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A Global Agenda for Inclusive Recovery: Ensuring People with Intellectual Disabilities and Families are Included in a Post-COVID World

Inclusion International
June 2021

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This report documents the experience of exclusion of people with intellectual disabilities and their families during the COVID-19 pandemic. These experiences reveal pre-existing structural inequalities that affected the lives of people with intellectual disabilities and their families before COVID-19, during the pandemic, and beyond, and this report raises up the voices of those most excluded in a time of global crisis and demands an inclusive COVID-19 recovery.

 

This report includes the experiences of people with intellectual disabilities and families across eight different issue areas. Across these themes, we examined how and why people with intellectual disabilities were left out and excluded in pandemic responses, what pre-existing conditions and inequalities contributed to their vulnerability and exclusion, and how future policy structures could begin to address both this immediate and systemic exclusion.

 

Together, these experiences and policy solutions form our global agenda for inclusive COVID-19 recovery, an action plan to ensure that government efforts to ‘build back better’ are inclusive of people with intellectual disabilities and their families.

Equal reproduction rights? The right to found a family in United Nations’ disability policy since the 1970s

VAN TRIGT, Paul
2019

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With the adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) in 2006, disability as an issue of human rights and international law can no longer be ignored. The history of this convention can be traced back to the 1970s, when disability was framed in United Nations (UN) declarations as a human-rights issue at the global level. One of the recurrent topics of debate during this trajectory was the right of people with dis- abilities to found a family. This right was far from self-evident and was evaluated very differently by various stakeholders.

This study follows the right to have a family in UN disability policy since the 1970s. The history of the family in relation to disability at the global level has been a neglected field of enquiry compared to other concepts such as gender and race. This study investigates how and why the right to found a family was framed in the Declarations on the Rights of Mentally Disabled Persons (1971) and Disabled Persons (1975), the International Year of Disabled Persons (1981), the International Decade of Disabled Persons (1983 − 1992), the Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities (1993) and the UNCRPD in 2006.

The trajectory of the right of people with disabilities to found a family that emerges from these cases shows a change in the 1990s from a social-policy to a human-rights approach towards disability – which reflects a broader trend in global and local histories of human rights. In the case of reproductive rights of people with disabilities this change meant that the emphasis was laid more on providing a legal protection for the individual against the interference of others (so-called negative freedom) than on enhancing the opportunities for disabled people to practice their (positive) freedom.

Access to human rights for persons using prosthetic and orthotic assistive devices in Sierra Leone

MAGNUSSON, Lina
BICKENBACH, Jerome
January 2019

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Access to human rights of persons with disabilities who use prosthetic and orthotic assistive devices was assessed, and groups of participants were compared in terms of gender, residential area, income, and type and level of assistive device. The addressed areas were rights to: health, a standard of living adequate for health, education, marry and establish a family, vote, and work.

Questionnaires were used to collect self-reported data from 139 lower-limb prosthetic and orthotic users in Sierra Leone

 

Journal of Disability and Rehabilitation, Volume 42, 2020 - Issue 8

https://doi.org/10.1080/09638288.2018.1515267

Inequalities in access to health care for people with disabilities in Chile: the limits of universal health coverage

ROTAROU, Elena S
SAKELLARIOU, Dikaios
2017

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We analysed cross-sectional data collected as part of the National Socioeconomic Characterisation Survey (2013) in Chile, in order to explore if there are differences in access to health care between adult Chileans with and without disability. The study included 7459 Chilean adults with disability and 68,695 people without disability. Logistic regressions were performed in order to determine the adjusted odds ratios for the associated variables. We found that despite universal health coverage, Chileans with disabilities are more likely to report worse access to health care, even when controlling for socio-economic and demographic variables, including age, gender and income. Specifically, they are more likely to face greater difficulty arriving at a health facility, obtaining a doctor’s appointment, being attended to in a health facility, paying for treatment due to cost, and obtaining necessary medicine. Both people with and without disability are more likely to face difficulties in accessing health services if they are affiliated with the public health provider, an indication of the economic factors at play in accessing health care. This study shows that universal health coverage does not always lead to accessibility of health services and underlines the disadvantaged position of disabled people in Chile in accessing health services. While efforts have been made recently to improve equity in health care access, disability in Chile poses an additional burden on people’s access to health care, emphasising the necessity for policy to address this perpetual cycle of disadvantage for disabled people.

Identifying Rehabilitation Workforce Strengths, Concerns and Needs: A Case Study from the Pacific Islands

GARGETT, Alexandra Lewis
LLEWELLYN, Gwynnyth
SHORT, Stephanie
KLEINITZ, Pauline
2016

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Purpose: This exploratory case study was undertaken to inform capacity development of the rehabilitation workforce in member nations of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF).

 

Method: Participants at the 1st Pacific CBR Forum in June 2012 were key informants for this study. They comprised the disability focal points from government departments in each of the 14 countries, representatives of DPOs and disability service providers. The study was conducted in 3 phases:  a template to gather data on rehabilitation workers; key informant interviews; and, stakeholder workshops to identify strengths and needs of the rehabilitation workforce in the Pacific.

 

Results: The detailed case study findings suggest two critical drivers for rehabilitation health workforce development in the Pacific context. The first is leadership and commitment from government to serve rehabilitation needs in the community. The second is the urgent need to find alternative ways to service the demand for rehabilitation services as it is highly unlikely that the supply of specialist personnel will be adequate.

 

Conclusions: A multi-sectoral view of health and social service systems is a key element for the development of a rehabilitation health workforce. The endorsement of the WHO Global Disability Action Plan by the World Health Assembly in 2014 further enhances the opportunity to work collaboratively across sectors in Pacific countries. Specialist personnel are and will remain in short supply. There is opportunity for the region to lead the development of alternate workforce mechanisms through the training and supply of skilled community-based rehabilitation personnel.

Equal basis 2014 : access and rights in 33 countries

BURKE, Megan
PERSI VICENTIC, Loren
December 2014

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This report presents research about efforts to meet the needs and uphold the rights of persons with disabilities in four thematic areas: health care, rehabilitation, work and employment, and accessibility and enabling environments. Research findings are drawn from the experiences of landmine and cluster munition survivors and other persons with similar needs in 33 countries experiencing armed conflict or emerging from armed conflict or political or economic transition. Findings are placed within the context of relevant articles of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the World Report on Disability

Thematic study by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on participation in political and public life by persons with disabilities

OFFICE OF THE UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS (OHCHR)
December 2011

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This study "focuses on participation in political and public life by persons with disabilities. It analyses relevant provisions of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, highlights good practices in the field of participation of persons with disabilities in elections and in the conduct of public affairs, and identifies the main challenges that still prevent or limit the equal and effective participation of persons with disabilities in the political and public life of their countries"
A/HRC/19/36

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