The moral authority for change: human rights values and the worldwide process of disability reform
1.4 Human rights as a “visibility” project in the context of disability
Working conditions in sheltered and other alternative forms of employment leave much to be desired in terms of the human rights of disabled workers. Social protection systems tend to compensate for the loss of a right that most take for granted – the right to participate and to play a responsible and productive role in society – and they are usually not designed to help people with disabilities to lead active lives. The extra cost associated with disability under social protection systems generally disappears once the person enters the labour market.
(f) Effects of invisibility on freedom
To sum up, the relative or absolute invisibility of persons with disabilities has meant that the legal structures created to advance private freedom (protection against the abuse of power) and public freedom (participation in the mainstream) have either not been applied or have been applied with less rigour in the case of people with
disabilities.
This has produced a category of person who, while being dependent on the public sphere for survival, lacks access to or influence over public policy. Such persons are denied full admission to public power and full control over their individual destiny.
They remain outside the mainstream of civil society. This lack of presence – or invisibility – serves to reinforce stereotypical assumptions about the incapacity of persons with disabilities. It encourages a lack of respect for people with disabilities as rights holders on an equal footing with others.
1.4 Human rights as a “visibility” project in the context of
genuinely equal terms is not only a socially desirable goal but also a right. Herein lies the connection between the disability rights movement and the visibility project, the transcendent aim being to achieve genuinely inclusive societies for all.
(b) Visibility and human rights violations
The next question is how best to characterize human rights violations in the context of disability. It is possible and credible to focus on specific violations, for instance violations of the right to vote, the right to a fair trial, the right to education or the right to work, or physical and sexual abuse in institutions. Focusing on violations makes sense, especially where a clear culprit can be identified and an effective remedy found.
It can also makes sense to examine patterns of violations or abuses. It is possible – and often very useful – to characterize specific violations in terms of the overarching problem of the invisibility of people with disabilities and the need to use rights to counter that legacy.
(c) Visibility and the equal enjoyment of all human rights
More often than not, invisibility has meant that a universal right is simply not applied equally (if applied at all) to persons with disabilities. For example, in the case of education, violations can have as much to do with the right to an equal and effective education as with the right to education as such. Likewise, in the case of civil commitment, the issue can be that relevant due process principles are not applied equally (mutatis mutandis) to persons with mental illness. Reform of the law on mental disability can be campaigned for as requiring restoration of equal rights and equal protection of the rule of law.
The answer to invisibility is an insistence on the equal application of all human rights to persons with disabilities. This addresses the need to restore parity for persons with disabilities in terms of private freedom (protecting people against the abuse of power) and public freedom (giving people power over their own lives). It also goes a long way towards explaining why the “equal opportunity model” has been the dominant rights model in the context of disability for the last twenty years or so, especially since the adoption of the United Nations Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities in 1993. The Standard Rules define the notion of equal rights as follows:
The principle of equal rights implies that the needs of each and every individual are of equal importance, that those needs must be made the basis for the planning of societies and that all resources must be employed in such a way as to ensure that every individual has equal opportunity for participation. Persons with disabilities are members of society and have the right to remain within their local communities. They should receive the support they need within the ordinary structures of education, health, employment and social services. 2 The “equal opportunity” model rests on the assumption that people with disabilities share all human rights – civil, political, economic, social and cultural – with others.
2 Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities adopted by General Assembly resolution 48/96 of 20 December 1993, paras. 25 and 26.
While it focuses on the need to increase levels of public freedom, it also has a great deal to say about private freedom and appropriate social support. It places the accent where it should be – on the capacity and willingness of people with disabilities to lead independent lives and play active and productive roles in the body politic.
Our conclusion is that the answer to invisibility is an insistence on the equal
application of all human rights to persons with disabilities. The chapters that follow are intended to explain how the United Nations human rights system can help to attain that goal. The book as a whole is a visibility project in itself inasmuch as it seeks to make the rights that are available to all persons directly relevant to people with disabilities.