This report should make any government that deserves to hold power sit up, take
notice and drastically change course. The CRDP Committee has fully recognised:
The government’s shameful failure to make any significant progress with
human rights for disabled people
The signs of actual regression in the government’s approach
The government’s continuing ‘grave and systematic violations’ of disabled
people’s human rights.
An enormous strength of the report is its balance. In its coverage of disabled
people’s right to independent living, equal access to work and employment and right
to an adequate standard of living, the CRDP Committee has looked widely and
comprehensively.
As the report rightly highlights, it is an utter disgrace that many of
us are forced into institutions, continue to be locked up against our will in places
such as psychiatric hospitals and continue to be forcibly treated and abused, in
complete breach of human rights which other citizens hold. It is an utter disgrace that
the socioeconomic conditions which we face as disabled people are so
disproportionately bad and that we face heavy penalties for not working when we so
frequently lack necessary support to do so, or genuinely cannot. It is still more of a
disgrace that some of us experience multiple discrimination because of our gender,
age, ethnic origin or refugee status. It is high time that the government moves out of
denial and takes urgent reparative action.
Dorothy Gould
Founder of Liberation
E: liberationrights@gmail.com
