: “An informal inter-organizational Technical Working Group on Trade and Disability Inclusion has been established in response to the growing demand for international trade policies that address the specific challenges and opportunities faced by persons with disabilities.” (2024, ILO)

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, 2024, 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

The impact of the cost-of-living crisis on persons with disabilities. “Surprisingly, the average rate of persons with disabilities in the EU at risk of poverty and social exclusion has not risen, despite the socio-economic challenges Europe is facing.” (2024, EDF)

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

Budget Gaps: How the 2024–25 Fiscal Plan Fails People with Disabilities. Continuing cuts to the budget for implementation of disability rights legislation. (2024, The Wire)

The Direct Costs of Disability to Families in Tamil Nadu A study report on the goods and services required by persons with disabilities in Tamil Nadu for full & effective participation (2024, Center for Inclusive Policy)

Visually impaired beggar in Assam’s Guwahati goes digital, uses QR code to ask for alms. (2024, Hindustan Times)

Iran

Iran warns sanctions taking toll on disabled people:

“sanctions imposed by the United States and many Western countries on the Islamic Republic of Iran have significantly increased the prime costs of rehabilitation items and specialized services, and affected the economic capabilities of individuals receiving such services.” (2024, Mehr News Agency)

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)

Nigeria

Visually Impaired Beggars in Nigeria’s Capital Suffer in the City’s Attempt to Hide the Poor:

“Where do they want us to go?” she asked. “I’ll gladly stop begging if I get some support to start a little business in the comfort of my hut. But I can never go back home because it’s not peaceful.” (2024, HumAngle)

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)

Papua New Guinea

Where is the Budget for people with disability? (2024, Post Courier)

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

Plugging the “fiscal black hole” a report on how “Investing in Disabled People and Carers can solve the UK’s Economic Challenges”:

“The growing issue of economic inactivity – one of the government’s biggest challenges – stems from the lack of effective support for disabled people, those with long-term health conditions, and unpaid carers, both in getting into work and staying in employment. Our analysis estimates that this failure costs the UK Treasury £38bn each year – nearly twice the “fiscal black hole” or the unfunded spending pressures announced by the government. We consider that these costs occur from failing to close employment gaps for these groups, largely leading to lost tax revenue alongside welfare payments that could be reduced if more people who want to work were able to do so”. (2024, Disability Policy Centre)

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

Equity for Whom? An Introduction to Private Equity’s Impacts on the Disability Community:

“Private equity poses a serious and urgent threat to people with disabilities, particularly those with multiple marginalized identities. People who rely on HCBS, autism services, accessible transportation, fertility assistance, affordable housing, or power wheelchair/scooter repairs, and people who are incarcerated in prison, jail, or living in institutions such as a nursing home, residential treatment facility, or intermediate care facility, have likely been deeply impacted by private equity over the past decade. For this reason, it’s imperative that the disability community oppose this profiteering and exploitation, and resist private equity’s encroachment.” (2024, DREDF)

People with blindness and low vision are squeezed by high costs of living:

“We calculated that people with blindness or low vision spend, on average, 27% of their household income on expenses related to their disability – about $7,000 per year. [...] The people who took this survey and were earning less than $25,000 per year said they spent about 40% of their income on costs related to their disability, on average, compared with 16% for those with higher incomes.” (2024, The Conversation)

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)

Barbados

A call for full inclusion of persons with disabilities in the country's financial system:

“It’s about making sure you have the knowledge and the comfort to interact with our financial system — whether it is earning money, spending money, or accessing money, whether it is personally or for a business venture you may have.” (2024, Barbados Today)

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

Trapped in digital dark: How Nigeria’s financial system fails persons with disabilities. (2024, Vanguard)

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

Disability inclusive social protection. “Two fundamental issues relating to disability inclusive social protection are the determination of the nature of the extra costs facing people with disabilities and the mechanisms for assessing the needs of people with disabilities within a country’s context.” (2024, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health)

The Ibero-American Disability Card “will facilitate the recognition of rights and access to services for people with disabilities in Ibero-American countries.” (In Spanish, 2024, SEGIB) See further.

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

Guide to benefits an audit of non-contributory disability benefits for persons with disabilities. (In Spanish, 2024, ACIJ)

Disability pension: points for public discussion. A guide giving evidence responding to assumptions in public debate. (2024, ACIJ)

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

Disability service fined $1.8m after woman dies from burns suffered during bath. (2024, 9News)

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)

Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan sees significant drop in disability pensioners: What's behind the change?

“In January 2019, there were 390,100 recipients of disability pensions. By January 2024, this number had fallen to 258,700.” (2024, JAM News)

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

Newfoundland and Labrador launching disability benefit to top up federal program and create basic income. (2024, Toronto Star)

B.C. professor quits federal panel in protest of Ottawa's new disability benefit. “The new benefit will provide a maximum annual benefit of $2,400 per year, or $200 per month, to eligible applicants.” (2024, Global News)

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, 2024, el Caribe)

Denmark

AI-powered welfare system fuels mass surveillance and risks discriminating against marginalized groups, including people with disabilities. (2024, Amnesty International)

Egypt

Cars for disabled people: Government pauses duty-free system for disabled people to import cars, based on perception of its exploitation. (In Arabic, 2024, Aljazeera)

Estonia

Põlva social insurance office inaccessible for people with mobility disabilities:

“If a wheelchair user wanted to visit the Social Insurance Board in the Põlva Public Services Building to apply for benefits, they wouldn't even be able to reach the door because the building lacks a ramp.” (2024, ERR)

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. (2024, 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.” (2024, 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)

Finland

Disability Tax in the Welfare State: Uncertainty and Resentment about Disability Services in Finland:

“The disability tax experiences are elaborated through four aspects: (1) rejected applications, (2) uncertain realisation, (3) laborious complaint mechanisms, and (4) the psycho–emotional effect. The findings of this study establish collective experiences of multi-layered disability tax throughout the disability services process. It concludes that disability services, which were originally planned to specifically ensure equal opportunities to participate in society for persons with disabilities, are increasingly becoming the very sources of burden as austerity has silently grown deeper over recent years and has become the clear policy of the current government.” (2024, Disabilities)

France

“Unacceptable cut” of funding to Agefiph, the agency supporting professional integration of people with disabilities. (In French, 2024, La Croix)

Discriminatory algorithm used by the social security agency must be stopped: It has been condemned by a group of 15 organisations. According to Amnesty International:

“From the outset, the risk-scoring system used by CNAF treats individuals who experience marginalization – those with disabilities, lone single parents who are mostly women, and those living in poverty – with suspicion.” (2024, Amnesty)

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)

Gabon

An annual disability allowance of 75,000 CFA francs (almost 120 USD). The aid is considered insufficient by beneficiaries.

“We are tired of having 75,000 francs. As soon as I get home, it's over, it won't even last.” (In French, 2024, Gabon Review)

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

The experience of persons with disabilities as beneficiaries of Ghana’s District Assemblies Common Fund:

“Notwithstanding a number of the access challenges and some disappointing experiences of beneficiaries, they all acknowledged that the programme helped to promote their inclusion into their community and family life, enhanced their dignity and feeling of being valued in the household and community at large. The Fund has assisted beneficiaries to establish small-scale businesses, acquire skills and education, access critical health services, assistive devices among others.” (2024, Plos One)

Ghana’s District Assemblies Common Fund The experience of persons with disabilities as beneficiaries. (2024, Plos One)

‘Enhanced accessibility’ as online application launched for pensioners, persons living with disabilities. (2024, 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, 2024, 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

Dubious disabilities, duping doctors “Three doctors and a woman were among 33 people remanded yesterday for falsifying Socso disability claims amounting to RM2.1mil [483,000 USD] since 2017.” (2024, The Star)

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.” (2024, 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

Dreams, realities, and the broken promises of disability support. (2024, RNZ)

Disabled people deserve a meaningful place of our own. “The decision to downsize Whaikaha and strip it of its responsibility for delivering support services has outraged disabled people, who fought for decades for a ministry of their own, writes Robyn Hunt.” (2024, The Spinoff)

Concerns raised over Māori and Pasifika disability support in restructure of Whaikaha, the Ministry of Disabled People:

“We don’t know if the Māori voice around disabilities will continue, because we’re not sitting at decision-making tables, and that’s where we all need to be.” (2024, Te Ao Māori News)

What happens when disabled people lose flexible funding “An announcement, then the fallout” (2024, The Spinoff)

Why we cannot let the disability support changes happen. (2024, 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)

Oman

Oman unveils platform to offer services for disabled persons (2024, Muscat Daily)

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, 2024, 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]. (2024, 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

Reform of the MSEC: the Ministry of Health explained how Ukrainians can establish disability in 2025. (2024, 112)

Top medical official in Kyiv suspected of faking disability certificates for draft-age men (2024, Kyiv Independent)

Medical and social expert commissions will be liquidated at end of the year, according to presidential decree. (2024, NikVesti)

More than $450,000 in cash was found in the head of the MSEC held by the head of the MSEC of the Mykolaiv region. (2024, NikVesti)

Hundreds of Instances of Clearly Unjustified Disabilities address by President Zelenskyy on fraudulent disability status:

“There are hundreds of such instances of clearly unjustified disabilities among officials in Customs, Tax Service, Pension Fund system, and local administrations. All of this needs to be dealt with thoroughly and swiftly. The MSEC system should be abolished.” (2024, President of Ukraine)

Ukrainian prosecutor general resigns amid scandal over draft exemptions “after corruption scheme involving false disability diagnoses for draft exemptions is uncovered”:

“In early October, it emerged that dozens of public prosecutors in the western region of Khmelnytskyi had falsely been awarded disability permits and were receiving special pensions.” (2024, Aljazeera)

Ukraine’s top prosecutor falls on sword amid fake disabilities scam:

“Overall, some 64 state medical commissioners have been issued with ‘notes of suspicion,’ the Ukraine equivalent of criminal charges that have not yet been tried in court. Some 4,000 disability certificates were canceled after the audit, SBU head Vasyl Malyuk said Tuesday.” (2024, Politico)

Disability Certificates Scandal: What Led to the Prosecutor General’s Resignation and What’s Next? In-depth report. (2024, Kyiv Post)

Acting head of MSEC detained in Kyiv for extorting $10,000:

“According to the police, the official set up an illegal scheme to extort bribes from citizens for passing medical examinations and assigning them a disability group. This would further enable persons liable for military service to avoid mobilization.” (2024, UNN)

Doctor issued false disability documents for a reward:

“It is noted that she involved doctors from various health care institutions in Lviv in illegal activities. They issued false conclusions about the health status of "patients", on the basis of which men received disabilities.

The cost of "services" for one person was 7 thousand US dollars. According to available data, the scheme has been operating since last fall, and a large number of persons liable for military service were able to obtain a "fake" disability. The "clients" were not only from Lviv region, but also from all over Ukraine.” (2024, UNN)

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.” (2024, Censor.net)

Corruption scheme exposed in Zaporizhzhia: “police uncovered a corruption scheme to issue fake disability certificates to military personnel worth $3,500”. (2024, UNN)

United Kingdom

Revealed: bias found in AI system used to detect UK benefits fraud. “Age, disability, marital status and nationality influence decisions to investigate claims, prompting fears of ‘hurt first, fix later’ approach” (2024, the Guardian)

Hidden behind this budget is a terrible bombshell: billions in cuts for disabled people. (2024, Guardian)

Unlocking benefits: Tackling barriers for disabled people wanting to work:

“Policy must focus on improving population health and healthcare. It needs to ensure jobs are designed to be much more viable for disabled people and more supportive when employees become ill. At the same time, barriers to work in the benefit system must be addressed to ensure the entire welfare–employment system works as one to support more people on work-related disability benefits into work and out of hardship.” (2024, JRF)

Reality of DWP benefits system: 'I'm going to die and can't get PIP' extract from the Department, a new book from John Pring, editor of the Disability News Service. (2024, See also the Department Book.)

Growing pressures Exploring trends in children’s disability benefits, a report:

“Over the last decade, the number of under-16s in receipt of Disability Living Allowance (DLA) in England and Wales has doubled, reaching 682,000 in 2023, equivalent to one-in-sixteen children. This growing caseload has been driven almost entirely by awards made to children whose main condition is either a learning difficulty, behavioural disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): in 2023, four-fifths of all Child DLA awards were for children whose main condition was one of these three.” (2024, Resolution Foundation)

Sample of disabled people forced onto universal credit shows every one of them now receives less in benefits. (2024, Disability News Service)

“Under strain” Investigating trends in working-age disability and incapacity benefits. (2024, Resolution Foundation)

Swapping payments for vouchers won’t fix disability benefits. “Ongoing benefit payments should relate to actual costs in life and protect people from slipping into poverty.” (2024, The Conversation)

I did ‘fit for work’ tests for the Department of Work and Pensions. “Many times my decision was that the person was fit for work on DWP criteria, but privately I would not dream of employing them myself.” (2024, the Guardian)

Almost no cases of disability benefit fraud despite DWP crackdown “The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has released new statistics showing that fraud in the disability benefits system is a 'non-issue'” (2024, Big Issue)

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

Already Battered Disability Providers Say More Cuts Could Be Coming

“A survey released this week finds that 90% of providers serving people with intellectual and developmental disabilities have faced moderate or severe staffing shortages in the last year. As a result, 69% said they had declined new clients and 39% indicated that they shuttered programs or services. More than a third said they were considering additional program cuts.” (2024, Disability Scoop)

This disabled woman built a career. SSI once helped but now penalizes her. (2024, NPR)

The Connection Between Social Security Disability Benefits and Health Coverage Through Medicaid and Medicare. (2024, KFF)

Health Disparities in the Medical Record and Disability Determinations: Proceedings of a Workshop:

“When people with disabilities are denied the care they need, it is difficult for them to get the information they need into their medical record so they can successfully go through the disability determination process.” (2024, National Academies Press)

They rely on Social Security. But the agency took their much-needed benefits away because of a $2,000 asset limit. (2024, NPR)

Couples say they can't get married because of the outdated rules of Social Security's Supplemental Security Income program. (2024, NPR)

Social Security to Simplify Disability Evaluation Process: “the agency is proud to announce changes that will reduce administrative burdens for applicants and help more people with disabilities receive government benefits and services if they are eligible”. (2024, Social Security Matters)

Social Security ditches obsolete jobs data used to deny disability claims:

“For decades, the Social Security Administration has denied thousands of people disability benefits by claiming they could find jobs that have all but vanished from the U.S. economy — such occupations as nut sorter, pneumatic tube operator and microfilm processor.” (2024, Washington Post)

The safety net program trapping people in poverty article exploring Supplemental Security Income. “Imagine you have to stop working for whatever reason, but legally you’ve only been allowed to build up $2,000 in savings.” (2024, Vox)

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.” (2024, 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. (2024, 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

Their mission? To mould us. The persistence of segregation in education, from its colonial roots to now. Plus a love-hate relationship with education. (2024, Disability Debrief)

Disability Inclusive Education in Emergencies: Key Tools and Resources for Implementation (2024, UNICEF)

Inaccessible Access an edited collection on Rethinking Disability Inclusion in Academic Knowledge Creation. (2024, Combined Academic Publishers)

Early childhood development strategy for the world’s children with disabilities. (2024, Frontiers Public Health)

Experiences of accessing education among people with disabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from five low- and middle-income countries:

“The pandemic exacerbated the existing failure of education systems to cater to the needs of people with disabilities and their families. Beyond education, losses in functioning, mental health, and family wellbeing were acutely felt by caregivers.” (2024, Oxford Development Studies)

How to finance disability inclusion in education to transform systems and leave no one behind. “Reflections and recommendations to enable financing of inclusive education in lower-income countries.” (2024, Global Partnership on Education)

UNICEF's Guide to Disability-Inclusive Evaluations (2024, UNICEF)

How to meaningfully measure learning outcomes of learners with disabilities 4 recommendations to make learning assessments more inclusive of learners with disabilities. (2024, Global Partnership on Education)

Equitable access to play critical for children with disabilities:

“Access to age–appropriate play and recreation is an often neglected but critical aspect of improving the wellbeing of children with disabilities.” (2024, Diplomatic Courier)

Strategies for addressing the needs of children with or at risk of developmental disabilities in early childhood by 2030: a systematic umbrella review. (2024, 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.” (2024, 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“. (2024, 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.” (2024, Special Olympics)

Disability-Inclusive Education in Emergencies: Key Concepts, Approaches, and Principles for Practice. (2024, 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. (2024, OHCHR)

Addressing stigma and discrimination toward children and youth through social and behaviour change: a disability toolkit. (2024, UNICEF)

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.” (2024, 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)

Angola

Meeting of children with disabilities and the Ministry of Finance supported by UNICEF. Dorivaldo Correia, aged 9, said his hopes and reams were like those of any other child. (In Portuguese, 2024, UNICEF)

Argentina

Mental health as an educational outcome: Lessons for inclusive education from the Austral in Neuquén (2023, Disability and the Global South)

Armenia

Transforming lives of children with special needs in Armenia

“As of recent reports, approximately 4,000 children with disabilities are enrolled in special education institutions, while around 2,000 are integrated into mainstream schools with varying levels of support.” (2024, Civilnet)

Asia-Pacific

Ensuring continuity of education of children with disabilities during emergencies (2021, Global Partnership for Education)

Australia

Government allowed private organisation to hand out more than half a billion dollars of public money:

“A childcare operator was given the power to allocate more than half a billion dollars in federal funding set aside from 2016 to 2023 for children with disabilities, without any public record of how the money was spent.” (2024, ABC)

Hannah's son was put in a box at school. She's one of many parents calling out the practice:

“The widespread use of 'restrictive practices' in Australian schools is leaving children with disability traumatised and their parents exasperated. Some teachers are also appalled by what they've seen.” (2024, SBS News)

Funding for Australian school students with disabilities ‘woefully inadequate’ “A new national survey of 15,000 principals and teachers reports that just 11% of principals feel they have sufficient resources to support the educational needs of students with disabilities.” (2024, the Guardian)

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

Mother’s fight for education breaks disability stigma in rural Bangladesh:

“After three years of struggling to enroll her autistic daughter in a local school, Rikta Akter Banu had had enough. Refusing to accept the constant rejections, she decided to build her own school instead.” (Jan, Arab News)

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

Can disabled people be teachers in China? case studies of disabled people struggling to become teachers and the strategies they use to overcome the barriers. (2024, Disability & Society)

Disabled orphans bear brunt of China's overseas adoption ban. (2024, BBC)

Over 1,500 schools launch new alliance to promote inclusive education “The alliance aims to focus on and ensure every child, especially those with special needs, has equitable and quality education” (2024, China Daily)

Children with dwarfism discuss why accessibility, awareness are needed in Hong Kong (2024, SCMP)

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, 2024, Granma)

Eastern Europe and Central Asia

The role of boarding schools for vulnerable children A summary of evidence on the current use and impact of boarding schools in the Europe and Central Asia region. (2024, UNICEF)

Egypt

First e-library for blind people launched in Alexandria (2022, Disability Insider)

Ethiopia

Challenges to inclusive education for girls with disabilities in Tigray. (2024, Brookings)

From exclusion to inclusion: The need for improved education policies for girls with disabilities in Tigray. (2024, Brookings)

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

Prevalence of functional difficulty among school-aged children and effect on school enrolment in rural southern India: A cross-sectional analysis:

“This study shows that at least one in a hundred children in this region have severe functional difficulties and nearly half of these children are not enrolled in school” (2024, Journal of Epidemiology and Global Health)

A Systematic Review on Inclusive Education Research: Identifying Concerns over Children with Disabilities. (2024, Asian Journal of Education and Social Studies)

Prevalence of functional difficulty among school-aged children and effect on school enrolment in rural southern India: A cross-sectional analysis:

“This study shows that at least one in a hundred children in this region have severe functional difficulties and nearly half of these children are not enrolled in school, highlighting the need for further efforts and evidence-based interventions to increase school enrolment among these groups.” (2024, Journal of Epidemiology and Global Health)

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”. (2024, 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

Challenges on Inclusive Primary Education in Indonesia

“However, despite many positive steps taken, inclusive schools face several significant challenges. Funding limitations often hinder the provision of complete facilities and adequate adaptive technology, especially in remote areas. Additionally, not all teachers have adequate training to teach in inclusive environments, feeling unprepared to handle the special needs of students. Social stigma also remains a significant barrier, both within the community and within the schools themselves, towards students with special needs. In many remote areas, school infrastructure such as buildings and basic facilities is still severely lacking, making the implementation of inclusive education more difficult. The lack of educational materials that support inclusive learning also poses a significant obstacle in implementing this policy.” (2024, Modern Diplomacy)

Including Students with Disabilities in School in Rural Areas An online pilot program to assess needs of students with disabilities. (2024, World Bank)

Assessing the Responsiveness of Inclusive Education Implementation in Kendari City, Indonesia: An Application of Potter's Theory:

“The lack of facilities, infrastructure, and trained Special Guidance Teachers (GPK) remains a major challenge. The choice principle is sufficiently fulfilled with policies allowing parents to choose inclusive schools, regular schools with special programs, or Special Schools (SLB). However, improvements are needed to ensure all inclusive schools provide quality services and equal access.” (2024, South Eastern European Journal of Public Health)

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

Deaf People’s Retrospective Views and Lived Experiences of Ableism and Discrimination in Education: A Qualitative Study Informed by Critical Disability Studies:

“The themes are: denial of opportunities to learn and use Irish Sign Language (ISL); ableist barriers to accessing incidental learning; deaf teachers; and the ableism of low expectations. The findings demonstrate that attitudinal barriers to accessing ISL in the classroom negatively impacted on deaf people’s social and educational lives.” (2024, SJDR)

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

A video of a teacher slapping a child with disabilities at a disability centre causes outcry on social media. (In Arabic, 2024, BBC)

Jordanian parents challenge government policy on disabled children. (2023, Raseef 22)

Kenya

Raising a child with autism: Facing stigma, finding glimmers of hope. (2024, NPR)

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)

Malaysia

Special Needs Education for The Visually Impaired in Malaysia.

“Despite progressive policies, significant challenges persist, including limited access to specialized resources, inconsistent quality across regions, and a lack of adequately trained educators.” (2024, Southeast Asia Early Childhood Journal)

Transition from Education to Employment in Malaysia: Situational Analysis of Youth with Disabilities (2024, Fora Education)

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, 2024, Le Matin.ma)

Mozambique

Breaking Educational Barriers for Children with Albinism (2023, Africa.com)

Myanmar

"We wish for both of our sons to be educated" The hard choices a family is making for their child living with disability in eastern Myanmar. (2024, UNICEF)

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)

New Zealand

How do I prepare my child with disabilities for school? “The search for Te Rerenoa's school started almost 18 months before she attended her first day at the start of this year.” (2024, RNZ News)

The love/hate relationship we have with our teacher aides. “Our teacher aides helped us in the classroom when we needed it the most, despite our resentment for making us stand out when we just wanted to fit in.” (2024, D*List)

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. (2024, 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.” (2024, 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)

Singapore

Schools inculcating empathy for students with special needs; Ministry of Education calls on parents to help too. (2024, Ministry of Education)

South Africa

“We eat food with ants”

“The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) is investigating PCD College in Montana, Pretoria, following allegations of racism, discrimination, and unfair labour practice that Deaf employed electrical learnership students are apparently subjected to by their white superiors.” (2024, Diary Series of Deaf People)

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)

Switzerland

Mis-education They want my good, but I prefer autonomy. Personal reflections on special educators. (2024, Couper l'herbe sous les roues)

Disability at the end of class thoughtful discussion of debate on inclusive education. (In French, 2024, Couper l'herbe sous les roues)

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)

Ukraine

Where does Ukraine stand on inclusive education?

“But things are getting better,” [says Mariia Nikitina] “Especially for kids. Children are more aware and informed of what disability is, and they are more accepting and inclusive. These are positive changes in attitudes toward people with disabilities.” (2024, The New Voice of Ukraine)

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

£100m spent in England on failed efforts to block children’s Send support. (2024, the Guardian)

Disabled children’s charity hands 43% of grants to rightwing think-tanks:

“Campaigners shocked to find that much of the Street Foundation’s funds are ‘not being spent on disabled children at all’.” (2024, Good Law Project)

Restrained and scared: The £100k schools failing vulnerable children: “Private special needs schools accused of letting down children” (2024, BBC)

Children mocked and bullied by staff at special needs school.

“An undercover reporter spent almost seven weeks at Life Wirral in Wallasey and witnessed staff using offensive language to mock pupils for their neurodiversity or learning disabilities, as well as manhandling them into dangerous headlocks.” (2024, BBC)

Cropped out, banned, airbrushed: the school photos that show the ugly face of Britain today, as disabled children are edited out of school pictures. (2024, the Guardian)

Lived Experience of Black/Global Majority Disabled Pupils and their Families in Mainstream Education (2024, ALLFIE)

Fight for our future: a report calling for action for every disabled child to fulfil their potential. (2024, Newlife)

The Development Process of the Inclusive Education Movement with Non-disabled Allies: Focusing on Disability Equality Training in England. (2024, Educational Studies in Japan)

Over 50% of special school pupils could be in mainstream, an analysis of a major government intervention programme has found. (2024, TES Magazine)

Parents urge councillors to apologise over special needs comments One councillor asked if "something in the water" was increasing special needs cases. (2024, 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

Project 2025’s Plan to Dismantle Public Education —And Screw Over Disabled Kids. (Jan, Mother Jones)

She graduated without learning to read. “Aleysha Ortiz sued her Connecticut school district for allegedly failing to address her learning disabilities.” (2024, Washington Post)

When disabled kids are left behind in school shooting drills “School emergency planning often fails to account for disabilities, with traumatic consequences for children and their parents.” (2024, The Washington Post)

Students Who Are English Learners with Disabilities: a brief on Equal Access to Elementary and Secondary Education. (2024, Department of Education)

More kids than ever need special education , but burnout has caused a teacher shortage. “Going into the current school year, more than half of U.S. public schools anticipate being short-staffed in special education” (2024, The Conversation)

Beyond Inclusion: How to Raise Anti-Ableist Kids, a book (2024, IPG)

Creating a Welcoming Environment for Linguistically Diverse Families of Students in Special Education. (2024, 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.” (2024, 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

Being left behind beyond recovery: ‘crip time’ and chronic illness in neoliberal academia:

“Moving towards deadlines I’ll struggle to meet, marking time that brings career progression for others but leaves me behind. Yet compared to others with chronic illness, I know I am lucky. I can do enough to keep working in academia, was in secure employment before my illness began, and have reasonable adjustments that make work possible. Still the clock tick, tick, ticks while I struggle to gather my thoughts, or focus on what I need to do. Tick, tick, tick as I am left further behind.” (2024, Social & Cultural Geography)

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, 2024, El Neuvo Diario)

India

Status of higher education of students with disabilities. End-line report. (Link to pdf, 2024, NCPEDP)

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

Inclusion or Exclusion? Vignettes of Students With Disabilities in Nigerian Higher Institutions. (2024, Foundation for Investigative Journalism)

The importance of inclusive rhetoric interview with Sunday A. Adegbenro, whose work explores what universities and other institutions can do to implement inclusive practices. (2024, Vanguard)

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

Developing neurodiversity-affirmative PhD supervision (2024, Supervising PhDs)

Higher education was easily accessible to disabled people during Covid. Why are we being shut out now? “The pandemic showed that remote learning is effective. It’s absurd that universities are going back to processes that exclude us” (2024, the Guardian)

Students with physical disabilities explain the challenges they face when they go to university. (2024, 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

Inaccessible Access Rethinking Disability Inclusion in Academic Knowledge Creation. (2024, Rutgers University Press)

Crip Spacetime Access, Failure, and Accountability in Academic Life, a book by Margaret Price. (2024, Duke University Press) See a New Books Network interview, with transcript.

Navigating environmental academia in a disabled body: an embodied autoethnography of ableism and advocacy. (2024, Disability & Society)

Department of Education Could Improve Information on Accommodations for Students with Disabilities:

“Students with disabilities face several challenges while transitioning to and attending college, according to college disability services staff and students GAO spoke with. For example, some students are unaware of or unprepared for the self-advocacy necessary to request accommodations without help from their parents, who can play a pivotal role in obtaining academic supports in high school. In addition, some students experience reluctance from faculty to provide accommodations. To help mitigate these challenges, college staff reported holding orientation sessions for students on how to request accommodations and training faculty on how to make their courses accessible, among other steps.” (2024, US Government Accountability Office)

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.” (2024, 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

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)

Unlocking Disability-Inclusive Leadership a whitepaper that “examines how successful disability-inclusive leaders drive organisational transformation and business value” (2024, Valuable 500)

Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities as Strategic Advantage of Sustainability Practices for Corporates and Investors, a technical guide, “provides a framework for defining and reporting on corporate sustainability and Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) practices that make disability inclusion efforts more comprehensive.” (2024, ILO)

New ILO working paper exposes significant ‘disability wage gap’. “Higher unemployment rates, lower earnings and a tendency towards self-employment characterize the world-of-work experience of many people with disabilities:”

“The paper, which includes new data, finds that those with disabilities who are working are paid 12 per cent less per hour than other employees, on average, and that three-quarters of this gap – 9 per cent – cannot be explained by differences in education, age and type of work. In low and lower middle-income countries this disability wage gap is much larger, at 26 per cent, and almost half cannot be explained by socio-demographic differences.” (2024, ILO)

How to Make Job Interviews More Accessible (2024, Harvard Business Review)

Disability over-confident Commitments to inclusion not being put into practice. (2024, Disability Debrief)

How disability self-ID can transform businesses: “Empowering employees to self-identify as having a disability paves the way for transformative change” (2024, World Economic Forum)

Key Principles for Authentic Disability Representation Key Principles for Companies Committed to Transformative Progress. (2024, Valuable 500)

Putting the I in ESG: Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities as Strategic Advantage of Sustainability Practices for Corporates and Investors. (Link to pdf, 2024, ILO)

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

Australian Disability Enterprises can pay workers a fraction of the minimum wage. What place do they have in today's society? “Today, approximately 20,000 people with disability work in about 600 ADEs across the country.” (2024, ABC News)

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

Process evaluation of a disability-inclusive employment programme: examining the design and implementation of BRAC's STAR+ programme. (2024, Oxford Development Studies)

Small and medium-sized enterprises policy brief and disability-inclusive guidelines. (Link to pdf, 2024, Futuremakers by Standard Chartered)

Pocket guide on Disability inclusive safeguarding in the workplace (2024, South Asia Hub)

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)

Bolivia

Disability, work and competition: “I had to create my own job”. The experience of Felisa Ali and the results of a labour market survey. (2024, Opinión)

Brazil

Proposal to make quota law more flexible provokes demonstrations. (In Portuguese, 2024, 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

Changes in workplace accommodations among employed Canadians with disabilities, 2017 to 2022:

“In conclusion, the increase in working from home appears to have benefited PWDs through a decrease in their unmet needs for [workplace accommodations]; however, this decrease varied across groups.” (2024, Statistics Canada)

Labour market characteristics of persons with and without disabilities, 2023: “the employment rate held steady among persons with a disability (47.1%)”. (2024, Statistics 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

How China’s People With Disabilities Are Confronting the Future of Work A profile on Zhide, a social enterprise providing data annotation, labelling for artificial intelligence. (2024, Sixth Tone)

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. (2024, 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)

Dominican Republic

Low labour inclusion: Only 15.8% of private companies hire people with disabilities, according to a report from the national statistics office. (In Spanish, 2024, Políticos en la red)

Ethiopia

Creating inclusive workplaces for people with disabilities exchange between a deaf disability inclusion technical officer and their supervisor. (2023, FHI 360)

Europe

Reforming EU State Aid law to restrict subsidies to sheltered workshops. A new briefing paper. (2024, ENIL)

Digital Skills, Accommodation and Technological Assistance for Employment: The employment gap between persons with and without disabilities is about 24 percentage points:

“lack of awareness, provision of assistive technology, reasonable accommodation and development of digital skills contribute to this stark gap.” (2024, EDF)

Reasonable accommodation at work - Guidelines and good practices for employers. (2024, European Commission) See also comment from EDF.

Disability Inclusion in the EU: A Legal Analysis to Guide Corporate Responsibilities Under New EU Disability Inclusive Legislation. (2024, Disability:IN)

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

Avoiding the sheltered employment trap the experience of Florian Greß. (2024, ENIL)

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, 2024, La Tribuna)

India

Working to work Disabled people fighting for accessible livelihoods in India:

“Despite the hurdles, disabled people continue to work the best with what we’ve got. So many of us don’t just have to contribute to the workforce but also look after ourselves and advocate for our rights to work at the same time. We’re stretching ourselves thin just to be able to secure a livelihood. The hard-won successes of working as a disabled person are bittersweet.” (2024, Disability Debrief)

Disability rights activists criticise remarks on quota for the civil service

“The controversy has erupted in the wake of allegations of misconduct against IAS probationer Puja Khedkar who is accused of misusing the disability and Other Backward Class (non-creamy layer) quotas to secure her candidature in the civic services exam.” (2024, The Print)

Disabled candidates protest government exam in Lucknow. Protest contests seats reserved for candidates on basis of disability. (2024, 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

Workshop to launch the Iraqi Business and Disability Network (2024, UN)

Iraqis with Disabilities Excluded from Jobs Persistent Failure to Ensure Right to Work; Quotas Unfilled. See also a short video.

“Legal promises to employ people with disabilities in Iraq are not translating into real job opportunities,” said Sarah Sanbar, Iraq researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The gap between law and practice leaves hundreds of thousands of Iraqis with disabilities struggling to earn a living.” (2024, Human Rights Watch)

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)

Ivory Coast

Legal provisions for retraining of civil servants with disabilities (In French, 2024, L-Frii)

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

Building resilient, green livelihoods for people with disabilities Insights from a livelihood barrier analysis in drought-affected communities in Turkana, Kenya. (2024, CBM Global)

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)

Malta

Companies avoid employing disabled workers with €10,000 'fee' “The situation continues in spite of a law which states that firms with over 50 workers require 2% of their workforce to be made up of people with dis