Disability is a medical condition or seriously impaired bodily function that substantially limits or restricts an individual in the context of standard norms for certain groups. The term is often used to refer to individual bodily functions, including physical disabilities, sensory impairments, cognitive impairments, intellectual disabilities, mental illness, and various types of chronic diseases.
Around the world, people with disabilities exhibit poorer health outcomes, lower educational achievement, lower economic activity, and higher rates of poverty than non-disabled people. This is partly because people with disabilities face barriers that prevent them from accessing services that many of us are accustomed to, such as health care, education, employment and transportation, and information.
These barriers can take many forms, including those related to the physical environment, legislation, policy, public attitudes, or discrimination.
People with disabilities are at much higher risk of violence:
Children with disabilities are nearly four times more likely to be abused than their healthy peers.
Adults with some disabilities are 1.5 times more likely to be victims of violence
Adults with mental health conditions are nearly four times more likely to be victims of violence.
Factors that contribute to the risk of violence against people with disabilities include stigma, discrimination and ignorance, and lack of social support for those who care for them.
Evidence and experience show that when all barriers are removed, people with disabilities are empowered to fully participate in society, bringing it very tangible benefits. Thus, barriers to persons with disabilities are detrimental to society as a whole, and the element of accessibility is an integral part of progress and development.
The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) recognizes that barriers are a central component of disability. According to the Convention, the concept of disability evolves “as people with disabilities overcome various behavioral and environmental barriers that prevent their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others.
Accessibility and inclusion, the fundamental rights of persons with disabilities enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, are not only goals, but also prerequisites for the realization of other rights. The Convention (Article 9, Accessibility) seeks to empower persons with disabilities to live independently and participate actively in all aspects of society and development. It calls upon states parties to take appropriate measures to ensure that persons with disabilities have access to all aspects of society on an equal basis with others, and to identify and remove obstacles and barriers to accessibility.