Persons with mental and physical disabilities face discrimination that restricts them from securing equal opportunities and equal rights in a society with their healthy counterparts. They are denied their rights to be employed, move freely, vote, live independently, enjoy social protection, choose medical treatment or indulge in legal commitments such as buying and selling of property. Thus, an inconsistent number of people with disabilities, in many countries, are often ostracised to live in extreme poverty.
‘Persons with disabilities’ include those with long-term physical, mental, intellectual impairments that may hinder their participation on equal basis with others. The portrayal of disability focuses on the social and environmental barriers that hinder an individual’s participation in society rather than on the individual’s impairments.
Human Right’s Approach To Disability
Over the past decade, awareness about disability rights has grown. Providing equal rights, in particular, is a recognition of the human rights for individuals with disabilities through a comprehensive approach in realizing their rights to seek respect and support. Protecting and promoting their rights do not only mean providing disability-related services but also adopting actions to change attitudes of marginalizing persons with disabilities. It is also essential to employ policies and laws to remove barriers and guarantee cultural, political and social rights for those with disabilities.
Individuals with disabilities also, at times, face human abuses such as isolation, humiliation and shame along limitation to education and employment opportunities. Human rights provide privileges that address aspects such as education, health services, employment, and participation in political and public affair, sport, freedom from torture or inhuman treatment and respect for their inherent dignity.
Recently, there has been a revolutionary change to ensure that persons with disabilities enjoy the same standards of dignity, rights and equality as everyone else. The human disability rights movement is now a global crusade made up of organizations and activists, around the world, working toward a specific goal. They work to break institutional, physical and societal barriers that prevent the physically challenged people from living their lives identical to other citizens.
