The World Report on Disability ’s recommendations on research
C. Manifestations of discrimination
In a number of countries, legislation sets out the factors that should be taken into account when assessing whether the accom-modation requested amounts to a dispropor-tionate burden. These include:
• The practicability of the changes required;
• The cost;
• The nature, size and resources of the entity expected to provide it;
• The availability of other financial sup-port;
• Occupational health and safety implica-tions; and
• The impact on the entity’s operations.
Reasonable accommodation is a mod-ification made in favour of and at the request of an individual. Thus, an employee who has a car accident and requires cer-tain modifications to continue working can request reasonable accommodation of the employer. This is different from general accessibility measures under article 9 of the Convention which are not necessarily tar-geted at individuals (although individuals obviously benefit) but at the community at large. While States must achieve general accessibility over time, an individual can request reasonable accommodation imme-diately and lodge a complaint with a tribu-nal if it is not made.
The Convention imposes the burden to ensure reasonable accommodation on States. However, given that much of it is needed in the private sector, States should
oblige the private sector, through legislation, to provide reasonable accommodation.
C. Manifestations of discrimination
Persons with disabilities have long faced different forms of discrimination, but the hope is that the adoption of the Convention will reduce this discrimination worldwide.
Persons with disabilities have been con-sidered abnormal beings, manifestations of evil or unnatural curiosities. They have been executed, segregated or forced to undergo medical experiments. They have been sub-jected to ridicule and cruel amusement and seen as bad omens. In many cases, they have been considered inferior beings equal only in the eyes of God and as such deserv-ing sympathy and pity.
Discrimination evolves but does not nec-essarily decrease. In 2006, on the adoption of the Convention, United Nations Secre-tary-General Kofi Annan stated:
Too often, those living with disabilities have been seen as objects of embar-rassment, and at best, of condescend-ing pity and charity. … On paper, they have enjoyed the same rights as oth-ers; in real life, they have often been relegated to the margins and denied the opportunities that others take for granted.
Consider some examples:
• The annihilation of the “unfit”: discrimi-nation and the right to life. One of the most serious forms of discrimination on the basis of disability was perpetrated in the twentieth century during the Nazi
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regime. It targeted persons with mental and physical disabilities, like other groups considered inferior, and subjected them to annihilation, experimentation, sterili-zation and other brutalities. Sterilisterili-zation and euthanasia programmes were car-ried out against the mentally or physi-cally “unfit”. Individual cases were pre-sented in front of public health officers, who decided whether or not to carry out forced sterilization. The Interior Ministry also required doctors and midwives to report all cases of newborns with severe disabilities. Children under the age of three with illnesses or disabilities such as Down’s syndrome, hydrocephalus, cere-bral palsy or “suspected idiocy” among others were targeted. Around 250,000 disabled people were killed and some 450,000 sterilized during this period.
• Other States, too, adopted legislation and policies authorizing sterilization.
Thousands of persons with disabilities were sterilized by force. Sterilization practices were based on eugenic theo-ries, very popular at the beginning of the twentieth century, which promoted race quality control, reproduction of selected people and traits, and repression of undesired groups.
• Denial of legal capacity: discrimination and equal recognition before the law.
Legal systems around the world have considered disability as a lawful ground for not recognizing persons with intel-lectual, mental or sensory disabilities as persons before the law—and many still do. In practice this denies these persons a wide range of human rights such as the capacity to make decisions, sign con-tracts, vote, get married, inherit property, administer personal goods, defend rights in court or choose medical treatments.
Guardians sometimes fail to act in the interest of the persons with disabili-ties they are representing. They may even abuse their positions of authority and violate the rights of others. When legal capacity is lacking, forced med-ical interventions (drugs, surgery and sterilization) and medical experiments can be carried out without free and informed consent. Women and girls with intellectual disabilities, for exam-ple, are often subjected to forced ster-ilization.
• Deprivation of liberty on the basis of dis-ability. Disability has been considered as a lawful ground to deprive persons with disabilities of their liberty. By declaring that they may be dangerous to them-selves or others or be in need of care, the State can commit them, sometimes for their entire lives. Laws and policies have been enacted on the assumption that persons with disabilities are better off in institutions. In other cases persons with disabilities are segregated from society and kept at home.
• Disability and gender: multiple forms of discrimination. Men and women have different experiences of disabil-ity; women with disabilities can be discriminated against on two grounds:
sex and disability. For instance, in rural areas women and girls with disabilities sometimes have very limited access to education at any level and few oppor-tunities to earn a living. Schools, roads and transport are often inaccessible.
Parents might therefore not be able to send children with disabilities to school.
In addition, these barriers might be exacerbated by gender-based discrim-ination in communities where attitudes already discourage girls from going to
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school. The result can be high illiter-acy among girls with disabilities and a missed childhood, since they have no interaction with other children in an educational environment.
• Discrimination and the right to educa-tion. Children with disabilities have been excluded from education and may even be considered uneducable. Some have argued that people with certain disabil-ities (mental, learning and even physi-cal) cannot be educated in mainstream schools. Often these decisions are taken without investing in experts or teachers able to support or ensure peer learning between children with and without dis-abilities. The result is that children with disabilities are put in special schools, where expectations for excellence are unsatisfactory. Given the prejudice that children with disabilities supposedly obstruct the education of other children, parents of children with disabilities may decide to put their children in special schools or keep them at home. If discrim-ination is pervasive, taking decisions that go against the overall discrimina-tory mentality can be seen as risky and ultimately detrimental to the child with disabilities. Yet, giving in only reinforces stigma and discrimination.
• Specific cultural settings and stigma: dis-crimination and the right to cultural life.
In some cultural settings, disability can be perceived as a punishment from God, the result of witchcraft or as a shame-ful failure on the part of the family. This can entail social disapproval, marginali-zation and even frustration leading to domestic violence. Persons with disabil-ities, including children, may decide to leave their communities and go to urban areas to gain some independence.
How-ever, they may end up begging or being exploited in other ways because they are illiterate or have few job opportuni-ties. Those who cannot move freely may be hidden by their family members or live in the community in very precarious conditions.
In some rural villages in Haiti, parents giving birth to a child with mental or physical disabilities feel that they have been punished for a sin they committed.
The implications are grave: the father may impregnate other women to show he was not responsible for the disability.
The child may be kept at home, hidden from the rest of the community.
In Cambodia many children and adults have lost limbs in landmine explosions, mainly in rural areas. Having a dis- ability is considered socially unfortunate and often forces persons to live on the margins of society. Even today persons with disabilities may be ignored by ven-dors in the marketplace and have to ask the assistance of someone else to get served.
• Inaccessibility: discrimination and free-dom of movement/independent living.
Physical, informational and technological barriers prevent persons with disabilities from fully participating in society on an equal basis with others. Inaccessibility also relates to negative attitudes in society that perpetuate images of persons with disabilities as being slow, less intelligent or unable to make decisions, for exam-ple. A key element to ensure equal rights for persons with disabilities is improving the accessibility of the built environment, information and communications technol-ogy, transport and other facilities, goods and services open to the public.
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