Away in August

A break in Berlin, by Sonaksha Dear Debriefers, Just to say that the Debrief takes a breather in August. I'll be in Berlin for some of it, so do get in touch if you're there. As well as having some time off this month, I'll be working to edit an amazing queue of eight (!) drafts of upcoming articles from contributors. Theses are all stories you won't read elsewhere, ranging from hearing voices in Argentina, to seeing disability in Rwanda through its precolonial history. The Debrief can commission these thanks to reader support. If you're comfortable to, and don't already, please join those making monthly or one-off contributions. In the meantime, all best for August, and the Debrief will be back in September. See you on the other side, Peter ## Acknowledgements Thanks to Sonaksha for taking us travelling with this postcard illustration. And to the readers and organisations whose support makes our work possible.

disabilitydebrief.org

Progress is real, but fragile

At a Disability Pride Month march in Warsaw, Poland, on July 18th, 2026. Photo by Neil Milton/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Dear Debriefers, Happy disability pride month! We're back on a world tour of disability news. Many of the pieces are in a reflective mood, on disability news in the past decade, the twenty years since the UN Convention, or 250 since the birth of the United States. As well as retrospectives, there are insights from Uzbekistan, two countries that are increasing disability benefits (!), and a disability scholar suing an AI company. Plus, those moments when everyone is just better looking. **Explore the full guide of 100 hand-picked links:** browse across 39 countries or 38 subjects. This edition continues from the update in June. ## About this edition **The Debrief curates disability news from around the world with** support from readers**.** Thanks to Becky, Elane, Meghan and CBM Global for new contributions. **Peter Torres Fremlin** is editor of Disability Debrief and is from the UK. Sign-up to see the world through a disability lens Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. Weekly in your inbox ## Progress is real, but fragile **Accessibility in the News** is perhaps the longest running disability newsletter, and it's just celebrated it's 10th anniversary. Its creator Jack McElaney, a role model in consistency, shared his reflections on curating the past decade of disability news: > “Progress is real, but fragile. The past decade brought stronger standards, more public awareness, better tools, major legal developments, and more organizations taking accessibility seriously. But rights can be delayed, narrowed, ignored, underfunded, or treated as optional unless people keep paying attention, continue being educated and informed, and become active and speak up.” ## Even when things seemed most dire **As the United States celebrated its 250th birthday** , writers reflect on the place of disabled people in its history. One of them is Sari Altschuler whose new book _Before Disability_ looks at the history of American Citizenship. In an interview by Julia Métraux, Altschuler gave an overview: > “Mental and physical differences played a key role in shaping citizenship from the beginning; the fight for disability rights and justice was meaningfully waged and victories won even when things seemed most dire. As we seek to imagine the relationship between disability and citizenship more equitably and expansively today, we should begin by remembering that many disabled and non-disabled Americans before us did too.” Also looking back on the past two and a half centuries, Carrie Gillispie describes the history of disability politics and how disabled people have been excluded from the American dream. ## “What kind of human being society had in mind” There is also a reflective mood in international disability rights circles as the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) reaches its twentieth anniversary. José María Viera, of the International Disability Alliance, writes on the “revolution of the ordinary” where he describes the CRPD as “a treaty about how we understand ourselves”: > “It asks what kind of human being society had in mind when it built its schools, courts, homes, transport systems, workplaces, families, and communities. It asks whether the world was designed only for those who can walk, see, hear, speak, learn, decide, work and communicate in expected ways, or whether it can be transformed to welcome the full diversity of humanity. Perhaps this is why the Convention still feels so radical. It asks society not simply to repair the old structure, but to rebuild its foundations.” ## “Disability inclusion tests the genuineness of reform” **Meanwhile in Uzbekistan** , a wide-ranging interview with researcher and activist Dilmurad Yusupov discusses the slow development of a disability rights movement. As well as steps from the government, Yusupov sees “more Uzbek women and men with disabilities present in public life speaking at forums, running NGOs, appearing in media”. However, in the context of the government's wider economic and social reforms, Yusupov sees a still-limited transformation: > “Disability inclusion tests the genuineness of reform because it requires changing entrenched institutions, not just policies. It requires breaking the paternalistic logic of Soviet social protection which assumed that the state knows best, provides a minimal subsidy, and keeps “abnormal” people out of public life. If Uzbekistan’s reforms are real, we should see deinstitutionalisation people leaving boarding houses and living independently in communities. We should see more disabled people in parliament, on advisory committees, in leadership of public institutions. We should see the disability assessment system overhauled from a purely medical examination into a needs-assessment that actually enables meaningful participation. These things have not happened yet. The reforms are real, but they are still mostly skin-deep when it comes to disability.” ## Cuts continue, but some countries are increasing disability benefits For sure, many countries are cutting support to disabled people or disability services. * **Australia's** reform of its National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) anticipates “brutal” cuts. * **Iran** , torn by war, has halted payments of living allowances. * **Finland** a previous leader in disability rights, will cut 30% of its funding for organisations of persons with disabilities. However there is a pleasing contrast in countries that are increasing support: * **Bangladesh** plans to increase its disability allowance from 900 to 1000 BDT (from 7.3 to 8.1 USD) per month, and expand its coverage by hundreds of thousands of people. The State Minister for Health says the country can become a global role model. * **Thailand** has increased its disability allowance to 1,000 baht ($30 USD). ## The impacts of inclusion In the **United States** , Laura Caron used some clever gathering of data sources and statistical analysis to show the long-term impacts of inclusive education. Every U.S. state mandated public education to provide educational services for disabled students between 1949 and 1980. Based on this variation, Caron can see that provision led to increased education and work opportunities for disabled people. And, furthermore: > “Although this policy could have taken away resources from non-disabled students, in fact, education and employment also increased for non-disabled individuals. These effects align with evidence that the mandates increased spending per student by up to 15%. Families were also impacted: the mandates increased employment among mothers of disabled children and the probability that disabled individuals became household heads. Over the long term, the mandates paid for themselves by generating government revenues in excess of their cost.” Also in the US, Michelle Yin and other researchers looked at the impact of US States ending subminimum wages for disabled people. They found that doing so decreased sheltered workshop employment for disabled people. And rather than that setting people adrift (as critics warned), “welfare dependence among workers with disabilities dropped by 12.4 percent”. **In Germany** , this BBC piece is a good write-up on the legal fight to get equal pay for disabled workers. (See previously on the Debrief). ## How could I escape by crawling? **“How could I escape by crawling”** The Road to Til is a video documentary from Rajan Kathet on risks faced by disabled people after flooding in a mountain village in Nepal. **Without warning** : Debrief writer Alexander Ogheneruemu has just made his first video documentary, Without Warning, interviews with Deaf Nigerians and their access to information in emergencies. Both of these documentaries are produced by the wonderful Disability Justice Project, who are looking for participants in their Disability Justice Film Lab. The Lab is for disabled storytellers who have stories at the intersection of climate justice and disability justice. There's a $500 stipend and no prior filmmaking experience is required. Deadline 7th August. **After the storm**. A feature from Human Rights Watch on planned relocation from Sirago, Philippines, after a Typhoon in 2021. For persons with disabilities: “relocation sites are often inaccessible and far from their livelihoods and support networks.” ## “And EVERYONE looks extremely ATTRACTIVE” **AI Wrongs Revisited.** Disability researcher Tom Shakespeare is suing Anthropic for $150,000 for allegedly pirating his book _Disability Rights and Wrongs Revisited_(2013) and using it to train its AI models. Shakespeare is joined by over 100 other authors alleging copyright infringement of their work also. “**The card entry screen is where things fall apart for me.** ” Michael Taylor describes what it's like to Pay A Healthcare Bill When You're Blind. **“And EVERYONE looks extremely ATTRACTIVE”.** It's wonderful to see Celestine Fraser, also a key part of the Debrief, branch out into comics: After the flare is about relapse and recovery. ## A drive to freedom **Freedom Drive.** Registration closes today, but I hope to see some Debriefers at the European Network on Independent Living's Freedom Drive in Brussels at the end of September. **More from me**. I spoke about making Disability Debrief with Claudia Walder over on Ablezine. **And catch up with any Debriefs you've missed in the past month:** * To sit under the rain: Teodor Mladenov on what the Independent Living Movement taught him about freedom. * A new kind of clock: crip time, understanding hearing aids, and my other favourite quotes from recent reading. * Oh, it's happening to me: conversation with Ashton Applewhite on ageism, ableism and adaptation. * Disability Debrief at 200: five reader favourites from the first two hundred editions. Enjoy your travels in disability news and let me know what you find, Peter ## Recent News This update has 100 curated links from 39 countries and regions, organized across 38 subjects. You can explore it organized by subject or by country. ### Subjects * Accessibility and Design * Assistive Technology * Civil Society and Community * Climate Crisis and Environment * Communication and Language * Conflict and Peace * Culture, Entertainment and Media * Data and Research * Digital Accessibility and Technology * Disaster Risk Reduction and Crisis Response * Economics and Social Protection * Education and Childhood * Employment, Business and Work * Gender Equality and Women with Disabilities * Health * History and Memorial * Humanitarian, Migrants and Refugees * Independent Living and Deinstitutionalization * International Cooperation * Justice Systems and Legal Capacity * Lived Experience and Opinion * Mental Health * Mobility, Travel, Transport and Tourism * Policy and Rights * Politics and Elections * Space Exploration * Sport and Paralympics * Violence and Harassment * War in Ukraine * Water and Sanitation (WASH) ### Countries * Global * International News * Americas * Africa * Ethiopia * Ghana * Kenya * Madagascar * Malawi * Nigeria * South Sudan * Uganda * Asia * Bangladesh * Cambodia * China * India * Iran * Kazakhstan * Nepal * Pakistan * Palestine * Philippines * Syria * Thailand * United Arab Emirates * Uzbekistan * Europe * Europe * Finland * Germany * Netherlands * Romania * Ukraine * United Kingdom * North America * Honduras * Mexico * United States * Oceania * Australia * New Zealand * South America * Argentina * Guyana * Paraguay ## Outro **Further reading**. All the links from these curated editions go into the Debrief library, which now has over 7,700 links from over 170 countries. **Let your friends know**. Sharing the newsletter is how people find it! **Connect**. Get in touch. You can find me on Linkedin and Bluesky. **Help us do more**. The Debrief is free thanks to reader support. ## Acknowledgements Photo by Neil Milton/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images. Thanks to Celestine Fraser for help with its selection,. And many thanks to everyone who shares links, news and reports, and the readers and organisations whose support makes this work possible.

disabilitydebrief.org

Disability news, July 2026, by country

**Library > July 2026** _This page is organized by country, you can also see links organized by subject._ This update has 100 curated links from 39 countries and regions, organized across 38 subjects. ## Contents * Global * International News * Americas * Africa * Ethiopia * Ghana * Kenya * Madagascar * Malawi * Nigeria * South Sudan * Uganda * Asia * Bangladesh * Cambodia * China * India * Iran * Kazakhstan * Nepal * Pakistan * Palestine * Philippines * Syria * Thailand * United Arab Emirates * Uzbekistan * Europe * Europe * Finland * Germany * Netherlands * Romania * Ukraine * United Kingdom * North America * Honduras * Mexico * United States * Oceania * Australia * New Zealand * South America * Argentina * Guyana * Paraguay ## Resources ### Global #### International News **In Accessibility and Design** : What is the real cost of accessibility? (Jun, Center for Inclusive Policy) **In Civil Society and Community** : Can Feminist Philanthropy Still Ignore the Leadership of Women with Disabilities? (May, Deza Nguembock) **In Climate Crisis and Environment** : Best Practices for Disability-Inclusive Climate Action 2026: Recommendations and examples from the Disability Climate Caucus. (Jun, EDF) Three ways climate action can be more inclusive for 1.3 billion disabled people. (Jun, the Conversation) **In Communication and Language** : Sign Language Linguistics: “The first textbook to bring together the linguistics of both BSL and ASL, this accessible book provides a uniquely international and comparative introduction to the structure and use of signed languages.” (Cambridge University Press) **In Culture, Entertainment and Media** : Forging Ahead in Accessibility: Disabled Leadership and the Future of Museum Workforces. (Jun, Association of Science and Technology Centers) **In Data and Research** : How Multidimensional Poverty Measures Overlook Accessibility for People with Disabilities. (Jun, Center for Inclusive Policy) **In Digital Accessibility and Technology** : The Design Brief That Never Mentioned Disabled People. “Twenty years of experience building things people can’t use isn’t twenty years of expertise.” (Mar, Chris Gibbons) Shakespeare v. Anthropic: 100+ Authors Sue AI Giant, including Tom Shakespeare, a sociologist writing about disability. (Jun, EIN Presswire) Accessible digital textbooks for all. “A UNICEF-Government led initiative tapping the power of AI to provide accessible digital textbooks for learners of all abilities.” (Jun, UNESCO) **In Education and Childhood** : Accessible digital textbooks for all. “A UNICEF-Government led initiative tapping the power of AI to provide accessible digital textbooks for learners of all abilities.” (Jun, UNESCO) **In Employment, Business and Work** : New Frontiers of Disability Inclusion: a briefing paper on “Advancing Authentic Representation, Inclusive Technology, and Enterprise Accessibility.” (Jun, World Economic Forum) **In Health** : Strengthening health-care pathways for people with Down syndrome. (May, The Lancet Health Longevity) **In Humanitarian, Migrants and Refugees** : Celebrating the Resilience of Refugees with Disabilities. (Jul, UNHCR) **In International Cooperation** : “Funding cuts turn inequalities into permanent exclusion”. Evidence from organisations of persons with disabilities on the human and organisational impacts of cuts to international aid: > “79% of OPDs have faced severe or very severe funding cuts that have affected their operational ability in the past 18 months”. (Jun, Handicap International) One Year After the Amman-Berlin Declaration on Global Disability Inclusion – A Status Update: “the number of countries that officially expressed support for the ABD rose to 103 (49 of which are Official Development Assistance, ODA recipient countries)”. (Jun, Inklusion leben) **In Policy and Rights** : Will States Address Disability Invisibility in the Crimes Against Humanity Convention? (Jun, Just Security) **In Water and Sanitation (WASH)** : Assessing reach and perceptions of hygiene behaviour change interventions for people with disabilities and older adults: Multi-country matched cross-sectional study. (Jul, International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health) _Back tocontents._ #### Americas **In Disaster Risk Reduction and Crisis Response** : Guide for the inclusion of people with disabilities in drills and simulations in Central America. (Jun, ASB América Latina) _Back tocontents._ ### Africa #### Ethiopia **In Health** : Are primary healthcare facilities in Ethiopia complying with accessibility standards for disability-inclusion? an accessibility audit in Bahir Dar City. (May, BMC Health Services Research) _Back tocontents._ #### Ghana **In Gender Equality and Women with Disabilities** : “We demand rights and justice” How women-to-women mentoring has helped to increase disability representation in Ghana. (Sightsavers) _Back tocontents._ #### Kenya **In Humanitarian, Migrants and Refugees** : IRAP Disability Inclusion and Accessibility Project. (Short video, Jun, IRAP) _Back tocontents._ #### Madagascar **In Violence and Harassment** : Condemning the Brutal Killing of a Child with Albinism in Madagascar. (May, Africa Albinism Network, Albinos Madagascar and CBM Global Disability Inclusion) _Back tocontents._ #### Malawi **In Policy and Rights** : “I Just Want to Work Without Fear”: Discrimination and Violations of the Right to Work for Persons with Albinism in Malawi: > “Although reported attacks have declined in recent years, the legacy of violence continues to shape everyday life. Many people with albinism limit their movement, avoid isolated areas, and often forgo what few work opportunities are available to them due to fear. This insecurity restricts access to work and incomes, particularly in rural areas where work often requires travel or outdoor labor.” (Jun, Human Rights Watch) _Back tocontents._ #### Nigeria **In Disaster Risk Reduction and Crisis Response** : Unwarned & Unprotected: Deaf Nigerians Excluded from Emergency Alerts (Jul, Disability Justice Project) **In Mobility, Travel, Transport and Tourism** : Outrage as Deaf Rights advocate alleges discrimination after missing flight. “They told me I was faking my Deafness.” (Jun, Qualitative Magazine) **In Politics and Elections** : Democracy fails without inclusion of persons with disabilities according to The National Leader of Persons with Disabilities in the African Democratic Congress, Chike Okogwu. (Jun, Vanguard) _Back tocontents._ #### South Sudan **In Civil Society and Community** : Deaf community launches organization to fight for rights, inclusion. (Jun, Radio Tamazuj) _Back tocontents._ #### Uganda **In Health** : Health-seeking behaviours and pathways among people with disabilities in Eastern Uganda: A qualitative analysis: > “Due to challenges in healthcare access, participants often resorted to self-medication, traditional remedies, or home-based care.” (May, NIHR Open Research) _Back tocontents._ ### Asia #### Bangladesh **In Economics and Social Protection** : Disability allowance gets a bump in budget proposal: from 900 Tk to 1000 Tk, and 3.45 million beneficiaries to 3.8 million. (Jun, bdnews24.com) **In Employment, Business and Work** : Process evaluation of a disability-inclusive employment programme: examining underlying mechanisms and contextual influences on the impact of STAR+. (Apr, Oxford Development Studies) _Back tocontents._ #### Cambodia **In Assistive Technology** : How assistive technology is rebuilding livelihoods in rural Cambodia. (Jun, ATscale) _Back tocontents._ #### China **In Employment, Business and Work** : What’s behind the rise in firings linked to disability discrimination in Hong Kong? (May, The Star) **In Mobility, Travel, Transport and Tourism** : Global training academy aims to open up China to disabled travellers. (Jun, Travel Weekly) _Back tocontents._ #### India **In Civil Society and Community** : Navigating a ‘Constitutional Borderland’: > “Trans and disability rights movements confront common challenges when it comes to the Indian state’s unequal treatment of marginalised bodies in its nationalist project, the judiciary’s liberal legalism, and the emphasis on a Swadeshi jurisprudence.” (Jun, The Leaflet) **In Gender Equality and Women with Disabilities** : Navigating a ‘Constitutional Borderland’: > “Trans and disability rights movements confront common challenges when it comes to the Indian state’s unequal treatment of marginalised bodies in its nationalist project, the judiciary’s liberal legalism, and the emphasis on a Swadeshi jurisprudence.” (Jun, The Leaflet) _Back tocontents._ #### Iran **In Economics and Social Protection** : Iranians deprived of state welfare payments, Tehran prioritizes war costs. (Jul, The Jerusalem Post) Iran cuts living allowances for many people with disabilities. (Jul, Iran Insight) _Back tocontents._ #### Kazakhstan **In Policy and Rights** : First time for Central Asia: Kazakhstan's Lyazzat Kaltayeva was elected to the UN Disability Rights Committee. (Jun, Dilmurad Yusupov) _Back tocontents._ #### Nepal **In Climate Crisis and Environment** : The Road to Til: Climate Change Reaches Nepal's Himalaya's. (Video documentary , Disability Justice Project) **In Communication and Language** : ‘Deaf People Are Finally Seen as Equal Citizens’ After Decades of Advocacy, Nepal’s Deaf Community Wins Historic Access to National News and Parliamentary Proceedings in Its Own Language. (Jun, Disability Justice Project) _Back tocontents._ #### Pakistan **In Health** : Bringing legislation to life: Navigating intersectional barriers in implementing the Sindh Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities Act (2018) for the healthcare of children with disabilities. (Jun, Plos Global Public Health) _Back tocontents._ #### Palestine **In Conflict and Peace** : Disabled Palestinian Shot, Wounded by Israeli Settlers in West Bank, Officials Say. (Jun, Haaretz) _Back tocontents._ #### Philippines **In Climate Crisis and Environment** : After the Storm. “Relocation sites are often inaccessible and far from their livelihoods and support networks.” (Feb, Human Rights Watch) _Back tocontents._ #### Syria **In Education and Childhood** : Syrian Government Pledges Protection for Children with Disabilities. (Jun, Human Rights Watch) _Back tocontents._ #### Thailand **In Economics and Social Protection** : Disabled aid plan approved “raising the disability allowance to 1,000 baht per month and setting caregiver pay at up to 10,800 baht.” (Jun, Bangkok Post) _Back tocontents._ #### United Arab Emirates **In Employment, Business and Work** : Is Neurodiversity At Work Working? Three Red Flags: > “To the employers out there who are still wanting to do this well, and the neurodivergent employees who still feel stigmatised at work – the current impasse is helping neither of you. We cannot achieve neuroinclusion via a battle of wills.” (Jun, Forbes) _Back tocontents._ #### Uzbekistan **In Policy and Rights** : "Disability is a Mirror for the Development of Societies". A Conversation with Dilmurad Yusupov: > ‘Disability inclusion tests the genuineness of reform because it requires changing entrenched institutions, not just policies. It requires breaking the paternalistic logic of Soviet social protection which assumed that the state knows best, provides a minimal subsidy, and keeps “abnormal” people out of public life. If Uzbekistan’s reforms are real, we should see deinstitutionalisation people leaving boarding houses and living independently in communities. We should see more disabled people in parliament, on advisory committees, in leadership of public institutions. We should see the disability assessment system overhauled from a purely medical examination into a needs-assessment that actually enables meaningful participation. These things have not happened yet. The reforms are real, but they are still mostly skin-deep when it comes to disability.’ (Jun, Novastan) _Back tocontents._ ### Europe #### Europe **In Humanitarian, Migrants and Refugees** : EU Asylum Pact Threatens Rights of People with Disabilities. (Jun, Human Rights Watch) **In Politics and Elections** : Interview with MEP Nicolae Ștefănuță: "We must defend ambitious social inclusion target". (May, EDF) _Back tocontents._ #### Finland **In Politics and Elections** : Finland’s democratic backsliding continues with cuts to disability rights: > “The government intends to cut 30% of the funding for organisations of persons with disabilities, and notably, to completely strip their power to advocate and advise persons with disabilities.” (Jun, EDF) _Back tocontents._ #### Germany **In Employment, Business and Work** : The legal fight to get equal pay for Germany's disabled workers. (Jun, BBC) **In Policy and Rights** : German Inclusion Law Tightens: Companies Face New Duty to Provide “Reasonable Accommodations”. (Jul, Ad Hoc News) _Back tocontents._ #### Netherlands **In International Cooperation** : Everyone Counts: Why Disability Inclusion Must Be Embedded in Dutch Development Policy. (Mar, DCDD) _Back tocontents._ #### Romania **In Sport and Paralympics** : Romania opens first mountain trail accessible to people with visual impairments. (Jun, Romania Insider) _Back tocontents._ #### Ukraine **In Data and Research** : War increases number of people with disabilities in Ukraine by 600,000, Ombudsman representative tells UN. (Jun, UKR Inform) **In Economics and Social Protection** : A woman with a disability was used in a scheme to allow a man liable for military service to leave the country, through a sham marriage. (Jun, UNN) **In Mobility, Travel, Transport and Tourism** : How a driver who panicked his instructor helped to improve Ukraine’s driving accessibility laws. (May, UNDP) **In War in Ukraine** : War increases number of people with disabilities in Ukraine by 600,000, Ombudsman representative tells UN. (Jun, UKR Inform) Ukrainian Women Plead for News of Disabled Relatives Held by Russia: “Four years after Ukraine was invaded, many of the people who lived in institutional settings remain unaccounted for.” (Jun, New York Times) _Back tocontents._ #### United Kingdom **In Climate Crisis and Environment** : This heatwave isn't just a weather event. It's a disability rights emergency: > “For many disabled people, heatwaves are a threat to life, dignity and safety. And the main reason for that is not their health condition, impairment or neurodivergence. It's a government failure to make buildings where disabled people live, work and receive medical care safe in a warming climate.” (Jun, Friends of the Earth) **In Economics and Social Protection** : Disabled people with lifelong conditions facing ‘unnecessary’ Pip reassessments: > ‘A study by the anti-poverty charity Z2K has found that hundreds of thousands of disabled people are going through “unnecessary” personal independence payment (Pip) reviews, “wasting” public money and “significantly harming” the mental and physical health of claimants.’ (Jun, the Guardian) **In Employment, Business and Work** : The system-level organisational design framework: a neuro-cognitive trait interaction approach to workplace inclusion for autistic people: > “adjustment-led approaches, when unaccompanied by wider organisational change, may require autistic employees to navigate systems not designed for cognitive variation, while support remains inconsistently implemented and misaligned with processing and communication needs”. (Jun, Frontiers in Psychology) **In History and Memorial** : The National Disability Movement Archive & Collection. “NDMAC digitally and physically archives these crip fights for rights.” (May, NDMAC) Disability: A history of resistance. A book by David Turner: “history of modern Britain that puts the experiences of disabled people to the fore for the first time.” (Penguin) See a review in the Guardian. **In Independent Living and Deinstitutionalization** : ‘Mistreatment became normality’ at Muckamore Abbey hospital, inquiry finds. (Jun, the Guardian) **In Justice Systems and Legal Capacity** : Jurors, lawyers and social workers face ‘resilience test’ in inaccessible courts. (Jun, BBC) **In Lived Experience and Opinion** : After the Flare A comic about relapse and recovery. (Jul, Body Babble) Crip Fury When you have to perform gratitude to survive, where does your anger go? > “There are versions of disabled anger that are more acceptable, more palatable. The fighter, the campaigner, the overcome-r. But the problem with that is that until the moment where your narrative arc ends in triumph, you are that bitter, disabled person. It’s only when you win, it’s only when you prove that you were right all along, that this creation is allowed to be seen to embody a positive anger.” (Jun, Jamie Hale) Crip Grief How do we talk about our bodies? How do we not talk about our bodies? > “Finally, for this short list of griefs, it’s a collective grief. It is a sense of mourning for a world that could have been - mourning spaces I can’t enter, and destroyed community, and inequality, and the inaccessible world. Mourning the accessible world that never arrived. It’s a belief held in grief that things could be different in the world, and a grief that they are not.” (Jun, Jamie Hale) **In Space Exploration** : From lift attendant to astronaut. It only took eighty years: “Space, by accident, turns out to be the most accessible workplace ever created.” (Jun, Phil Friend) **In Sport and Paralympics** : More than half of English parents struggle to find accessible holiday clubs for disabled children. (Jul, the Guardian) _Back tocontents._ ### North America #### Honduras **In Humanitarian, Migrants and Refugees** : Returned migrants with disabilities join forces to demand attention and support. Many of them acquired their disabilities while trying to reach the United States. (In Spanish, Jun, Tiempo) _Back tocontents._ #### Mexico **In Communication and Language** : Perla Moctezuma, the deaf woman who paved the way for accessibility in Mexican television. (In Spanish, Jun, Yo También) **In Culture, Entertainment and Media** : Perla Moctezuma, the deaf woman who paved the way for accessibility in Mexican television. (In Spanish, Jun, Yo También) **In Independent Living and Deinstitutionalization** : Care Crisis in Mexico. “There is a myth deeply rooted in society and government, the false idea that women know how to take care of things simply because they are women.” (In Spanish, Jun, Yo También) _Back tocontents._ #### United States **In Accessibility and Design** : Importance of Accessibility at Historic Sites. Historic sites of varying ages across the world have achieved accessibility. (Jun, Densho) **In Civil Society and Community** : Unscripted Revelation: The Spirit of Sign Language and the Threat of Deaf Christianity in the Nineteenth-Century United States. (Jun, Disability Studies Quarterly) State Ramps and Church Stairs: The History of Disability in the Reformed Church in America: > “Ultimately, the RCA’s history with disability is the story of a church body lagging behind while the government built ramps. While the RCA likes to envision itself at the forefront of caring for the less fortunate, the evidence suggests that it is the government—and the relentless activism of disabled citizens—that has traditionally set the pace. The goal for the future, as Lotz suggests, is for the RCA to stop waiting for a law before it decides to smash its concrete steps and its barrierfilled minds. Until then, the RCA remains a shadow of secular progress, standing behind the Rights and Rights Denied landscape of the United States.” (May, ScholarWorks@GVSU) **In Communication and Language** : ASL Signbank “The ASL Signbank, an empirical-based resource-driven database, labels ASL use in transcripts time-aligned to ASL videos along with a set of annotation conventions to make the data machine-readable.” (Jun, Cambridge University Press) Unscripted Revelation: The Spirit of Sign Language and the Threat of Deaf Christianity in the Nineteenth-Century United States. (Jun, Disability Studies Quarterly) **In Conflict and Peace** : I had to choose between my Zionism and my disability advocacy: > “I honestly don’t understand how a space for disability inclusion should have any stance on Zionism whatsoever.” (Jun, Times of Israel) **In Culture, Entertainment and Media** : A 10th-anniversary Reflection for Accessibility in the News Subscribers: > “Progress is real, but fragile. The past decade brought stronger standards, more public awareness, better tools, major legal developments, and more organizations taking accessibility seriously. But rights can be delayed, narrowed, ignored, underfunded, or treated as optional unless people keep paying attention, continue being educated and informed, and become active and speak up.” (Jul, Micro Assist) **In Education and Childhood** : The Short- and Long-Term Impacts of Expanding Public Education for Disabled Students: > “Although this policy could have taken away resources from non-disabled students, in fact, education and employment also increased for non-disabled individuals. These effects align with evidence that the mandates increased spending per student by up to 15%. Families were also impacted: the mandates increased employment among mothers of disabled children and the probability that disabled individuals became household heads. Over the long term, the mandates paid for themselves by generating government revenues in excess of their cost.” (Apr, Arxiv) **In Employment, Business and Work** : Workers with disabilities deserve better than subminimum wages. The large-scale job losses opponents have predicted for decades did not appear in any state we studied: > “Sheltered workshop employment fell by roughly 2,000 workers per state within two years, which is what the laws intended. But overall employment for workers with disabilities held steady. Employment rates, hours worked and competitive job placement all stayed at pre-policy levels in every state we examined, and the result held in the second and third years after each state’s policy change.” (Jun, Ripple) **In Health** : What It's Like To Pay A Healthcare Bill When You're Blind: > “Healthcare bills confuse me, especially the insurance contributions and how they affect what I owe. Many bill pay screens include little icon buttons that open a tooltip with more detail about a line item. Sometimes those buttons aren't labeled, so my screen reader skips right past them. Other times the tooltip opens but I can't find a way to close it and get back to the main page.” (Apr, UsableNet) Caring for People with Disabilities Series. “This video series, developed by the American Medical Association and Colorado University Anschutz School of Medicine, supports physicians in delivering high-quality, respectful and effective medical care to people with disabilities.” (AMA) **In History and Memorial** : Disability in the United States at 250. Reflecting on disability history and looking forward to the American dream: > “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are not fully accessible to disabled Americans not because of their disabilities, but because of systemic and social roadblocks to these rights.” (Jul, New America) How Disability Shaped American Citizenship. A new book reveals the long relationship between race, disability, and nationhood in the revolutionary-era United States. (Jun, Mother Jones) Importance of Accessibility at Historic Sites. Historic sites of varying ages across the world have achieved accessibility. (Jun, Densho) **In Humanitarian, Migrants and Refugees** : Lawsuit Accuses ICE and Private Prison Contractors of Abusing a Disabled Detainee. (Jul, Mother Jones) **In Independent Living and Deinstitutionalization** : From Inside The House: How Surveillance Tech Further Threatens Independent Living: > “Emerging technologies, whether AI-enabled or not, can facilitate independent living for people with disabilities. But, privacy is an integral part of autonomy and shifting power; if knowledge is power, then giving up knowledge about ourselves — particularly without our fully-informed consent — is inherently disempowering, which is at odds with the goals and foundational tenets of independent living.” (Jun, Disability Culture Lab) A survey of US Christians and their attitudes to supporting orphanages, children's homes, and other residential care programs for children: > “Reported financial support for residential care has increased meaningfully since 2020, driven primarily by younger Christians, men, and Catholics, resulting in a projected $4.5 billion annually.” (Faith to Action) **In Politics and Elections** : Mitch McConnell’s Disability Isn’t the Story. His Fitness for Office Is. (Jul, Disabled Journalists Association) Polio Made Mitch McConnell MAHA’s Enemy. “The senator defended vaccines and angered Trump. If only he’d done that more.” (Jul, Mother Jones) _Back tocontents._ ### Oceania #### Australia **In Economics and Social Protection** : Brutal NDIS cuts will hurt the most vulnerable: > “The National Disability Insurance Scheme has grown too big, too fast. Reform is necessary to rein in growth. But the proposal currently before parliament would achieve budget bottom-line savings by hurting the most vulnerable people in the NDIS.” (Jun, Gratian Institute) Dysfunctional disability policy: > “The harsh reality behind the spin, ‘Securing the NDIS for Future Generations’, is that 160,000 people with disabilities will be excluded from the NDIS by 2030. Individual allocations for social and community support will be cut by 50 per cent. In Budget parlance, that’s a lot of ’losers'.” (Jun, Pearls and Irritations) **In Lived Experience and Opinion** : Love story: Accepting my body is my greatest achievement. (Jun, ABC News) _Back tocontents._ #### New Zealand **In Data and Research** : An overview of disability data in Aotearoa New Zealand: > “Based on the 2023 [Household Disability Survey], 17 percent of people living in New Zealand households were disabled. This is a total of 851,000 disabled people.” (Apr, Stats NZ) **In Health** : Disabled People’s | Tāngata Whaikaha Experiences of Health Services. (Jun, Health & Disability Commissioner) **In Mental Health** : Decision finds “the rights of an at-risk disabled child were severely compromised when she was wrongly treated as an adult mental health patient.” (Jun, Health & Disability Commissioner) _Back tocontents._ ### South America #### Argentina **In Economics and Social Protection** : Disability and electricity dependence: a dispute between rights and the market: > “Disruptions to the electricity supply shut down oxygen concentrators. Feeding pumps stop working. Ventilators cease functioning. For people who depend on powered medical equipment, electricity is not just another convenience—it is the difference between life and death.” (May, OpenGlobalRights) **In Mobility, Travel, Transport and Tourism** : People with disabilities will continue to travel free of charge on inter-jurisdiction bus journies, but the government will stop compensating the companies for it. (In Spanish, May, Infobae) _Back tocontents._ #### Guyana **In Education and Childhood** : Guyana to establish first specialised school for children with autism. (Jun, News Room) _Back tocontents._ #### Paraguay **In Politics and Elections** : Accessible voting: guaranteeing the right to vote for senior citizens and people with disabilities. (In Spanish, Jun, La Nación) _Back tocontents._

disabilitydebrief.org

Disability news, July 2026, by subject

**Library > July 2026** _This page is organized by subject, you can also see links organized by country._ This update has 100 curated links from 39 countries and regions, organized across 38 subjects. # Contents * Accessibility and Design * Assistive Technology * Civil Society and Community * Climate Crisis and Environment * Communication and Language * Conflict and Peace * Culture, Entertainment and Media * Data and Research * Digital Accessibility and Technology * Disaster Risk Reduction and Crisis Response * Economics and Social Protection * Education and Childhood * Employment, Business and Work * Gender Equality and Women with Disabilities * Health * History and Memorial * Humanitarian, Migrants and Refugees * Independent Living and Deinstitutionalization * International Cooperation * Justice Systems and Legal Capacity * Lived Experience and Opinion * Mental Health * Mobility, Travel, Transport and Tourism * Policy and Rights * Politics and Elections * Space Exploration * Sport and Paralympics * Violence and Harassment * War in Ukraine * Water and Sanitation (WASH) ## Accessibility and Design #### International News What is the real cost of accessibility? (Jun, Center for Inclusive Policy) #### United States Importance of Accessibility at Historic Sites. Historic sites of varying ages across the world have achieved accessibility. (Jun, Densho) _Back tocontents._ ## Assistive Technology #### Cambodia How assistive technology is rebuilding livelihoods in rural Cambodia. (Jun, ATscale) _Back tocontents._ ## Civil Society and Community #### International News Can Feminist Philanthropy Still Ignore the Leadership of Women with Disabilities? (May, Deza Nguembock) #### India Navigating a ‘Constitutional Borderland’: > “Trans and disability rights movements confront common challenges when it comes to the Indian state’s unequal treatment of marginalised bodies in its nationalist project, the judiciary’s liberal legalism, and the emphasis on a Swadeshi jurisprudence.” (Jun, The Leaflet) #### South Sudan Deaf community launches organization to fight for rights, inclusion. (Jun, Radio Tamazuj) #### United States Unscripted Revelation: The Spirit of Sign Language and the Threat of Deaf Christianity in the Nineteenth-Century United States. (Jun, Disability Studies Quarterly) State Ramps and Church Stairs: The History of Disability in the Reformed Church in America: > “Ultimately, the RCA’s history with disability is the story of a church body lagging behind while the government built ramps. While the RCA likes to envision itself at the forefront of caring for the less fortunate, the evidence suggests that it is the government—and the relentless activism of disabled citizens—that has traditionally set the pace. The goal for the future, as Lotz suggests, is for the RCA to stop waiting for a law before it decides to smash its concrete steps and its barrierfilled minds. Until then, the RCA remains a shadow of secular progress, standing behind the Rights and Rights Denied landscape of the United States.” (May, ScholarWorks@GVSU) _Back tocontents._ ## Climate Crisis and Environment #### International News Best Practices for Disability-Inclusive Climate Action 2026: Recommendations and examples from the Disability Climate Caucus. (Jun, EDF) Three ways climate action can be more inclusive for 1.3 billion disabled people. (Jun, the Conversation) #### Nepal The Road to Til: Climate Change Reaches Nepal's Himalaya's. (Video documentary , Disability Justice Project) #### Philippines After the Storm. “Relocation sites are often inaccessible and far from their livelihoods and support networks.” (Feb, Human Rights Watch) #### United Kingdom This heatwave isn't just a weather event. It's a disability rights emergency: > “For many disabled people, heatwaves are a threat to life, dignity and safety. And the main reason for that is not their health condition, impairment or neurodivergence. It's a government failure to make buildings where disabled people live, work and receive medical care safe in a warming climate.” (Jun, Friends of the Earth) _Back tocontents._ ## Communication and Language ### Sign Languages #### International News Sign Language Linguistics: “The first textbook to bring together the linguistics of both BSL and ASL, this accessible book provides a uniquely international and comparative introduction to the structure and use of signed languages.” (Cambridge University Press) #### Mexico Perla Moctezuma, the deaf woman who paved the way for accessibility in Mexican television. (In Spanish, Jun, Yo También) #### Nepal ‘Deaf People Are Finally Seen as Equal Citizens’ After Decades of Advocacy, Nepal’s Deaf Community Wins Historic Access to National News and Parliamentary Proceedings in Its Own Language. (Jun, Disability Justice Project) #### United States ASL Signbank “The ASL Signbank, an empirical-based resource-driven database, labels ASL use in transcripts time-aligned to ASL videos along with a set of annotation conventions to make the data machine-readable.” (Jun, Cambridge University Press) Unscripted Revelation: The Spirit of Sign Language and the Threat of Deaf Christianity in the Nineteenth-Century United States. (Jun, Disability Studies Quarterly) _Back tocontents._ ## Conflict and Peace ### Israel-Palestine Conflict #### Palestine Disabled Palestinian Shot, Wounded by Israeli Settlers in West Bank, Officials Say. (Jun, Haaretz) #### United States I had to choose between my Zionism and my disability advocacy: > “I honestly don’t understand how a space for disability inclusion should have any stance on Zionism whatsoever.” (Jun, Times of Israel) _Back tocontents._ ## Culture, Entertainment and Media ### Overview #### International News Forging Ahead in Accessibility: Disabled Leadership and the Future of Museum Workforces. (Jun, Association of Science and Technology Centers) ### TV and Film #### Mexico Perla Moctezuma, the deaf woman who paved the way for accessibility in Mexican television. (In Spanish, Jun, Yo También) ### Media #### United States A 10th-anniversary Reflection for Accessibility in the News Subscribers: > “Progress is real, but fragile. The past decade brought stronger standards, more public awareness, better tools, major legal developments, and more organizations taking accessibility seriously. But rights can be delayed, narrowed, ignored, underfunded, or treated as optional unless people keep paying attention, continue being educated and informed, and become active and speak up.” (Jul, Micro Assist) _Back tocontents._ ## Data and Research #### International News How Multidimensional Poverty Measures Overlook Accessibility for People with Disabilities. (Jun, Center for Inclusive Policy) #### New Zealand An overview of disability data in Aotearoa New Zealand: > “Based on the 2023 [Household Disability Survey], 17 percent of people living in New Zealand households were disabled. This is a total of 851,000 disabled people.” (Apr, Stats NZ) #### Ukraine War increases number of people with disabilities in Ukraine by 600,000, Ombudsman representative tells UN. (Jun, UKR Inform) _Back tocontents._ ## Digital Accessibility and Technology ### Overview #### International News The Design Brief That Never Mentioned Disabled People. “Twenty years of experience building things people can’t use isn’t twenty years of expertise.” (Mar, Chris Gibbons) ### Artificial Intelligence #### International News Shakespeare v. Anthropic: 100+ Authors Sue AI Giant, including Tom Shakespeare, a sociologist writing about disability. (Jun, EIN Presswire) Accessible digital textbooks for all. “A UNICEF-Government led initiative tapping the power of AI to provide accessible digital textbooks for learners of all abilities.” (Jun, UNESCO) _Back tocontents._ ## Disaster Risk Reduction and Crisis Response #### Americas Guide for the inclusion of people with disabilities in drills and simulations in Central America. (Jun, ASB América Latina) #### Nigeria Unwarned & Unprotected: Deaf Nigerians Excluded from Emergency Alerts (Jul, Disability Justice Project) _Back tocontents._ ## Economics and Social Protection ### Overview #### Argentina Disability and electricity dependence: a dispute between rights and the market: > “Disruptions to the electricity supply shut down oxygen concentrators. Feeding pumps stop working. Ventilators cease functioning. For people who depend on powered medical equipment, electricity is not just another convenience—it is the difference between life and death.” (May, OpenGlobalRights) ### Social Protection #### Australia Brutal NDIS cuts will hurt the most vulnerable: > “The National Disability Insurance Scheme has grown too big, too fast. Reform is necessary to rein in growth. But the proposal currently before parliament would achieve budget bottom-line savings by hurting the most vulnerable people in the NDIS.” (Jun, Gratian Institute) Dysfunctional disability policy: > “The harsh reality behind the spin, ‘Securing the NDIS for Future Generations’, is that 160,000 people with disabilities will be excluded from the NDIS by 2030. Individual allocations for social and community support will be cut by 50 per cent. In Budget parlance, that’s a lot of ’losers'.” (Jun, Pearls and Irritations) #### Bangladesh Disability allowance gets a bump in budget proposal: from 900 Tk to 1000 Tk, and 3.45 million beneficiaries to 3.8 million. (Jun, bdnews24.com) #### Iran Iranians deprived of state welfare payments, Tehran prioritizes war costs. (Jul, The Jerusalem Post) Iran cuts living allowances for many people with disabilities. (Jul, Iran Insight) #### Thailand Disabled aid plan approved “raising the disability allowance to 1,000 baht per month and setting caregiver pay at up to 10,800 baht.” (Jun, Bangkok Post) #### Ukraine A woman with a disability was used in a scheme to allow a man liable for military service to leave the country, through a sham marriage. (Jun, UNN) #### United Kingdom Disabled people with lifelong conditions facing ‘unnecessary’ Pip reassessments: > ‘A study by the anti-poverty charity Z2K has found that hundreds of thousands of disabled people are going through “unnecessary” personal independence payment (Pip) reviews, “wasting” public money and “significantly harming” the mental and physical health of claimants.’ (Jun, the Guardian) _Back tocontents._ ## Education and Childhood #### International News Accessible digital textbooks for all. “A UNICEF-Government led initiative tapping the power of AI to provide accessible digital textbooks for learners of all abilities.” (Jun, UNESCO) #### Guyana Guyana to establish first specialised school for children with autism. (Jun, News Room) #### Syria Syrian Government Pledges Protection for Children with Disabilities. (Jun, Human Rights Watch) #### United States The Short- and Long-Term Impacts of Expanding Public Education for Disabled Students: > “Although this policy could have taken away resources from non-disabled students, in fact, education and employment also increased for non-disabled individuals. These effects align with evidence that the mandates increased spending per student by up to 15%. Families were also impacted: the mandates increased employment among mothers of disabled children and the probability that disabled individuals became household heads. Over the long term, the mandates paid for themselves by generating government revenues in excess of their cost.” (Apr, Arxiv) _Back tocontents._ ## Employment, Business and Work #### International News New Frontiers of Disability Inclusion: a briefing paper on “Advancing Authentic Representation, Inclusive Technology, and Enterprise Accessibility.” (Jun, World Economic Forum) #### Bangladesh Process evaluation of a disability-inclusive employment programme: examining underlying mechanisms and contextual influences on the impact of STAR+. (Apr, Oxford Development Studies) #### China What’s behind the rise in firings linked to disability discrimination in Hong Kong? (May, The Star) #### Germany The legal fight to get equal pay for Germany's disabled workers. (Jun, BBC) #### United Arab Emirates Is Neurodiversity At Work Working? Three Red Flags: > “To the employers out there who are still wanting to do this well, and the neurodivergent employees who still feel stigmatised at work – the current impasse is helping neither of you. We cannot achieve neuroinclusion via a battle of wills.” (Jun, Forbes) #### United Kingdom The system-level organisational design framework: a neuro-cognitive trait interaction approach to workplace inclusion for autistic people: > “adjustment-led approaches, when unaccompanied by wider organisational change, may require autistic employees to navigate systems not designed for cognitive variation, while support remains inconsistently implemented and misaligned with processing and communication needs”. (Jun, Frontiers in Psychology) #### United States Workers with disabilities deserve better than subminimum wages. The large-scale job losses opponents have predicted for decades did not appear in any state we studied: > “Sheltered workshop employment fell by roughly 2,000 workers per state within two years, which is what the laws intended. But overall employment for workers with disabilities held steady. Employment rates, hours worked and competitive job placement all stayed at pre-policy levels in every state we examined, and the result held in the second and third years after each state’s policy change.” (Jun, Ripple) _Back tocontents._ ## Gender Equality and Women with Disabilities #### Ghana “We demand rights and justice” How women-to-women mentoring has helped to increase disability representation in Ghana. (Sightsavers) #### India Navigating a ‘Constitutional Borderland’: > “Trans and disability rights movements confront common challenges when it comes to the Indian state’s unequal treatment of marginalised bodies in its nationalist project, the judiciary’s liberal legalism, and the emphasis on a Swadeshi jurisprudence.” (Jun, The Leaflet) _Back tocontents._ ## Health #### International News Strengthening health-care pathways for people with Down syndrome. (May, The Lancet Health Longevity) #### Ethiopia Are primary healthcare facilities in Ethiopia complying with accessibility standards for disability-inclusion? an accessibility audit in Bahir Dar City. (May, BMC Health Services Research) #### New Zealand Disabled People’s | Tāngata Whaikaha Experiences of Health Services. (Jun, Health & Disability Commissioner) #### Pakistan Bringing legislation to life: Navigating intersectional barriers in implementing the Sindh Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities Act (2018) for the healthcare of children with disabilities. (Jun, Plos Global Public Health) #### Uganda Health-seeking behaviours and pathways among people with disabilities in Eastern Uganda: A qualitative analysis: > “Due to challenges in healthcare access, participants often resorted to self-medication, traditional remedies, or home-based care.” (May, NIHR Open Research) #### United States What It's Like To Pay A Healthcare Bill When You're Blind: > “Healthcare bills confuse me, especially the insurance contributions and how they affect what I owe. Many bill pay screens include little icon buttons that open a tooltip with more detail about a line item. Sometimes those buttons aren't labeled, so my screen reader skips right past them. Other times the tooltip opens but I can't find a way to close it and get back to the main page.” (Apr, UsableNet) Caring for People with Disabilities Series. “This video series, developed by the American Medical Association and Colorado University Anschutz School of Medicine, supports physicians in delivering high-quality, respectful and effective medical care to people with disabilities.” (AMA) _Back tocontents._ ## History and Memorial #### United Kingdom The National Disability Movement Archive & Collection. “NDMAC digitally and physically archives these crip fights for rights.” (May, NDMAC) Disability: A history of resistance. A book by David Turner: “history of modern Britain that puts the experiences of disabled people to the fore for the first time.” (Penguin) See a review in the Guardian. #### United States Disability in the United States at 250. Reflecting on disability history and looking forward to the American dream: > “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are not fully accessible to disabled Americans not because of their disabilities, but because of systemic and social roadblocks to these rights.” (Jul, New America) How Disability Shaped American Citizenship. A new book reveals the long relationship between race, disability, and nationhood in the revolutionary-era United States. (Jun, Mother Jones) Importance of Accessibility at Historic Sites. Historic sites of varying ages across the world have achieved accessibility. (Jun, Densho) _Back tocontents._ ## Humanitarian, Migrants and Refugees ### Migration #### International News Celebrating the Resilience of Refugees with Disabilities. (Jul, UNHCR) #### Europe EU Asylum Pact Threatens Rights of People with Disabilities. (Jun, Human Rights Watch) #### Honduras Returned migrants with disabilities join forces to demand attention and support. Many of them acquired their disabilities while trying to reach the United States. (In Spanish, Jun, Tiempo) #### Kenya IRAP Disability Inclusion and Accessibility Project. (Short video, Jun, IRAP) #### United States Lawsuit Accuses ICE and Private Prison Contractors of Abusing a Disabled Detainee. (Jul, Mother Jones) _Back tocontents._ ## Independent Living and Deinstitutionalization ### Overview #### Mexico Care Crisis in Mexico. “There is a myth deeply rooted in society and government, the false idea that women know how to take care of things simply because they are women.” (In Spanish, Jun, Yo También) #### United States From Inside The House: How Surveillance Tech Further Threatens Independent Living: > “Emerging technologies, whether AI-enabled or not, can facilitate independent living for people with disabilities. But, privacy is an integral part of autonomy and shifting power; if knowledge is power, then giving up knowledge about ourselves — particularly without our fully-informed consent — is inherently disempowering, which is at odds with the goals and foundational tenets of independent living.” (Jun, Disability Culture Lab) ### Conditions in Institutions #### United Kingdom ‘Mistreatment became normality’ at Muckamore Abbey hospital, inquiry finds. (Jun, the Guardian) #### United States A survey of US Christians and their attitudes to supporting orphanages, children's homes, and other residential care programs for children: > “Reported financial support for residential care has increased meaningfully since 2020, driven primarily by younger Christians, men, and Catholics, resulting in a projected $4.5 billion annually.” (Faith to Action) _Back tocontents._ ## International Cooperation ### Overview #### International News “Funding cuts turn inequalities into permanent exclusion”. Evidence from organisations of persons with disabilities on the human and organisational impacts of cuts to international aid: > “79% of OPDs have faced severe or very severe funding cuts that have affected their operational ability in the past 18 months”. (Jun, Handicap International) #### Netherlands Everyone Counts: Why Disability Inclusion Must Be Embedded in Dutch Development Policy. (Mar, DCDD) ### Global Disability Summit #### International News One Year After the Amman-Berlin Declaration on Global Disability Inclusion – A Status Update: “the number of countries that officially expressed support for the ABD rose to 103 (49 of which are Official Development Assistance, ODA recipient countries)”. (Jun, Inklusion leben) _Back tocontents._ ## Justice Systems and Legal Capacity #### United Kingdom Jurors, lawyers and social workers face ‘resilience test’ in inaccessible courts. (Jun, BBC) _Back tocontents._ ## Lived Experience and Opinion #### Australia Love story: Accepting my body is my greatest achievement. (Jun, ABC News) #### United Kingdom After the Flare A comic about relapse and recovery. (Jul, Body Babble) Crip Fury When you have to perform gratitude to survive, where does your anger go? > “There are versions of disabled anger that are more acceptable, more palatable. The fighter, the campaigner, the overcome-r. But the problem with that is that until the moment where your narrative arc ends in triumph, you are that bitter, disabled person. It’s only when you win, it’s only when you prove that you were right all along, that this creation is allowed to be seen to embody a positive anger.” (Jun, Jamie Hale) Crip Grief How do we talk about our bodies? How do we not talk about our bodies? > “Finally, for this short list of griefs, it’s a collective grief. It is a sense of mourning for a world that could have been - mourning spaces I can’t enter, and destroyed community, and inequality, and the inaccessible world. Mourning the accessible world that never arrived. It’s a belief held in grief that things could be different in the world, and a grief that they are not.” (Jun, Jamie Hale) _Back tocontents._ ## Mental Health #### New Zealand Decision finds “the rights of an at-risk disabled child were severely compromised when she was wrongly treated as an adult mental health patient.” (Jun, Health & Disability Commissioner) _Back tocontents._ ## Mobility, Travel, Transport and Tourism ### Overview #### Argentina People with disabilities will continue to travel free of charge on inter-jurisdiction bus journies, but the government will stop compensating the companies for it. (In Spanish, May, Infobae) #### China Global training academy aims to open up China to disabled travellers. (Jun, Travel Weekly) #### Ukraine How a driver who panicked his instructor helped to improve Ukraine’s driving accessibility laws. (May, UNDP) ### Air Travel #### Nigeria Outrage as Deaf Rights advocate alleges discrimination after missing flight. “They told me I was faking my Deafness.” (Jun, Qualitative Magazine) _Back tocontents._ ## Policy and Rights #### International News Will States Address Disability Invisibility in the Crimes Against Humanity Convention? (Jun, Just Security) #### Germany German Inclusion Law Tightens: Companies Face New Duty to Provide “Reasonable Accommodations”. (Jul, Ad Hoc News) #### Kazakhstan First time for Central Asia: Kazakhstan's Lyazzat Kaltayeva was elected to the UN Disability Rights Committee. (Jun, Dilmurad Yusupov) #### Malawi “I Just Want to Work Without Fear”: Discrimination and Violations of the Right to Work for Persons with Albinism in Malawi: > “Although reported attacks have declined in recent years, the legacy of violence continues to shape everyday life. Many people with albinism limit their movement, avoid isolated areas, and often forgo what few work opportunities are available to them due to fear. This insecurity restricts access to work and incomes, particularly in rural areas where work often requires travel or outdoor labor.” (Jun, Human Rights Watch) #### Uzbekistan "Disability is a Mirror for the Development of Societies". A Conversation with Dilmurad Yusupov: > ‘Disability inclusion tests the genuineness of reform because it requires changing entrenched institutions, not just policies. It requires breaking the paternalistic logic of Soviet social protection which assumed that the state knows best, provides a minimal subsidy, and keeps “abnormal” people out of public life. If Uzbekistan’s reforms are real, we should see deinstitutionalisation people leaving boarding houses and living independently in communities. We should see more disabled people in parliament, on advisory committees, in leadership of public institutions. We should see the disability assessment system overhauled from a purely medical examination into a needs-assessment that actually enables meaningful participation. These things have not happened yet. The reforms are real, but they are still mostly skin-deep when it comes to disability.’ (Jun, Novastan) _Back tocontents._ ## Politics and Elections #### Europe Interview with MEP Nicolae Ștefănuță: "We must defend ambitious social inclusion target". (May, EDF) #### Finland Finland’s democratic backsliding continues with cuts to disability rights: > “The government intends to cut 30% of the funding for organisations of persons with disabilities, and notably, to completely strip their power to advocate and advise persons with disabilities.” (Jun, EDF) #### Nigeria Democracy fails without inclusion of persons with disabilities according to The National Leader of Persons with Disabilities in the African Democratic Congress, Chike Okogwu. (Jun, Vanguard) #### Paraguay Accessible voting: guaranteeing the right to vote for senior citizens and people with disabilities. (In Spanish, Jun, La Nación) #### United States Mitch McConnell’s Disability Isn’t the Story. His Fitness for Office Is. (Jul, Disabled Journalists Association) Polio Made Mitch McConnell MAHA’s Enemy. “The senator defended vaccines and angered Trump. If only he’d done that more.” (Jul, Mother Jones) _Back tocontents._ ## Space Exploration #### United Kingdom From lift attendant to astronaut. It only took eighty years: “Space, by accident, turns out to be the most accessible workplace ever created.” (Jun, Phil Friend) _Back tocontents._ ## Sport and Paralympics #### Romania Romania opens first mountain trail accessible to people with visual impairments. (Jun, Romania Insider) #### United Kingdom More than half of English parents struggle to find accessible holiday clubs for disabled children. (Jul, the Guardian) _Back tocontents._ ## Violence and Harassment #### Madagascar Condemning the Brutal Killing of a Child with Albinism in Madagascar. (May, Africa Albinism Network, Albinos Madagascar and CBM Global Disability Inclusion) _Back tocontents._ ## War in Ukraine #### Ukraine War increases number of people with disabilities in Ukraine by 600,000, Ombudsman representative tells UN. (Jun, UKR Inform) Ukrainian Women Plead for News of Disabled Relatives Held by Russia: “Four years after Ukraine was invaded, many of the people who lived in institutional settings remain unaccounted for.” (Jun, New York Times) _Back tocontents._ ## Water and Sanitation (WASH) #### International News Assessing reach and perceptions of hygiene behaviour change interventions for people with disabilities and older adults: Multi-country matched cross-sectional study. (Jul, International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health) _Back tocontents._

disabilitydebrief.org

To sit under the rain

Under the rain, by Kinanty Andini Dear Debriefers, Greetings from a non-disabled academic based at Scotland’s bonnie University of Dundee! Although I am “non-disabled”, a lot of what I am and what I know I owe to disabled people fighting for independent living. For me it all started in my home country of Bulgaria. But independent living itself, now global in its reach, originated in the United States in the 1960s. It is a philosophy, a social movement, and a way of organising support for disabled people. The central idea is that disabled people should have choice and control over their lives, which includes being in control of the support one needs in everyday living. Independent living has been transformative for many disabled people. Its ideas underpin the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, particularly its Article 19 on “living independently and being included in the community”. But the movement and philosophy are not only relevant to disabled people. They can also have a profound impact on non-disabled folks like me. In this article, I share the stories of how I learned about independent living and how I now grasp the world through its lens. ## About this edition **Original writing like this is made possible by** support from readers**.** Thanks to Jessica and Katherine for new contributions. **Teodor Mladenov** is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Dundee, UK. **Kinanty Andini** is an illustrator and digital artist from Indonesia. Sign-up to see the world through a disability lens Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. Weekly in your inbox ## “Make her understand that she is not at home” In 1997-1998, I worked part-time as a ward attendant in a closed psychiatric hospital in Bulgaria. I did night shifts to be able to simultaneously pursue a psychology degree at Sofia University. I still remember vividly one occasion when the psychiatrist on duty admitted a new patient. The patient had brought with her a set of colouring pencils, which the psychiatrist decided to confiscate. Could it be for safety reasons? Knowing that I was a psychology student, the psychiatrist approached me after the admission and explained: > “When you go to someone else’s house, you take off your shoes, don’t you? That is why I am taking away her pencils – to make her understand that she is not at home.” I retorted: “Will you let her keep her shoes?” ## Asserting authority The psychiatrist’s remark reveals that confiscating the pencils was intended less to manage risk than to assert authority. For the psychiatrist, the hospital was her territory, where she dictated the rules. She intentionally stripped the patient of personal comfort to reinforce the patient’s subordinate place within the institutional hierarchy. Later, I noticed with relief that the patient was allowed to retain her pencils. But I see this event as a telling example and I use it to introduce the critique of professional power that I develop in my book Critical Theory and Independent Living. Although I was critical of biological psychiatry and institutional care even before my time as ward attendant, I was only able to fully articulate this critique after engaging with the Independent Living Movement’s struggle for deinstitutionalisation. ## A centre for independent living in Bulgaria The Centre for Independent Living – Sofia was the first organisation of its kind in Bulgaria. It was founded by the disabled activist Kapka Panayotova in 1996. The Centre was led by disabled people, who also had majority on the governing body. Yet it employed both disabled and non-disabled folks like me. In the 2000s, most independent living organisations in the United States – the country where the movement started – were already mainly concerned with service provision. The Centre in Sofia also provided services to disabled people, but unlike its US counterparts at the time, its primary focus was advocacy and campaigning. Kapka was adamant about this orientation. For her, the realisation of independent living in Bulgaria required deep legislative, structural and attitudinal changes rather than merely better-managed services. ## Personal assistance and protest marches I joined the Centre in 2000. The organisation was buzzing, with two offices and over 30 staff on full time contracts. Following a key principle of the independent living philosophy, the organisation supported people with all kinds of impairments, including physical, sensory and intellectual. The Centre operated its own personal assistance programme, peer support groups and counselling services. I helped set up a nationwide capacity building programme for disabled people’s groups and organisations. I also conducted disability rights research. We advocated for legal reform, organised conferences and held protest marches. These activities were funded by foreign donors, including a programme of the Dutch Government that supported countries seeking to become members of the European Union. However, when Bulgaria joined the EU in 2007, foreign support for the fledgling Bulgarian civil society dried up. This meant that the Centre had to radically downsize and it entered a period of chronic underfunding. Its critique of the Bulgarian Government’s disability policy made it difficult to secure support from the national authorities. ## How can they be independent? A couple of years after I started working for the Centre, a colleague from my psychology years was also hired. He wondered how a person can be independent if they are obviously dependent on other people in their everyday lives. I was unsettled by the question but only later understood how to respond. For my colleague, “independent” meant coping without support or being self-sufficient. This perspective fails to recognise supports used by most people (like home delivery or public transport) while noticing other kinds of support (like help with getting dressed) as signs of “dependence”. However, from the perspective of the Independent Living Movement, to be independent does not mean to cope without support. It means to have support that helps you have choices and control over your everyday life – for example, a personal assistant who helps you get dressed according to your preferences about what and how to wear. I am now firmly convinced that the independence of all people – disabled and non-disabled alike – is grounded in inter-dependence that enables individual autonomy. To use the previous examples, one lives independently to the extent that one’s dependence on home deliveries, public transportation, or personal assistance enables choice and control. It took me a decade of collaborating with Bulgarian independent living activists to internalise this insight. Among them, the person who changed me most was Kapka Panayotova. ## “I will wipe the floor with them!” To say that Kapka disapproved of residential institutions, daycare centres and care professionals (particularly pencil snatchers) would be an understatement. One of the expressions she used when talking about patronising “experts” was “ _Shte gi popileya!”_ , which roughly translates into English as “I will wipe the floor with them!” Some context is needed here. Like many other Central and Eastern European states, Bulgaria was a state socialist country until 1989. The cult of the productive worker meant that the socialist welfare system approached disabled people primarily as medically deficient and economically inefficient labourers. This resulted in the proliferation of forced treatment, institutional confinement and paternalist care practices. When the regime collapsed, it was replaced with liberal democracy and market economy. But the legacy of state socialist disablement has been astonishingly resilient and is still felt today, as I explain in my book Disability and Postsocialism. Kapka’s desire to “wipe the floor with them” was often sparked by this inheritance, as embodied by the psychiatrist from the beginning of this story. ## Paternalist approaches from disability organisations But Kapka’s anger was not just for non-disabled professionals silencing disabled people. She was even more suspicious of disabled people’s organisations “representing” the disability community – both those established during state socialism, and the ones founded after 1989. Kapka helped me understand that traditional disability organisations can be a key barrier to disabled people’s independent living when they support paternalist approaches in disability policy and service provision. Moreover, coopting the “representatives” of disabled people in official consultative bodies like “national disability councils” can cement the status quo of disablement. As well as loving freedom, Kapka was able to transform this passion into courageous action and insightful critique of paternalism and medicalisation dominating mainstream disability policy. I have witnessed this remarkable ability in only a handful of other activists (most notably, Adolf Ratzka). ## Challenging entrenched power I learned more about independent living from Kapka’s graceful audacity in challenging entrenched forms of power than from all the academic articles and books I’ve read as student and lecturer. She was a master of egalitarian care, which I define as caring based on equality and respect for the other’s autonomy and voice. That said, I suspect she would disagree with the term – the Independent Living Movement avoids the word “care”, especially in the context of adult support services. Many disabled activists consider it patronising, steeped in traditional approaches to disability. I and others were constantly learning from Kapka’s courage to criticise, passion for freedom and policy insights. Yet she never stopped asking for advice or feedback. Once she asked me for a reference for a fellowship application to Yale University. (Yale did not accept her, which is their loss.) When she died in October 2022, I lost a spiritual mother. ## To sit under the rain The Centre in Sofia transformed many people’s lives. As part of an assessment of its assistance programme in 2004, I witnessed the sheer intensity of these transformations. One of the disabled participants in the programme, Borislav Vachkov, used to say that one needs to go out to be seen by God. He told me: > “Do you know the happiness I experienced at the very start of the programme – I had just started to go out more often. We were at the NDK [the National Palace of Culture, located in the centre of Sofia], it was summer, and a hard rain started falling, a summer one, of the kind with the big drops that make bubbles on the asphalt. > > “I was sitting under the rain – I was so happy and joyful. And then I thought what a big thing it is to be able to let the rain fall on you. In brief, if I were at home, if the programme did not exist, I would not even be able to get wet by the rain.” (These and the following quotes are translated from Bulgarian.) ## Difficulties in realising independence As part of the same programme assessment, I also interviewed Vanya Pandieva, another personal assistance user and coordinator of the programme. Vanya lucidly explained the main difficulty in providing assistance to enable independence. On one side, there was disabled people’s lack of self-confidence. Or, as Vanya asked, if someone is taught to be helpless, and routinely perceived that way, how can they then “ask another person to do something in the way that I want?” And on the other side, the assistants tended to take over the authority of the person they supported. Vanya described this as inclination towards “a rather possessive, proprietary kind of care”. Echoing Borislav Vachkov’s experience, Vanya explained the paternalist impulse thus: > “If the [assistance] user wants to be out in the rain, should the assistant leave them unprotected under the raindrops, or shield them from it?” ## “A prettier cage is still a cage” I went on to see my Bulgarian experiences in an international context through a two-year research fellowship at the European Network on Independent Living (ENIL). ENIL was founded in 1989 by Adolf Ratzka, John Evans and other luminaries, and since then has been the leading advocate for independent living in Europe. Kapka served as ENIL President in the 2010s. At ENIL, I learned about two important ways that independent living can be misrepresented, and how these misrepresentations are major barriers to genuine autonomy. The first of these is that, in many European countries, personal assistance has been routinely confused with home care, or even home nursing. This is the kind of danger that Vanya identified, about assistance becoming paternalist rather than empowering. Home care is usually characterised by rigidity: schedules filled with predefined tasks and performed by staff chosen by the service provider. In contrast, personal assistance for independent living would be flexible, personalised support, in which the disabled person chooses their assistant/s and has control over the timing and the tasks performed. The second lesson I learned at ENIL is that countries often present moving disabled people from big to small institutions as “deinstitutionalisation”. The EU has invested millions of Euros in such sham “deinstitutionalisation” programmes. Bulgaria has been at the forefront of this reform fakery. Like many other postsocialist states in Europe, its past left it with a significant number of large residential institutions for social care. With the help of EU funding and under the banner of “deinstitutionalisation”, these settings have been replaced with smaller “group homes”. However, although nicer on the outside, these new facilities reproduced the culture and practices of their large predecessors. Or, in ENIL’s words, “a prettier cage is still a cage”. ## Interdependence and autonomy In this article, I shared my journey with independent living as a concept and a movement: witnessing institutional violence, puzzling over the misleading obviousness of self-sufficiency, encountering people able to confront professional power, learning about the liberating potential of rain, and realising the dangers of independent living’s misappropriation at national and international scales. The philosophy of independent living – and activists like Kapka and Vanya – taught me the importance of critically interrogating relations of support. People usually take for granted the benevolence of care, but it has a dark side too. Disabled people’s experiences reveal how support can become a mechanism of domination rather than an enabler of freedom. The problem is not in needing support (we all do) but in having support dominated by professional authority, paternalist assumptions, and institutional routines. This is a lesson that I think is important for us all, disabled and non-disabled alike. I share my memories of independent living because they offered me a way of understanding the world that values inter-dependence without surrendering individual autonomy. May we all have the freedom to let the rain fall on us, Teo ## Outro **See more from Teo** on his university webpage. **Further reading**. There is a back catalogue of Debrief newsletters online, as well as a library of disability news from 170+ countries. **For more from Kinanty,** see her website. **Let your friends know**. Sharing the newsletter is how people find it! **Help us do more**. The Debrief is free thanks to reader support. ## Acknowledgements Thanks to Kinanty Andini for the illustration of the person in the rain. I also thank Peter Torres Fremlin for our discussions and for editing this piece, as well as Disability Debrief readers and supporters. I dedicate this article to Kapka Panayotova and Vanya Pandieva.

disabilitydebrief.org

A new kind of clock

A new kind of clock, by Kinanty Andini Dear Debriefers, What time is it? Our disabilities change the question and its answer. This edition looks at crip time, and some of the other stand-out pieces I've come across in my recent reading. It covers extra time in exams, parenting disabled children, what hearing aids really do, and the concept of “accessibility hindering”. **Our open call for writing is about to close:** Dear Disability Diary, which asks for up to 500 words on how disability shaped your day, is taking submissions until 20th July. ## About this edition **Disability Debrief is published through a** pay-what-you-can**model.** Thanks to Ina, Jackie, Laura and Wang for new contributions. **Peter Torres Fremlin** is editor of Disability Debrief and is from the UK. **Kinanty Andini** is an illustrator and digital artist from Indonesia. Sign-up to see the world through a disability lens Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. Weekly in your inbox ## A new kind of clock “Crip time” refers to the ways that experiences of disability change our experiences of time, and expectations around it. In the UK, creative artist Jamie Hale writes about how it gives us a “new kind of clock”. As Jamie writes, crip time doesn't just shift the perception of days or weeks, “but also the life course that stirs the whole body”: > “Disability routinely disrupts and forecloses the normative development timeline. We experience our education interrupted, our careers fragmented, and our relationships strained by the unpredictability of our bodies and minds. The questions of milestones, such as marriage and children, also become complicated or closed. Those milestones arrive late, in the wrong order, or are replaced by others entirely. > > “We can have a complicated relationship to ageing - perhaps having been seen as having an early wisdom that comes from the life management skills acquired through illness, or perhaps ageing faster physically or psychologically than we could have been expected to. For some of us, we may also live with the knowledge that our timelines could be genuinely shorter than those around us. > > Crip time isn’t just about the movement through an individual day, but also about the ways a life accrues meaning outside the standard shapes that life is given to us.” This is just one of a series of pieces that I've been loving from Jamie's substack, which I strongly recommend. Back-to-back brilliant pieces include: * On Anger: “Until the moment where your narrative arc ends in triumph, you are that bitter, disabled person”. * On Rest: “There is a tension between what our bodies need now and what we feel we need to have done before we can’t.” * And on creating in a disabled timeline: “I write these blogs in bed, dictating to a computer screen, often with my eyes closed.” ## Racing against the clock Over in the US, there is an increase in Harvard undergraduates who need disability accommodations. J. Sellers Hill, writing in the Harvard Crimson, sees this as progress. At the same time, the increase has led to “legitimate concerns about whether parts of the system could be vulnerable to misuse.” In particular, the question of “When should assessments depend on time?”. Hill answers: > “Grades should reflect mastery of course material. As such, timed assessments are only one tool — sometimes a good one, sometimes a poor one — to measure that mastery. In some contexts, time pressure is meaningful. If it takes a student four hours to translate a sentence in French, their fluency is certainly in question. In other contexts, speed is incidental. In many advanced problem-solving settings, arriving at the correct method and justification matters more than racing against the clock.” Meanwhile, in Turkey, the Eskişehir Disability Solidarity Network led a May 1st demonstration with the slogan “Speed belongs to capitalism, life belongs to us”. ## “How deaf are you?” In the US, Sara Nović's new memoir _Mother Tongue_ explores deafness. An extract in Bomb Magazine provides useful correctives in an extract from the book. First on strangers asking “how deaf are you?”: > ‘“How deaf are you?” hearing people often ask me. They crave a number, a specific percentage—twenty, fifty, eighty percent? I’m not even sure where the idea that deafness is measured in percentiles came from; it’s not, though my best guess is that it stems from a misunderstanding of the audiogram, the standard graph used to depict hearing sensitivity. Perhaps more confounding is why otherwise socially adept adults feel it’s okay to ask a stranger this question at all. To me, it feels both as prying and useless as asking someone, “How male are you?” or “What percent straight?” That people inquire as often as they do speaks to how foreign the notion of deafness is to most hearing people. Maybe, if they could just wrangle it with a nice round number, it would make more sense.’ And, vitally, on how to understand hearing aids: > ‘People who haven’t used hearing aids or cochlear implants often assume these devices are corrective, working in the same way putting on glasses can restore many types of blurred vision back to 20/20. But hearing technology is not equivalent to prescription glasses. Hearing aids can amplify sounds, and CIs can convert and pass them to the auditory nerve, but neither can clarify or interpret them. Listening through hearing technology can be a bit like turning up the volume on an out-of-range radio station; the music gets louder, but so does the static. Though today’s devices offer directional microphones and options for different listening atmospheres, technology still pales in comparison to the cochlea and brain’s natural filtering capacities. Rather than glasses, a more apt comparison of medical technology might be a pair of crutches—they will help with mobility, but they won’t make the user walk “normally.” Most of the time, this distinction is not explained by audiologists or doctors to the technology users or, in the case of deaf children, their parents, setting in motion a mismatch of expectations that can have permanent consequences.” ## Ready for the real world Nović's memoir is also about parenting, and in the same extract in Bomb magazine, she writes: > “But to be born deaf today is, for most people, to begin life estranged from one’s parents.” Expanding on this theme in conversation with Rachel Kolb, Nović contrasts today's parenting culture that emphasises the validation of children's feelings. But, “when it comes to disabled children”: > ‘The experts immediately change their tune. Instead of respecting and validating kids, we should turn our homes and schools into training grounds that teach them how to look “normal” and get ready for the “real world.” The concept of the real world has always been very silly to me, as if childhood and school and home life are somehow not reality. But more importantly, how do we expect a child to succeed when they have no safe harbor, no relationship with the people who are supposed to guide them, no chance to just play and be a kid?’ On her newsletter Switchbacks, Rachel Kolb also spoke with Will Fertman, author of the Deaf Baby Instruction Manual. Fertman shared how he and his wife made decisions on discovering their son Oscar was deaf: > “We spent a lot of nights discussing it, and came to an agreement that the experts in this situation were going to be d/Deaf adults, folks who’d actually lived deaf childhoods. When we found them, their message was consistent: whatever you do with speech and hearing devices, also learn ASL [American Sign Language]. This fit with the actual scientific research we were finding.” ## “I have to prove how mental I am” Back in the UK, the Graeae theatre company shares experiences of people facing the assessments and cuts in the government's Access to Work support. From one anonymous testimony: > “During the call. I have to prove how mental I am. But not seem too mental because I know that is alienating and risks being thought of as being seen as ‘dramatic’ and ‘difficult’ and that you Kate with the nice Leeds accent are the one who makes the decisions so I can’t make you angry.. And that, that makes other people angry. And that if I’m too mental then the woman on the end of the phone with the northern voice will think that I need to be sectioned or something. And that I’m not doing enough for myself. Because I’m not enough. > > “She wants to ‘understand a bit more about my illness’. > > “It’s difficult, when you feel like you are on fire, in a situation that is directly threatening to your existence to discuss ‘in a reasonable tone so you don’t seem too mental’ why and how you are mental and how your mentalness impacts your ability to work. Especially when you haven’t largely experienced these things too much for the past three years because things have been going rather well so you feel supported and connected and the work is going really rather well and you are tired of course but the work is going in the direction you want it to be going in. So you have to cast your mind back to ‘the good old days’.” ## The Duty of the State Staying in the UK, our former Primer Minister Tony Blair warned that by the end of the decade the government might spend more on incapacity and disability benefits than our defence budget. However, this is already the case: working age health and disability spending is slightly higher than defence spending. Frances Ryan sums up the dilemma: > “That these choices are not easy betrays the truth few are willing to admit: protecting its people from poverty, prejudice and ill health is as much the duty of the state as keeping them safe from war.” And, speaking of those that are supported by the UK state, Tom Shakespeare points out that dependence can be a sign of high status: > “For example, if you describe a family who live in segregated accommodation, are looked after and have their meals cooked for them, go to special schools, do not look after their own money, have people to drive them around, and are likely to be stared at wherever they go, it might be imagined you were talking about a very dependent type of person. Yet you could be describing the British Royal Family.” Shakespeare's quote is from his book Help, published in 2000. Thanks to Malick Reinhard for pulling it out in his post asking if disability is a rich person's issue? ## “Label them an activist” I recently wrote about the Met Gala in the US and how Aariana Rose Philip, was the first wheelchair user to star on its red carpet. Rose Philip described to Vogue the spotlight disabled people are put in: > “I think that for a long time, it’s been easy to see a disabled person in the public eye and label them an activist because we have no other choice _but_ to speak up for ourselves in the spaces that we inhabit. Other people are not familiar with our bodies or how to accommodate us. We’re given the title of activist because we are challenging a social system. I think that people realise that there’s no choice but to do that if you have a disability in a major public space, because we have been so historically marginalised and pushed aside.” ## “Lived experience is intellectual property” Earlier in the year at the Zero Project in Vienna, one of the quotes going around the conference was from Sinéad Burke's keynote: > “Lived experience is intellectual property, and it is a set of skills. And that lived experience and intellectual property translates into a skill set not in spite of barriers, but because of them. And if we in this room are not creating the pathways for Disabled people to be leaders, systems will never change.” ## Badge never worked for me Meanwhile, still in the UK, Celestine Fraser (who also writes on the Debrief and is instrumental behind the scenes) did a great feature on the politics of sitting down. She wears the “Please offer me a seat” badge while on London transport, but: > ‘The badge has never worked for me in the way it promised: I’m not often _offered_ a seat. And yet I continue to wear it because it helps me in other ways. Once a seat _does_ become available, it emboldens me to make a beeline for it, to unashamedly claim it, to not spend my journey sweating that I’ll be forced to get up for every person older than me. It gives me what Ysé [one of the people interviewed in the article] describes as a “safety net.”’ ## Accessibility Hindering I'm grateful to accessibility consultant Christiane Link for coining a new phrase: > ‘The growing demand for accessibility services has attracted a category of suppliers that I’d describe as “accessibility hindering.” They know the vocabulary. They can spell WCAG [Web Content Accessibility Guidelines]. They will tell you they’re “inclusive” in the first thirty seconds of the call, but if you ask them about the social model, they go blank or tell you something about social care. > > They often can’t explain what it’s like to board a train in a wheelchair, how wheelchair boarding works at airports, or what happens when screen readers encounter poorly structured tables. Nor can they show how a good website functions or why requiring complaints for “reasonable adjustments” is unreasonable.’ Link's is another newsletter I regularly appreciate, about accessibility in transport. She recently wrote about the hidden labour when travelling and put in words something I feel too, after her recent stay at a Holiday Inn Express: > “That uniformity of hotel chains that some travellers find boring is genuinely useful when you’re disabled. Predictability is a form of accessibility. When you know what you’re getting, you conserve energy for the journey itself.” ## Phantom model of disability Going now to Latin America, Argentinian academic Gustavo Fulco told Yo También about how policy and legal frameworks just “stay as pretty words”, failing to change the lives of disabled people. Fulco calls this the _modelo fantasma_ , “phantom model” of disability: > ‘Unlike other, more obvious forms of discrimination, the “phantom model” operates subtly. It is present in policies that are not implemented, in spaces that are labeled inclusive but are not accessible, and in decisions that consider disability only symbolically.’ [Translation form Spanish] ## “We need to talk less” And, closing out in Mexico, where artist and activist Guz Guevara was given a medal of merit for defence of the rights of persons with disabilities, by the Congress of the City of Mexico. In his acceptance speech, he recognised the medal as warming to his soul and ego, but also saw it as a reminder to the Congress of the “historic debt” they owe disabled people for surviving through centuries in a “system that continues to reject our existence”: > “I am tired of living in a world that constantly tells you ‘no.’ We need to talk less, give fewer speeches, and take more action.” And, he closed, _Hasta que el anticapacitismo se haga costumbre, “_ onwards to anti-ableism becoming a habit”. Here's to that habit, Peter ## Outro **Further reading**. There is a back catalogue of Debrief newsletters online, as well as a library of disability news from 170+ countries. **Let your friends know**. Sharing the newsletter is how people find it! **For more from Kinanty,** see her website. **Connect**. Get in touch. You can find me on Linkedin and Bluesky. **Help us do more**. The Debrief is free thanks to reader support. ## Acknowledgements With thanks to all the brilliant writers who help us see the world afresh through their words. To Kinanty Andini for her creative illustration of Crip Time. And to the readers and organisations whose support makes the Debrief possible.

disabilitydebrief.org

Oh, it's happening to me

Ashton, by Kinanty Andini Dear Debriefers, In the past five years I've faced a lot of physical change (by which I mean decline and loss). I started using a wheelchair full-time and now need assistance breathing at night. These changes shut the door on much of the life I used to have before. That's getting older, right? Not according to Ashton Applewhite, a writer and activist challenging ageism. She recognises the impact of these losses but sees that we need to separate ideas of ability from our ideas of age. In this edition I'm happy to share a conversation with Ashton that brings together threads of discussions we've had over the past years. Her work changes the way I understand the connections between aging and disability and my own journey in a changing body and mind. We explore how ageism and ableism are intertwined, the internal biases we need to confront, and what both the disability movement and “ageland” can learn from each other. We talk through loss, failure, and how our different journeys through life can be a source of connection. I hope you'll get as much from this conversation as I did. **How did disability shape your day?** Enter our open call for writing with your journal entry. Five favourite entries will be published on the Debrief and paid £100 each. Deadline 20th July. ## About this edition **Disability Debrief is published through a** pay-what-you-can**model.** Thanks to Lauren for a new contribution. **Peter Torres Fremlin** is editor of Disability Debrief and is from the UK. **Kinanty Andini** is an illustrator and digital artist from Indonesia. Sign-up to see the world through a disability lens Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. Weekly in your inbox ## A dual stigma _Ashton and I spoke on Zoom, and then edited our conversation for clarity._ **Peter: What do ageism and ableism have in common?** Ashton: Most people's biggest apprehension about getting older, whether they are young or middle-aged or in fact old, is apprehension around how our minds and bodies might change. We might think of that as ageism, but it’s actually ableism: stigma and unfair treatment around physical and cognitive function. Our minds and bodies can function very differently, right from birth. Or we can have a chronic illness, or be in a car accident, and on and on. Of course aging _with_ a disability is very different from aging _into_ disability, in ways that are important to acknowledge. But when we ignore the ways ageism and ableism overlap, we miss the possibility for collective advocacy. **Peter: We know statistically that disability is more prevalent among older people. But people that identify in terms of disability are often younger, and older people might not use that word.** Ashton: It is a dual stigma. It's hard enough to get people to acknowledge that they’re older—not to mention old—even if they clearly have way more road behind them than ahead. One of the many things I wish people knew about aging is that the longer we live, the more different from one another we become. Some 80-year-olds run marathons. Some 80-year-olds can't walk around the block. The same is true, of course, of 40-year-olds and 20-year-olds. It’s never actually about age. A movement to end ageism is underway, but I think more people are aware of the disability justice movement. And I think that the age equity movement has so much to learn from how the disability justice movement has created this big tent of what disability can be. ## Claiming disability identity **Peter: It’s interesting to see tackling ageism as a tool to help us navigate difference**. **That helps us see why it would be useful for us in the disability tent.** Ashton: I'm super reluctant to make any generalization on the basis of age because age says so much less about us than we think it does.**** But when we are born does help shape our worldviews. Older people with disabilities tend to see themselves as who they are “despite” being blind or “despite” using a cane. The predominant narrative for most of their lives was about “overcoming“ disability and rejecting that aspect of their identity, or if claimed, claiming it reluctantly. Thanks to disability activists, I think that narrative has changed. Disability is part of what defines us, not something to be hidden or ashamed of. I would love more older people to learn that fabulous lesson because there's such power in it. ## Addressing our internalised bias **Peter:** **Looking at these disability lessons can help navigate life's changes. From “ageland,” as you call it, or your anti-ageism perspective, what are some things that you'd like the disability movement to consider?** Ashton: I think that it would be super useful for people in both movements to address their own internalized bias. People in the disability justice movement have come further in confronting their own internalized ableism than most older people. For the vast majority of older people, “aging well” still means struggling to look and move like younger versions of themselves. That mindset is both ageist and ableist. People in the disability movement, on the other hand, are maybe less likely to have thought about ageism as a social justice issue. I would love more younger people, and also younger people with disabilities to look at their own attitudes towards age and aging. Most bias is unconscious. I know that younger people who use wheelchairs or canes might hear “You're too young for that.” Ironically this makes it harder for older people too, because they don’t want to “look old” either—let alone disabled. But imagine if we could break away from those ways of thinking? To say, “What do you mean by that,” instead of, “F*** you, I'm not old.” To not let these ideas diminish our sense of wellbeing or our sense of ourselves in the world as powerful, sexy people. If we were to think of aging and encountering impairment as a road we’re all traveling, and learn from to the way others adapt to (or fail to), and find shared power and beauty in it, think of how much better off we'd be. ## A shared source of pain, difficulty, and power **Peter:** **When I speak with older people whose bodies are changing, I feel how tackling some of that ableism – being more positive about assistive technology, being more creative about finding new ways to do things – might be useful. But often it's hard to communicate that, or relate to my experience.** Ashton: Why is it hard to communicate? **Peter: I get the sense that people see me in a different category. They see, "Oh, Peter is doing X, Y, and Z, but that doesn't apply to my challenges." And I recognise that if you’re at a different phase of the body-mind-change journey, you might not have that capacity or energy to deal with changes, which then makes adaptation harder.** Ashton: I love that phrase, “a different phase of the body-mind journey”, because it is about every human in the universe. That’s what I'm always looking for: ways to see this as a shared issue, a shared source of pain and difficulty, a shared source of power and commonality. Where can we learn from and draw strength from each other? **Peter: Society does so much to differentiate us based on body, mind, age. But you're saying, “Look, this is actually something we have in common.”** Ashton: Absolutely! Adapting to these changes is necessary and powerful, once we shift out of shame and denial. People think aging is sad because they equate it with loss. But we are aging from the minute we're born. It’s not something sad that old people do. There's all kinds of growth and power and liberation in aging past youth. To live is to age, and to age is to live. ## Oh, it’s happening to me too… **Peter: This discussion makes me think of my own change processes. One challenge is that one really does assume these problems will happen to _other_ people. When I was in my 20s and walking about I saw older wheelchair users and part of me didn’t think that was going to happen to me. I couldn’t imagine it.** Ashton: I didn't realize this till I heard what just came out of your mouth: the same is true of getting older. When you’re a kid, you cannot imagine preferring sitting down and talking to playing games and making noise. … Like most people when it comes to aging, I thought, gee, I was magically going to get a pass.**** But then I looked in the mirror and realized, "Oh shit, it's happening to me too." I think that's human. We age slowly, and in a world that teaches us to dread aging past youth. If you had told me 20 years ago I'd be interested in aging, I would've said, “Why do I want to think about something sad and depressing?” And it's anything but. It's how we move through life, and it touches on every aspect of being human. ## Loss and narrowing horizons **Peter: Aging with a physical disability has put me in a situation that, approaching 40, my body is in a very different place from where it was when I was 20, whereas most of my peer group, there's a smaller difference. “Aging” doesn’t feel neutral to me, it feels like a way to describe the physical loss and narrowing horizons.** Ashton: You haven’t aged faster, but your physical capacity has changed in ways that theirs has not. And it makes you feel older. The task is to separate the idea of ability and the idea of age, and to understand how they differ and overlap. **Peter: Part of it was my state of mind as well. The feeling of loss for the way I used to be able to travel independently, for example.** Ashton: That's real. And you’re human. I just wrote a post about learning to use a cane. Even after all the work I've done it still took me several weeks to walk out the door holding it because of my internalized ableism. I thought of those awful road signs that show ancient people hunched over a cane, and was still thinking, “I'm different from them.” ## If you’re thinking of using a mobility aid… **Peter: There’s a thought “I'm not going to do this because other people will look at me differently,” but I think it comes from our own fear. I really felt that when I shifted from a mobility scooter to a motorized wheelchair.** Ashton: Have you noticed a difference? **Peter: I know the difference between those two devices. Most other people, they don’t. They're not calculating my mobility trajectory based on that.** Ashton: Yeah. When they see the cane, people ask, “What happened?” which is a completely reasonable response. I say, “nothing,” which I hope gives them ground for thought. I did not have a precipitating event other than a hard-to-arrive-at change in attitude. I can easily walk without it, but my balance has deteriorated, I’ve fallen quite a few times, and I want to prevent future falls. Recently I learned a phrase via Blossom – the Debrief agony Aunt: “If you’re thinking of using a mobility aid, that’s the sign that you need one!” I had to come to terms with the fact that that meant me. ## “Bluntly put, to age is to fail.” **Peter: How does shame play into this?** Ashton: We live in a world that celebrates youth and speed, and where their loss is perceived as a personal failing. “If we ate enough kale, did enough sit-ups, had a better skincare regime, we could stop the clock.” Bluntly put, to age is to fail. When we cannot maintain this standard, even though it’s impossible, it can feel shameful. I'm curious about how that resonates from your side of the non-existent fence. **Peter: In the disability space, we're so busy resisting negative external views of our situations that it's hard to engage with our own negative feelings about them.** Ashton: Dylan Thomas has a famous line: “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” There are times to rage! But it's not a great long-term mindset, because the light is inevitably going to die out. If we are stuck in rage, if we feel our bodies are betraying us simply because they are changing, it’s harder to adapt. And adaptation is key to aging well. A thought on the negative thoughts. A lot of people, as they inch past midlife, realize, “You know what? There's lots of things about growing older that I really like.” And the pendulum can swing to this hyper-positive position: “It's all going to be great if I eat well, stay active, etc.” And maybe it will? But so much luck is involved. The only thing we can actually control about how we age is our attitudes. **Peter: That reminds me of the incredible strength in** Alice Wong’s work**. She could name that: disgust with her body changing, and how that made it important to claim joy, desire, sexiness…** Ashton: Yes! Joy, desire, pleasure are almost completely missing from the age discourse. ## Life in the back mirror… **Peter: Another difficult thing I find about my current situation is that it’s hard to believe in the future when I have a daily fear about further loss, and how that might limit my life. There's a feeling of life in the back mirror…** Ashton: People who encounter age-related impairments could learn so much from what you are going through. When you’re older, it's very easy to assume processes like these are a function of chronological age. In fact they’re related to moving through life in a human body. At any age or stage, each person’s experience is unique, and each of us brings different strengths and vulnerabilities to the challenges at hand. **Peter: What are the things in my experience that would be relevant?** Ashton: Time thresholds. Loss. Rearview mirror. The necessity of mourning the loss and appreciating everything that remains. How disabled people hack the world. The experience, the perspective, the self-knowledge that aging confers, is also conferred in variable ways through adapting to disability. Young people have created joyous, ingenious, creative communities, many of whose members celebrate _inter_ -dependence and identify proudly as disabled. Think what we olders could learn from them about asking for help, adapting to impairment, and age pride! Think what they could learn from us. Let’s get interdependent! ## Changing the way we feel and behave **Peter. I think one thing worth reiterating from our conversation, is that, look, ageism and ableism are within us. They're not bad things only done by the enemy.** Ashton: Of course external forces make aging and having a disability harder than they ought to be: capitalism, and patriarchy, and misogyny, and racism, and all the rest. They're all out there. But all change begins within us: by examining our own attitudes towards moving through life in beautiful, imperfect bodies. By confronting shame and denying it a further foothold. When we change our attitude, we change the way we feel and behave. And when we take that awareness and energy out into the world, we change it. **Peter: Adaptation is a fundamental lesson of disability. And individually there’s a lot of adaptation, but part of the view we take of disability is that society needs to adapt.** Ashton: Yes, there is the necessary and somewhat radical idea that it is the environment that disables us. If we say adaptation is key, are we in fact undercutting that and shifting the burden from society to the individual? ## Universal human experiences **Peter: I think the reason your work resonates is because you're looking at these internal questions. But if there’s someone who's in a difficult situation and facing social and environmental barriers, dealing with grief or dealing with real loss, it’s very hard to say to them “Feel better.”** Ashton: Yeah. Or “try harder”. How can you say, “Joining this community will be great for you,” when the fact that you’re joining that community that is one of the things that you are demoralized and upset about? And you're entitled to your feelings. The paradox here is that joining a community is a source of strength and learning from each other. So much of what you’ve said about your experience resonated. It echoed with conversations that I've had with people of all ages. And I think there's such power in that. Aging and disability have unique intersectional and advocacy potential because they are tents that contain us all. Everyone is aging, and everyone lucky enough to live long will experience some loss of capacity. Because these are universal human experiences, there is enormous potential for collective liberation. ## Outro **For more from Ashton:** see her website, her manifesto against ageism (or TedTalk on ending ageism). Ashton is co-founder of Old School Hub and she is about to launch her own newsletter on Substack, Things I Used to Say. **More on the Debrief** See further interviews on the Debrief. For more on ageism and ableism see the role that ableism played in the 2024 US presidential election: No way to run a country. And I've shared changes in my own bodymind journey in Breathing In and my long break-up with walking. **For more from Kinanty,** see her website. **Connect**. Get in touch. You can find me on Linkedin and Bluesky. **Let your friends know**. Sharing the newsletter is how people find it! **Help us do more**. The Debrief is free thanks to reader support. ## Acknowledgements Thanks to Ashton for such a generous interview and our conversations through the years. Thanks to Kinanty Andini for a beautiful portrait of Ashtons through the years. To Celestine Fraser for support editing the interview. And to all the readers and organisations who support our work.

disabilitydebrief.org

Disability Debrief at 200

A portrait of Disability Debrief, by Sonaksha Dear Debriefers, Somehow, this is the 200th edition of Disability Debrief. I sent out the first newsletter just to myself, and then shared the link with colleagues. Some of you have been here since then, others are getting your first Debrief today. It never crossed my mind that what I meant to be a side-project of sharing news might turn into an online magazine which has now published work from 28 writers and seven illustrators, between us coming from 20 countries. To commemorate today we'll revisit the five editions most popular with readers. Whether this is your first or 199th Debrief, welcome and thank you for joining me on this adventure of exploring the world with a disability lens. **Help us make 200 more:** the main challenges of an independent media project are visibility and funding. You can help by sharing this page or supporting financially. **What's in your disability diary?** Enter our open call for writing with your journal entry. Deadline 20th July. ## About this edition **Original writing like this is made possible by** support from readers**.** Thanks to Daniel for a new contribution. **Peter Torres Fremlin** is editor of Disability Debrief and is from the UK. **Sonaksha** is an illustrator and designer from India. Sign-up for a disability lens on world news Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. Weekly in your inbox ## Crisis in the international disability movement A vehicle for change, by Sonaksha We need to talk**, February 2024,** and**** What went wrong?**, September 2024.** Two of the most popular (or, at least, most-viewed) Debrief editions are from the series of investigative reporting on a corruption scandal at the International Disability Alliance (IDA). The financial mismanagement there came to light when one of IDA's funders commissioned an audit, which had damning findings. However, the disability establishment was staying silent on what had happened. And to this day the Debrief pieces are the only venue where the audit's findings were fully revealed, and those involved gave public comment responding to it. It was scary to do this reporting: others weren't speaking out; the audit itself described how those who did say something were met with bullying and harassment; and some of the organisations funding the Debrief had close relationships with IDA. But doing something scary is liberating. Through doing the reporting I learned the skills of interviewing and sourcing that pieces like this involve. I'm proud that readers learned not just what went wrong in this case, but also lessons for running other organisations. And publishing the truth in this case puts the Debrief in the position it can speak truth to power in the future. ## An invitation to disability and climate change “I need to breathe”: self-portrait by Tan Kuan Aw Where disability and climate meet**, by Áine Kelly-Costello. April 2023.** A few years ago the connections between disability and the climate crisis were less covered than they are today. Áine Kelly-Costello started exploring the connections on the Debrief, and CBM Global gave us support for a series to go deeper. I'd come from a consultancy background and proposed to Áine a schematic approach: here are four overall categories, and we can write to fill them out. Áine pushed back and proposed a more nuanced view on the way the subjects are intertwined from their very causes. We soon found that going deeper into a subject also took more time, especially when factors relating to our own disabilities came into play. Writing creatively needs its own space, and working through a crip time approach needs to have a very different structure of deadlines (and, indeed, funding arrangements). This gave Áine's piece space to grow into something expansive and welcoming, an invitation into the challenges of these intersections. And that in turn set the structure for my other collaborations with writers, where I try to avoid deadlines as far as possible (until the week before publication). Áine went on to create a hub of resources on climate and disability, recently featured by the European Disability Forum as a best-practice in disability-inclusive climate action. And Áine's Debrief work was a stepping-stone to them exploring the subject through a podcast and then subsequent academic research. ## Professionalism vs activism Taken off track, by Kinanty Andini We wanted to change the world**, by Alberto Vásquez Encalada. June 2025.** I first met Alberto in Geneva where we were both working on disability rights internationally. His writing on the Debrief looks directly at the foundational challenges of that sector and also the disability movement more widely. This piece resonated widely with people working in grassroots organisation as well as those deep in the bureaucracies that have been set up to work towards disability rights. Readers found it cathartic to see a description that match how they have felt pressured, or taken off track, by the professionalisation of work for social change. Working with Alberto is always a pleasure. We are both – how to say? – strongly opinionated. Alberto comes with an argument he wants to make in a piece, which we then tussle with to bring out its logical thread. I then push Alberto to illustrate his points with concrete examples. (I tried, unsuccessfully, to make this piece about a visit he'd done to North Korea to look at disability rights there.) And our next question is how to share critical observations and questions in a constructive way. Alberto's pieces reveal and question assumptions that come out of our own careers, as well as those of many colleagues and friends. And I believe they make a contribution to the disability movement's ability to reflect and grow. ## 16% of the world's population? Where to draw the line? By Tan Kuan Aw How many disabled people are there?**July 2023.** We are fond of repeating that disabled people make up 15% of the world's population. This piece, a conversation with statistician Jennifer Madans, came about after the World Health Organisation updated the percentage to 16%. Jennifer broke down where the number comes from, how we gather disability data, and what we use it for. Along the way we see some of the different meanings of disability and why it isn't as simple as a “yes” or “no” question. As well as getting to understand where the numbers come from – and what they do, and don't mean – I think this piece reveals a key challenge of disability advocacy. We claim to speak on behalf of 15%, but the majority of those do not themselves identify as disabled people. And Jennifer gives us good reasons to question how much we should use that number in the first place. ## Telling new stories I'm proud of how the most-viewed editions of the Debrief showcase what this project can do: explore, with different writers and illustrators, the complexities of disability and the disability movement. Thanks to readers for seeking out this challenging work, and engaging with its “bite the hand that reads you” energy. I also love that two of these pieces were illustrated by Tan Kuan Aw, who passed away last year. They are among my favourite drawings of his, the climate apocalypse self-portrait and the clever way he made the statistical issue visual. I am grateful the Debrief gave me this chance to collaborate so closely with him, and I miss him and his art. And it's also striking to go back to Áine's writing on climate, as the UK and Europe come out of record-breaking heatwaves. Indeed, the heat slowed me down last week and, through that, changed the way I wrote this piece. The climate change, and other transformations the world is going through continue to shape how we tell disability stories and what stories we try to tell. I look forward to working with writers and illustrators around the world to bring them to you. Here's to 200 more. And do let me know your favourites among the Debriefs so far, Peter ## Outro **Further reading**. There is a back catalogue of Debrief newsletters online, as well as a library of disability news from 170+ countries. **Let your friends know**. Sharing the newsletter is how people find it! **For more from Sonaksha,** see their website. **Connect**. Get in touch. You can find me on Linkedin and Bluesky. **Help us do more**. The Debrief is free thanks to reader support. ## Acknowledgements With special thanks to Sonaksha for their illustration, a magical portrait of the Debrief project. And thanks to Celestine Fraser for prompts for this piece. Thanks also to Áine Kelly-Costello, Alberto Vásquez Encalada, Jennifer Madans, Kinanty Andini and Tan Kuan Aw for their work featured this article. Thank you to the readers and organisations who have contributed financially over the past years, and whose support allowed this project to take-off and keeps it flying. And thank you to the audience that showed me this could be far bigger than I first imagined.

disabilitydebrief.org

Difference is the starting point

****Learning, hands-on:**** A student reads a braille Quran at an Islamic boarding school, in Banten, Indonesia. February 2026. Photo by Agoes Rudianto/NurPhoto via Getty Images Dear Debriefers, Well it's definitely hot here in the south of England! I hope you're all well and staying cool. This edition takes us back to school with discussions of inclusive education (and the reasons it might not work). From there we see workplace barriers, reforming police forces, and much more in another global tour. **An open call for writing:** thanks to those already making submissions to Dear Disability Diary. Deadline is 20th July! **Explore the full guide of 91 hand-picked links:** curated across 34 countries or 34 subjects. This edition continues from the update in May. ## About this edition **The Debrief is published through a** pay-what-you-can**model**.**** Thanks to Katherine, Stefan, Vita and Light for the World for renewed contributions. **Peter Torres Fremlin** is editor of Disability Debrief and is from the UK. Sign-up for a disability lens on world news Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. Weekly in your inbox ## Disability in the heat **Speaking of the heat,** it made me remember Áine Kelly-Costello's reporting a few years ago on the wide-ranging impacts of extreme heat on disabled people. And Áine's work to create the Debrief climate hub has just been recognised by the European Disability Forum as a best practice in disability-inclusive climate action: > “A wonderful example of a multimedia educational resource designed for persons with disabilities and their allies to use when planning their own inclusive climate action projects.” ## Difference is the starting point **If education is in crisis, how can it be made inclusive?** Earlier in the year academics and practitioners met at Wilton Park in the UK to discuss disability-inclusive education in a global context. A report on their discussions shares how they would frame the broader principles: > “Most Inclusive Education frameworks start with the preservation of the norm, the mainstream classroom, the standard curriculum, and the typical developmental pathway for example, and then consider how children who deviate from the norm can be brought into it. A pluralist approach inverts this logic. Rather than asking how children with disabilities can access a pre-existing system, it challenges whether the system itself can be designed to reflect the diversity of the way children learn and interact. Difference is not a problem to be accommodated; it is the starting point from which education should be designed. This shifts the ideological framing from charity to justice, and from integration to transformation.” **However from the starting point of teachers in a classroom, these ideas can appear unrealistic**. In the **Netherlands** , a survey of teachers and educators found widespread scepticism about government plans for special schools to be merged with mainstream education by 2035. Over half the teachers surveyed had a negative attitude towards inclusive education and nearly 70% believed more students should be able to attend special education. Teachers pointed to existing shortages and challenges that make it hard to imagine giving more intense support. One primary school teacher told NRC that: > “The further removed from the workplace, the more idealistic the view of inclusive education seems. It is an ideal vision conceived in an ivory tower.” (Translation from Dutch.) However, even one of the teachers who expressed the idea that it wouldn't be realistic for “all children to go to the same school” came around to the same reframing as the theoreticians did in Wilton Park. Ninon Kreutzer told NRC: > “You shouldn’t think: we’ll send all children with all their support needs to a regular school and then see how it goes. You have to turn it around. The focus should be on: how do I design a school so that as many children as possible can develop there as well as possible?” (Translation from Dutch) ## “Like a sickness instead of a right” **Taking a moment to visit the US news from an education view...** The government offices that guarantee public education for disabled children are being moved out of the Department for Education, to the health and justice departments. In the summary of advocacy organisation DREDF, the move “treats disability like a sickness instead of a right”. And recent news from the US also gives evidence to **one of the most powerful arguments for inclusive mainstream provision: the abuse that takes place in segregated settings**. Children with disabilities in New York were confined in wooden boxes by staff in the winter of 2025. And the founder of a private school in Arkansas was sent to jail for leading a “makeshift fight club”. **Happier news comes from international efforts on inclusive education in low- and middle-income countries.** See this write-up by Chris Elliott of the Inclusive Futures programme for a view on the dimensions of work needed, from families to schools systems as a whole. Or see a video profile of Sightsavers' work in Uganda. ## The main workplace barriers **Meanwhile a surprisingly sensible set of opinions on employment came out of the United Kingdom Parliament**. Not sensible policy, of course, (that's not their style) but in a report on employment support for disabled people: > “We conclude that for too many disabled people the workplace is a hostile environment. If the government is serious about reducing disability-related economic inactivity, it must urgently address two of the main workplace barriers: the reluctance of employers to make reasonable adjustments, and the inaccessibility of workplaces, which leaves disabled people unnecessarily reliant on reasonable adjustments in the first place. > > “We recommend that the government require employers to (a) respond to requests for reasonable adjustments within two weeks and, if a request is refused, to explain in writing the grounds for refusal, and (b) provide all new employees, whether they know them to be disabled or not, with information about the rights of disabled people at work, and of sources of support and advocacy.” As a comparison, in **Canada** workplace accessibility is increasing for government employees with disabilities, but there the time needed to respond to workplace adjustments ranged, according to the government department, “from an average of 24 to 310 days.” ## Making justice more accessible **In China** , there are efforts to make judicial services more accessible, in partnership with disability organisations. One example of the supports given were for a deaf deliveryman surnamed Li who claimed compensation after a collision: > “Recognizing Li's lack of hearing, the court quickly activated its fast-track service for disabled individuals. Using writing tablets and voice-to-text software, the court assisted Li in preparing his case, in which he sought 2,900 yuan ($426) in compensation for medical costs, bike repairs and lost wages, and prioritized the filing process. The court also arranged for a professional sign language interpreter through the China Disabled Persons' Federation and invited federation staff to assist with mediation.” **In India,** Vikas Gupta highlights the “structural inaccessibility” of the criminal justice system. And in **New Zealand** , the police recognise that disabled people are “on average 10% more likely to be a victim of a crime” and so have set up a roadmap for police action. ## Migration policy and advocacy **Bucking a European anti-migration trend, there's positive news from Spain.** As parts of government efforts to regularise migration, a provision is included to allow both minors and dependent adults with disabilities to obtain residency alongside their parents or legal guardians. This is a welcome contrast to many countries who have provisions blocking immigration of disabled people. **And from Ethiopia** , see this profile on advocacy efforts for refugees with disabilities. ## A solution for everything **Neurodivergent standards for buildings:** Orla Huq shares standards and design recommendations on neurodiversity-inclusive accessibility. **A good solution for employment and independent living (and much more?)** is suggested in the United States by the satire site Squeaky Wheel, who unveil the New RICH PARENTS™ Program. ## Leaving the octopus... In terms of how we're dealing with the heat here in the UK, I learned a new word today from Mummy Fremlin: to “aestivate” means to “pass the summer in a state of torpor or dormancy”. It's a tactic some animals use to deal with heat, like hibernation but for the summer. And in case you missed recent Debriefs, do catch up on the last month, which include two editions beautifully illustrated by the authors themselves: * How did disability shape your day? Discussion from the Debrief mailbag. * What being institutionalised taught me about resistance. Rachel Litchman on the lessons she learned and why they're more relevant under Trump. * My Octopus takes me to the Neem Tree, a magical illustrated essay of sleepless childhood nights, by Fulltime Hedgehog All best wishes and let me know what you find in your aestivation or adventures in disability news, Peter ## Recent News This update has 91 curated links from 34 countries and regions, organized across 34 subjects. You can explore it organized by subject or by country. ### Subjects * Accessibility and Design * COVID-19 * Civil Society and Community * Climate Crisis and Environment * Communication and Language * Conflict and Peace * Culture, Entertainment and Media * Data and Research * Digital Accessibility and Technology * Disaster Risk Reduction and Crisis Response * Economics and Social Protection * Education and Childhood * Employment, Business and Work * Gender Equality and Women with Disabilities * Health * History and Memorial * Humanitarian, Migrants and Refugees * Independent Living and Deinstitutionalization * International Cooperation * Justice Systems and Legal Capacity * Lived Experience and Opinion * Mobility, Travel, Transport and Tourism * Policy and Rights * Politics and Elections * Relationships, Sex and Reproductive Rights * Sport and Paralympics ### Countries * Global * International News * Africa * Ethiopia * Nigeria * Rwanda * Uganda * Zambia * Asia * Bangladesh * China * India * Iran * Iraq * Laos * Lebanon * Nepal * Singapore * Türkiye * Vietnam * Europe * Europe * Denmark * Germany * Iceland * Malta * Netherlands * Spain * Switzerland * United Kingdom * North America * Bahamas * Canada * Saint Kitts and Nevis * Saint Lucia * United States * Oceania * Australia * New Zealand * South America * Argentina ## Outro **Further reading**. All the links from these curated editions go into the Debrief library, which now has over 7,500 links from over 170 countries. **Let your friends know**. Sharing the newsletter is how people find it! **Connect**. Get in touch. You can find me on Linkedin and Bluesky. **Help us do more**. The Debrief is free thanks to reader support. ## Acknowledgements Photo by Agoes Rudianto/NurPhoto via Getty Images. Thanks to Celestine Fraser for help with its selection,. And many thanks to everyone who shares links, news and reports, and the readers and organisations whose support makes this work possible.

disabilitydebrief.org

Disability in Saint Kitts and Nevis

**Library > Countries > North America > Saint Kitts and Nevis** _This page has curated news from Saint Kitts and Nevis. There are a total of 1 links._ ## Contents * Policy and Rights ### Policy and Rights St. Kitts and Nevis Launches First Disability Policy 2026-20. (May, Nevis News)

disabilitydebrief.org

Disability in the Bahamas

**Library > Countries > North America > Bahamas** _This page has curated news from the Bahamas. There are a total of 1 links._ ## Contents * Policy and Rights ### Policy and Rights IACHR raises concerns on immigration and poor implementation of disability law. (Apr, The Nassau Guardian)

disabilitydebrief.org

Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

**Library > Subjects > Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities > Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities** _This page has curated news on Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities._ ## Resources by country: * **Global** * International News ### Global #### International News Reflections on the CRPD at 20: Laws Matter — But People Make Change. Achievements to celebrate of the CRPD: > “Governments, who have championed legal and policy reforms aligned with the CRPD. Public officials and institutions who have developed implementation plans and allocated budgets to support them. UN agencies and multilateral development banks who have adopted strategies and accountability frameworks. Development and humanitarian actors who have increasingly centred and invested in disability equity within their portfolios.” (May, CBM Global)

disabilitydebrief.org

Disability news, June 2026, by country

**Library > June 2026** _This page is organized by country, you can also see links organized by subject._ This update has 91 curated links from 34 countries and regions, organized across 34 subjects. ## Contents * Global * International News * Africa * Ethiopia * Nigeria * Rwanda * Uganda * Zambia * Asia * Bangladesh * China * India * Iran * Iraq * Laos * Lebanon * Nepal * Singapore * Türkiye * Vietnam * Europe * Europe * Denmark * Germany * Iceland * Malta * Netherlands * Spain * Switzerland * United Kingdom * North America * Bahamas * Canada * Saint Kitts and Nevis * Saint Lucia * United States * Oceania * Australia * New Zealand * South America * Argentina ## Resources ### Global #### International News **In Accessibility and Design** : Neurodivergent (or neurodiversity-inclusive) standards for buildings. (May, OSA) **In Climate Crisis and Environment** : Inclusive education: the missing piece of the climate resilience. (Apr, Sightsavers) **In Communication and Language** : Inclusive and accessible communication resource hub. (Fighting Talk) Disney’s Songs In Sign Language Makes One Major Mistake: > “The biggest problem with Songs in Sign Language is how it takes a visual language like ASL and actually obstructs important lyrics. This can make it difficult for ASL users to truly comprehend what the lyrics are because the video doesn't properly translate them.” (May, Screen Rant) **In Culture, Entertainment and Media** : Disney’s Songs In Sign Language Makes One Major Mistake: > “The biggest problem with Songs in Sign Language is how it takes a visual language like ASL and actually obstructs important lyrics. This can make it difficult for ASL users to truly comprehend what the lyrics are because the video doesn't properly translate them.” (May, Screen Rant) **In Digital Accessibility and Technology** : Apple unveils new accessibility features: “With Apple Intelligence, detailed descriptions and natural language navigation are coming to features such as VoiceOver, Magnifier, Voice Control, and Accessibility Reader”. (May, Apple) Building a general-purpose accessibility agent —and what we learned in the process. (May, The GitHub Blog) The Web Is Being Made Accessible for AI, Not People: > “What these developers are offering their AI visitors is essentially an accessibility accommodation. Yet, the framing on Svelte’s site sends an unfortunate message. When the audience is AI, accommodation is offered with a wink. Beep boop! But when the audience is a disabled person, it has historically been treated as an afterthought. Structured, concise text-based representations of complex content are almost exactly the kind of accommodation that blind and low-vision screen reader users have spent decades requesting from web developers, largely in vain.” (May, TechPolicy.Press) Staying Relevant as Disability Inclusion Advisors in the Age of AI: > “But AI cannot walk into a room and read the silence. It cannot notice when a program manager is uncomfortable discussing disability. It cannot sense when a partner is using polite language to hide institutional resistance. It cannot observe that a young person with a disability in the room is present but not participating because the facilitation method is not accessible. It cannot feel the difference between a partner who is genuinely committed and one who is only complying because a funder has asked for disability inclusion.” (May, Ambrose Murangira) **In Education and Childhood** : Disability Inclusive Education a dialogue: > “Most Inclusive Education frameworks start with the preservation of the norm, the mainstream classroom, the standard curriculum, and the typical developmental pathway for example, and then consider how children who deviate from the norm can be brought into it. A pluralist approach inverts this logic. Rather than asking how children with disabilities can access a pre-existing system, it challenges whether the system itself can be designed to reflect the diversity of the way children learn and interact. Difference is not a problem to be accommodated; it is the starting point from which education should be designed. This shifts the ideological framing from charity to justice, and from integration to transformation.” (May, Wilton Park) Disability inclusive education is a right, not a funding choice. (Mar, The Education and Development Forum (UKFIET)) **In Health** : Associations between disability and tobacco use in 31 low-income and middle-income countries: a secondary analysis of cross-sectional data. The findings “indicated a higher likelihood of tobacco use among individuals with disabilities compared to those without disabilities.” (Apr, eClinicalMedicine) **In International Cooperation** : Staying Relevant as Disability Inclusion Advisors in the Age of AI: > “But AI cannot walk into a room and read the silence. It cannot notice when a program manager is uncomfortable discussing disability. It cannot sense when a partner is using polite language to hide institutional resistance. It cannot observe that a young person with a disability in the room is present but not participating because the facilitation method is not accessible. It cannot feel the difference between a partner who is genuinely committed and one who is only complying because a funder has asked for disability inclusion.” (May, Ambrose Murangira) **In Sport and Paralympics** : Fifa criticized for ‘deeply concerning’ approach to ticketing for fans with disabilities. (Apr, the Guardian) FIFA World Cup 2026™ to feature sign language interpretation for all matches, additional accessible experiences to help all fans enjoy the global showcase. (FIFA) _Back tocontents._ ### Africa #### Ethiopia **In Humanitarian, Migrants and Refugees** : Living the ‘Double Challenge’ of Displacement and Disability. A profile of advocacy for refugees living with disabilities. (May, The Reporter) _Back tocontents._ #### Nigeria **In Mobility, Travel, Transport and Tourism** : Polio Survivor Alleges Discrimination At Lagos Airport after being denied boarding after airline officials informed him that the Ambi-Lift was not functional. (May, Qualitative) _Back tocontents._ #### Rwanda **In Education and Childhood** : Designing for Disability Inclusion. Insights from the ECCE Outcomes Fund in Rwanda. (2025, EOF) _Back tocontents._ #### Uganda **In Education and Childhood** : "Every child has the potential": how inclusive education is changing children’s futures in Uganda. (Video profile, Jan, Sightsavers) _Back tocontents._ #### Zambia **In History and Memorial** : In memory of Sylvester Katontoka the founder of Mental Health Users Network of Zambia (MHUNZA). (Validity) **In Policy and Rights** : The Limits of the Reasonable Accommodation Duty under Zambian Law: A Comparative Legal Perspective (Apr, International Journal of Disability and Social Justice) Human Rights situation of Persons with Albinism in Zambia. (Jan, Africa Albinism Network) _Back tocontents._ ### Asia #### Bangladesh **In Accessibility and Design** : Licences of restaurants, hotels will be cancelled if they don't have ramps and toilets for people with disabilities. (May, Prothom Alo) _Back tocontents._ #### China **In Justice Systems and Legal Capacity** : Judicial services made more accessible to nation's persons with disabilities: > “Recognizing Li's lack of hearing, the court quickly activated its fast-track service for disabled individuals. Using writing tablets and voice-to-text software, the court assisted Li in preparing his case, in which he sought 2,900 yuan ($426) in compensation for medical costs, bike repairs and lost wages, and prioritized the filing process. The court also arranged for a professional sign language interpreter through the China Disabled Persons' Federation and invited federation staff to assist with mediation.” (May, Chinadaily.com.cn) _Back tocontents._ #### India **In Justice Systems and Legal Capacity** : When Detention Becomes Punishment Before a Verdict. “Structural inaccessibility in India’s criminal justice system violates the rights of persons with disabilities.” (May, OpenGlobalRights) **In Lived Experience and Opinion** : My Octopus takes me to the Neem Tree. Sleepless childhood nights and the beings that inhabited them: an illustrated essay. (Jun, Disability Debrief) **In Policy and Rights** : Benchmarking disability inclusion: 10 years of SDG implementation in India. (Mar, Rising Flame) _Back tocontents._ #### Iran **In Civil Society and Community** : Disabled teacher Amir Rahimi sentenced to four years in prison in Azna, for participation in January protests. (May, Hengaw) _Back tocontents._ #### Iraq **In Education and Childhood** : Measures to support people with disabilities in completing postgraduate studies. (May, Iraqi News Agency) _Back tocontents._ #### Laos **In Education and Childhood** : Unmet Need for Disability-Related Services Among Children with Disabilities in Xiengkhouang Province, Lao PDR: A Cross-Sectional Study. (May, Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research) _Back tocontents._ #### Lebanon **In Conflict and Peace** : For Lebanon’s Disabled Community, War Has Deepened a Long Crisis. (May, DAWN) _Back tocontents._ #### Nepal **In Communication and Language** : Nepal’s parliament is now accessible in sign language: > “The biggest challenge during live broadcasts is the absence of signs for many technical and political words. Discussions are underway on how to make such terms easier to explain.” (May, The Kathmandu Post) _Back tocontents._ #### Singapore **In Employment, Business and Work** : The hawker centre training programme empowering Singaporeans with disabilities. (Short video profile, Apr, SCMP) _Back tocontents._ #### Türkiye **In Civil Society and Community** : Those who are everywhere and nowhere: Toward an anti-capitalist disability movement: “Speed belongs to capitalism, life belongs to us.” (May, Bianet) _Back tocontents._ #### Vietnam **In COVID-19** : Access to and self-reported health impacts of COVID-19 prevention measures on people with disabilities in Vietnam: > “People with disabilities reported significantly worse well-being and healthcare access and faced greater barriers in accessing vaccination information and services despite similar vaccination coverage. These findings indicate that while high vaccination coverage is achievable, disproportionate structural barriers faced by people with disabilities call for inclusive, targeted strategies in future public health emergencies.” (Apr, BMC Public Health) _Back tocontents._ ### Europe #### Europe **In Data and Research** : Discrimination in everyday life for people with disabilities: > “In 2024, 9.4% of people with disabilities (activity limitation) aged 16 or over, in the EU, felt discriminated against when in contact with administrative offices or public services, more than double the share registered among people without disabilities (4.0%).” (May, Eurostat) **In Digital Accessibility and Technology** : Women with Disabilities in Digital and Tech. A report on experiences, analysis of barriers and policies that could address them. (2025, EPR) **In Gender Equality and Women with Disabilities** : Active Inclusion & Equal Opportunities for Women & Girls with Disabilities. (2025, EPR) Women with Disabilities in Digital and Tech. A report on experiences, analysis of barriers and policies that could address them. (2025, EPR) **In Policy and Rights** : Enhancing the strategy for the rights of persons with disabilities up to 2030. (May, European Commission) _Back tocontents._ #### Denmark **In Culture, Entertainment and Media** : Human on Air: profile of TV Glad. (In German, 2025, Journalist.de) _Back tocontents._ #### Germany **In Education and Childhood** : Alliance for a fairer school system is founded in Berlin: > “Berlin prides itself on being a cosmopolitan city, inclusion is touted in connection with the Olympics – but in education, the current Senate is further expanding segregation”. (In German, May, Taz) **In Policy and Rights** : A law that protects barriers. “The proposed reform of the Disability Equality Act is insufficient for those affected.” (In German, May, Taz) _Back tocontents._ #### Iceland **In History and Memorial** : Soaking with Your Subjects: Disability Microhistory as a Methodological Bridge Between Microhistory and Critical Disability Studies. (May, Scandinavian Journal of History) _Back tocontents._ #### Malta **In Accessibility and Design** : Abela pledges €20,000 grant for persons with disabilities to buy their first home. (Apr, Malta Independent) _Back tocontents._ #### Netherlands **In Education and Childhood** : Teachers are reluctant to strive for inclusive education. 'That would be wonderful in an ideal world, but that is not how it works.' (In Dutch, May, NRC) _Back tocontents._ #### Spain **In Humanitarian, Migrants and Refugees** : Children and dependent adults with disabilities can obtain residency alongside their parents. (Apr, InfoMigrants) _Back tocontents._ #### Switzerland **In Independent Living and Deinstitutionalization** : Love to the point of hoping for death: the terrible secret of parents of adults with intellectual disabilities. (In French, May, Couper L'herbe Sous les Roues) _Back tocontents._ #### United Kingdom **In Civil Society and Community** : Fearfully and wonderfully made: a report about the wellbeing of disabled and neurodivergent clergy in the Church of England. (Apr, Diocese of London) **In Climate Crisis and Environment** : Air conditioning: the wealthy and well can afford it, but disabled people who need it most can’t. (May, the Guardian) **In Economics and Social Protection** : Health and disability benefit spending is already higher than defence spending: > “The OBR forecast working age health and disability benefits spending of £62.7 billion in 2025/26, increasing to £74.9 billion in 2028/29—both slightly higher than defence spending in these years.” (May, Full Fact) **In Employment, Business and Work** : Employment support for disabled people: Disability at Work: > “We conclude that for too many disabled people the workplace is a hostile environment. If the government is serious about reducing disability-related economic inactivity, it must urgently address two of the main workplace barriers: the reluctance of employers to make reasonable adjustments, and the inaccessibility of workplaces, which leaves disabled people unnecessarily reliant on reasonable adjustments in the first place. > > “We recommend that the government require employers to (a) respond to requests for reasonable adjustments within two weeks and, if a request is refused, to explain in writing the grounds for refusal, and (b) provide all new employees, whether they know them to be disabled or not, with information about the rights of disabled people at work, and of sources of support and advocacy.” (May, House of Commons) **In Gender Equality and Women with Disabilities** : New EHRC Guidance Disability Rights UK’s Statement: > “We are appalled at implications from the Code that an adequate workaround is trans people using Disabled toilets instead. It is a vain attempt to get two marginalised groups to blame one another for our lack of facilities, when the blame lies firmly at the feet of policymakers. We will not fall for it. We will not be used as a ‘loophole’ in the wider erosion of trans rights.” (May, Disability Rights UK) A Guide To Disabled LGBTQ+ Led Organisations. (Apr, Consortium) **In History and Memorial** : Disabled Empire: The Colonial Body in First World War Britain. (May, University of Chicago Press) **In Justice Systems and Legal Capacity** : ‘The biggest rollback of disability rights in a generation’ Charities respond to Supreme Court ruling. (Jun, Mencap) **In Lived Experience and Opinion** : Crip Time. Existing in a different temporal register as a disabled person: > “Disability routinely disrupts and forecloses the normative development timeline. We experience our education interrupted, our careers fragmented, and our relationships strained by the unpredictability of our bodies and minds. The questions of milestones, such as marriage and children, also become complicated or closed. Those milestones arrive late, in the wrong order, or are replaced by others entirely.” (May, Jamie Hale) **In Mobility, Travel, Transport and Tourism** : The politics of sitting down 140,000 Londoners with non-visible disabilities wear TfL's 'Please Offer Me A Seat' badge on public transport. Does it work? (Jun, Body Babble) **In Relationships, Sex and Reproductive Rights** : Choices and Support on the Maternity Journey in the UK: Voices from Women with Cerebral Palsy. (Apr, International Journal of Disability and Social Justice) _Back tocontents._ ### North America #### Bahamas **In Policy and Rights** : IACHR raises concerns on immigration and poor implementation of disability law. (Apr, The Nassau Guardian) _Back tocontents._ #### Canada **In Employment, Business and Work** : Workplace accessibility for public servants with disabilities is progressing, with more to be done: > “Across all organizations audited, the time needed to respond to accommodation requests ranged from an average of 24 to 310 days. In the organizations that did not track their turnaround times, resolving requests took longer.” (May, Canada.ca) _Back tocontents._ #### Saint Kitts and Nevis **In Policy and Rights** : St. Kitts and Nevis Launches First Disability Policy 2026-20. (May, Nevis News) _Back tocontents._ #### Saint Lucia **In Policy and Rights** : Norbert Moves to Make Accessibility Law with Disability Registry and Prosthetic Centre. (Apr, Saint Lucia Daily Post) _Back tocontents._ #### United States **In Climate Crisis and Environment** : Disability-Led Rural Climate Initiatives that are Making Change. (May, Disabled Journalists Association) **In Communication and Language** : A Deaf Manifesto on Motherhood. Interview with Sara Nović: “What is a mother tongue, and how do you get one? What if your mother has no tongue? What if you have no mother?” (May, Electric Literature) **In Culture, Entertainment and Media** : How we’re celebrating Global Accessibility Awareness Day. “Our product and technology team has made it a priority for 2026 to audit and improve the accessibility of our digital products.” (May, The 19th) Adaptive tech changes who gets to work in journalism. (May, The Word) **In Digital Accessibility and Technology** : What ‘Special Needs Mommy’ Influencers Get Wrong About Parenting Disabled Kids: > “Not only are these parents’ comments hurtful, but they’re often inaccurate: They rely on stereotypes more at home in an old-school Jerry Lewis telethon than on Instagram in 2026.” (May, Rewire News Group) **In Disaster Risk Reduction and Crisis Response** : Disaster Preparedness (Still) Isn’t Accessible in Rural America. (Jun, Disabled Journalists Association) **In Economics and Social Protection** : Getting disability benefits got harder after the Social Security Administration’s staff was slashed and program rules were changed by Trump. (Jun, The Conversation) Disabled Adults Living with Families Targeted by Trump Administration. (May, Disabled Journalists Association) **In Education and Childhood** : Screens are leaving schools fast, though some students with disabilities rely on them. (Jun, NPR) RFK Jr. Will Oversee Disability Education Policy. (Jun, Mother Jones) How the Moving of Special Education and Civil Rights Out of the Department of Education Will Hurt Disabled Students and What We Can Do. (Jun, DREDF) How 13 High Schoolers Are Fighting The Bullying Crisis Facing Students With Disabilities. (May, Disability Scoop) ‘Makeshift Fight Club’: Arkansas Private School Founder Punished for Abuse of Disabled Student. (May, Disabled Journalists Association) Native kids with disabilities were held in wooden boxes. Sweeping reforms are coming (May, NPR) **In Independent Living and Deinstitutionalization** : Feeling invisible, many disabled caregivers also need support. “Over a third of family caregivers in the U.S. have disabilities — and are more likely to be caregivers than people without disabilities.” (May, The 19th) What being institutionalised taught me about resistance. And why these lessons come back as Trump attacks marginalised communities: > “It can feel like we must yield to those in power. But what the institutions of my childhood taught me is that obedience only gives permission for systems of exploitation to continue. When I had lost all other freedom, non-compliance reignited my will to survive.” (Jun, Disability Debrief) **In Lived Experience and Opinion** : Disabled Adults Find Gainful Employment and Live Independently With New RICH PARENTS™ Program. (Jun, The Squeaky Wheel) Fine. I'll Say It. I'm Inspiring. Be Inspired By the Right Thing: > “I’m inspiring because I built a career inside a system that was designed to keep me out of it.” (May, Steve Way's Substack) Warhammer 40,000 Is an Accessibility Battle: > “If anything, I’m almost thankful to Games Workshop for making me understand that relying on others is beautifully intimate, especially when living with a physical disability.” (May, IGN) The Way Disabled People Love Each Other. A book by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. (Arsenal Pulp Press) **In Policy and Rights** : How a legal challenge over gender dysphoria became a fight for disability rights. Republican AGs continue quietly pushing for a rollback of civil rights in Section 504 disability case. (May, The 19th) Who gets to speak for mothers of autistic children? A key federal advisory committee has been reshaped around MAHA moms, raising questions about who gets heard in setting pivotal policy. (Apr, The 19th) **In Politics and Elections** : Josh Turek, a Paralympian, Wins the Democratic Senate Primary in Iowa. (Jun, New York Times) The Populist Paralympian Who Wants to Roll Into the Senate. (May, Mother Jones) _Back tocontents._ ### Oceania #### Australia **In Digital Accessibility and Technology** : Online Gaming and Emancipation: The Case of People with Physical Disabilities Communities of Practice: > “The first major finding related to the impact of anonymity as an empowering force and its potential emancipatory effects for PwPD as they traverse the online gaming world. In addition, the research also highlighted how this empowerment and increased confidence has the potential to transcend from the online world into offline spaces.” (Apr, International Journal of Disability and Social Justice) _Back tocontents._ #### New Zealand **In Communication and Language** : AI avatars to deliver real-time NZ sign language translations. (May, 1News) **In Culture, Entertainment and Media** : Spotlighting Aotearoa's disabled authors. A curation of 17 books by disabled New Zealand authors. (May, The D*List) **In Digital Accessibility and Technology** : AI avatars to deliver real-time NZ sign language translations. (May, 1News) **In Justice Systems and Legal Capacity** : Disability Roadmap 2026. “From the New Zealand Crime & Victim Survey we know disabled people are on average 10% more likely to be a victim of a crime and are disproportionally represented in youth and prison facilities.” (Apr, NZ Police) **In Policy and Rights** : Human Rights Commission calls for rights-based approach to Disability Support, condemns raft of rollbacks. (May, Human Rights Commission) _Back tocontents._ ### South America #### Argentina **In Policy and Rights** : The “phantom model”: rights that exist, but are not fulfilled. (In Spanish, Yo También) _Back tocontents._

disabilitydebrief.org

Disability news, June 2026, by subject

**Library > June 2026** _This page is organized by subject, you can also see links organized by country._ This update has 91 curated links from 34 countries and regions, organized across 34 subjects. # Contents * Accessibility and Design * COVID-19 * Civil Society and Community * Climate Crisis and Environment * Communication and Language * Conflict and Peace * Culture, Entertainment and Media * Data and Research * Digital Accessibility and Technology * Disaster Risk Reduction and Crisis Response * Economics and Social Protection * Education and Childhood * Employment, Business and Work * Gender Equality and Women with Disabilities * Health * History and Memorial * Humanitarian, Migrants and Refugees * Independent Living and Deinstitutionalization * International Cooperation * Justice Systems and Legal Capacity * Lived Experience and Opinion * Mobility, Travel, Transport and Tourism * Policy and Rights * Politics and Elections * Relationships, Sex and Reproductive Rights * Sport and Paralympics ## Accessibility and Design ### Overview #### International News Neurodivergent (or neurodiversity-inclusive) standards for buildings. (May, OSA) #### Bangladesh Licences of restaurants, hotels will be cancelled if they don't have ramps and toilets for people with disabilities. (May, Prothom Alo) ### Housing #### Malta Abela pledges €20,000 grant for persons with disabilities to buy their first home. (Apr, Malta Independent) _Back tocontents._ ## COVID-19 ### Response #### Vietnam Access to and self-reported health impacts of COVID-19 prevention measures on people with disabilities in Vietnam: > “People with disabilities reported significantly worse well-being and healthcare access and faced greater barriers in accessing vaccination information and services despite similar vaccination coverage. These findings indicate that while high vaccination coverage is achievable, disproportionate structural barriers faced by people with disabilities call for inclusive, targeted strategies in future public health emergencies.” (Apr, BMC Public Health) _Back tocontents._ ## Civil Society and Community #### Iran Disabled teacher Amir Rahimi sentenced to four years in prison in Azna, for participation in January protests. (May, Hengaw) #### Türkiye Those who are everywhere and nowhere: Toward an anti-capitalist disability movement: “Speed belongs to capitalism, life belongs to us.” (May, Bianet) #### United Kingdom Fearfully and wonderfully made: a report about the wellbeing of disabled and neurodivergent clergy in the Church of England. (Apr, Diocese of London) _Back tocontents._ ## Climate Crisis and Environment #### International News Inclusive education: the missing piece of the climate resilience. (Apr, Sightsavers) #### United Kingdom Air conditioning: the wealthy and well can afford it, but disabled people who need it most can’t. (May, the Guardian) #### United States Disability-Led Rural Climate Initiatives that are Making Change. (May, Disabled Journalists Association) _Back tocontents._ ## Communication and Language ### Overview #### International News Inclusive and accessible communication resource hub. (Fighting Talk) ### Sign Languages #### International News Disney’s Songs In Sign Language Makes One Major Mistake: > “The biggest problem with Songs in Sign Language is how it takes a visual language like ASL and actually obstructs important lyrics. This can make it difficult for ASL users to truly comprehend what the lyrics are because the video doesn't properly translate them.” (May, Screen Rant) #### Nepal Nepal’s parliament is now accessible in sign language: > “The biggest challenge during live broadcasts is the absence of signs for many technical and political words. Discussions are underway on how to make such terms easier to explain.” (May, The Kathmandu Post) #### New Zealand AI avatars to deliver real-time NZ sign language translations. (May, 1News) #### United States A Deaf Manifesto on Motherhood. Interview with Sara Nović: “What is a mother tongue, and how do you get one? What if your mother has no tongue? What if you have no mother?” (May, Electric Literature) _Back tocontents._ ## Conflict and Peace #### Lebanon For Lebanon’s Disabled Community, War Has Deepened a Long Crisis. (May, DAWN) _Back tocontents._ ## Culture, Entertainment and Media ### Overview #### New Zealand Spotlighting Aotearoa's disabled authors. A curation of 17 books by disabled New Zealand authors. (May, The D*List) ### TV and Film #### International News Disney’s Songs In Sign Language Makes One Major Mistake: > “The biggest problem with Songs in Sign Language is how it takes a visual language like ASL and actually obstructs important lyrics. This can make it difficult for ASL users to truly comprehend what the lyrics are because the video doesn't properly translate them.” (May, Screen Rant) ### Media #### Denmark Human on Air: profile of TV Glad. (In German, 2025, Journalist.de) #### United States How we’re celebrating Global Accessibility Awareness Day. “Our product and technology team has made it a priority for 2026 to audit and improve the accessibility of our digital products.” (May, The 19th) Adaptive tech changes who gets to work in journalism. (May, The Word) _Back tocontents._ ## Data and Research #### Europe Discrimination in everyday life for people with disabilities: > “In 2024, 9.4% of people with disabilities (activity limitation) aged 16 or over, in the EU, felt discriminated against when in contact with administrative offices or public services, more than double the share registered among people without disabilities (4.0%).” (May, Eurostat) _Back tocontents._ ## Digital Accessibility and Technology ### Overview #### International News Apple unveils new accessibility features: “With Apple Intelligence, detailed descriptions and natural language navigation are coming to features such as VoiceOver, Magnifier, Voice Control, and Accessibility Reader”. (May, Apple) #### Australia Online Gaming and Emancipation: The Case of People with Physical Disabilities Communities of Practice: > “The first major finding related to the impact of anonymity as an empowering force and its potential emancipatory effects for PwPD as they traverse the online gaming world. In addition, the research also highlighted how this empowerment and increased confidence has the potential to transcend from the online world into offline spaces.” (Apr, International Journal of Disability and Social Justice) #### Europe Women with Disabilities in Digital and Tech. A report on experiences, analysis of barriers and policies that could address them. (2025, EPR) ### Artificial Intelligence #### International News Building a general-purpose accessibility agent —and what we learned in the process. (May, The GitHub Blog) The Web Is Being Made Accessible for AI, Not People: > “What these developers are offering their AI visitors is essentially an accessibility accommodation. Yet, the framing on Svelte’s site sends an unfortunate message. When the audience is AI, accommodation is offered with a wink. Beep boop! But when the audience is a disabled person, it has historically been treated as an afterthought. Structured, concise text-based representations of complex content are almost exactly the kind of accommodation that blind and low-vision screen reader users have spent decades requesting from web developers, largely in vain.” (May, TechPolicy.Press) Staying Relevant as Disability Inclusion Advisors in the Age of AI: > “But AI cannot walk into a room and read the silence. It cannot notice when a program manager is uncomfortable discussing disability. It cannot sense when a partner is using polite language to hide institutional resistance. It cannot observe that a young person with a disability in the room is present but not participating because the facilitation method is not accessible. It cannot feel the difference between a partner who is genuinely committed and one who is only complying because a funder has asked for disability inclusion.” (May, Ambrose Murangira) #### New Zealand AI avatars to deliver real-time NZ sign language translations. (May, 1News) ### Social Media #### United States What ‘Special Needs Mommy’ Influencers Get Wrong About Parenting Disabled Kids: > “Not only are these parents’ comments hurtful, but they’re often inaccurate: They rely on stereotypes more at home in an old-school Jerry Lewis telethon than on Instagram in 2026.” (May, Rewire News Group) _Back tocontents._ ## Disaster Risk Reduction and Crisis Response #### United States Disaster Preparedness (Still) Isn’t Accessible in Rural America. (Jun, Disabled Journalists Association) _Back tocontents._ ## Economics and Social Protection ### Social Protection #### United Kingdom Health and disability benefit spending is already higher than defence spending: > “The OBR forecast working age health and disability benefits spending of £62.7 billion in 2025/26, increasing to £74.9 billion in 2028/29—both slightly higher than defence spending in these years.” (May, Full Fact) #### United States Getting disability benefits got harder after the Social Security Administration’s staff was slashed and program rules were changed by Trump. (Jun, The Conversation) Disabled Adults Living with Families Targeted by Trump Administration. (May, Disabled Journalists Association) _Back tocontents._ ## Education and Childhood ### Overview #### International News Disability Inclusive Education a dialogue: > “Most Inclusive Education frameworks start with the preservation of the norm, the mainstream classroom, the standard curriculum, and the typical developmental pathway for example, and then consider how children who deviate from the norm can be brought into it. A pluralist approach inverts this logic. Rather than asking how children with disabilities can access a pre-existing system, it challenges whether the system itself can be designed to reflect the diversity of the way children learn and interact. Difference is not a problem to be accommodated; it is the starting point from which education should be designed. This shifts the ideological framing from charity to justice, and from integration to transformation.” (May, Wilton Park) Disability inclusive education is a right, not a funding choice. (Mar, The Education and Development Forum (UKFIET)) #### Germany Alliance for a fairer school system is founded in Berlin: > “Berlin prides itself on being a cosmopolitan city, inclusion is touted in connection with the Olympics – but in education, the current Senate is further expanding segregation”. (In German, May, Taz) #### Laos Unmet Need for Disability-Related Services Among Children with Disabilities in Xiengkhouang Province, Lao PDR: A Cross-Sectional Study. (May, Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research) #### Netherlands Teachers are reluctant to strive for inclusive education. 'That would be wonderful in an ideal world, but that is not how it works.' (In Dutch, May, NRC) #### Rwanda Designing for Disability Inclusion. Insights from the ECCE Outcomes Fund in Rwanda. (2025, EOF) #### Uganda "Every child has the potential": how inclusive education is changing children’s futures in Uganda. (Video profile, Jan, Sightsavers) #### United States Screens are leaving schools fast, though some students with disabilities rely on them. (Jun, NPR) RFK Jr. Will Oversee Disability Education Policy. (Jun, Mother Jones) How the Moving of Special Education and Civil Rights Out of the Department of Education Will Hurt Disabled Students and What We Can Do. (Jun, DREDF) How 13 High Schoolers Are Fighting The Bullying Crisis Facing Students With Disabilities. (May, Disability Scoop) ‘Makeshift Fight Club’: Arkansas Private School Founder Punished for Abuse of Disabled Student. (May, Disabled Journalists Association) Native kids with disabilities were held in wooden boxes. Sweeping reforms are coming (May, NPR) ### Higher Education #### Iraq Measures to support people with disabilities in completing postgraduate studies. (May, Iraqi News Agency) _Back tocontents._ ## Employment, Business and Work #### Canada Workplace accessibility for public servants with disabilities is progressing, with more to be done: > “Across all organizations audited, the time needed to respond to accommodation requests ranged from an average of 24 to 310 days. In the organizations that did not track their turnaround times, resolving requests took longer.” (May, Canada.ca) #### Singapore The hawker centre training programme empowering Singaporeans with disabilities. (Short video profile, Apr, SCMP) #### United Kingdom Employment support for disabled people: Disability at Work: > “We conclude that for too many disabled people the workplace is a hostile environment. If the government is serious about reducing disability-related economic inactivity, it must urgently address two of the main workplace barriers: the reluctance of employers to make reasonable adjustments, and the inaccessibility of workplaces, which leaves disabled people unnecessarily reliant on reasonable adjustments in the first place. > > “We recommend that the government require employers to (a) respond to requests for reasonable adjustments within two weeks and, if a request is refused, to explain in writing the grounds for refusal, and (b) provide all new employees, whether they know them to be disabled or not, with information about the rights of disabled people at work, and of sources of support and advocacy.” (May, House of Commons) _Back tocontents._ ## Gender Equality and Women with Disabilities #### Europe Active Inclusion & Equal Opportunities for Women & Girls with Disabilities. (2025, EPR) Women with Disabilities in Digital and Tech. A report on experiences, analysis of barriers and policies that could address them. (2025, EPR) #### United Kingdom New EHRC Guidance Disability Rights UK’s Statement: > “We are appalled at implications from the Code that an adequate workaround is trans people using Disabled toilets instead. It is a vain attempt to get two marginalised groups to blame one another for our lack of facilities, when the blame lies firmly at the feet of policymakers. We will not fall for it. We will not be used as a ‘loophole’ in the wider erosion of trans rights.” (May, Disability Rights UK) A Guide To Disabled LGBTQ+ Led Organisations. (Apr, Consortium) _Back tocontents._ ## Health #### International News Associations between disability and tobacco use in 31 low-income and middle-income countries: a secondary analysis of cross-sectional data. The findings “indicated a higher likelihood of tobacco use among individuals with disabilities compared to those without disabilities.” (Apr, eClinicalMedicine) _Back tocontents._ ## History and Memorial #### Iceland Soaking with Your Subjects: Disability Microhistory as a Methodological Bridge Between Microhistory and Critical Disability Studies. (May, Scandinavian Journal of History) #### United Kingdom Disabled Empire: The Colonial Body in First World War Britain. (May, University of Chicago Press) #### Zambia In memory of Sylvester Katontoka the founder of Mental Health Users Network of Zambia (MHUNZA). (Validity) _Back tocontents._ ## Humanitarian, Migrants and Refugees ### Migration #### Ethiopia Living the ‘Double Challenge’ of Displacement and Disability. A profile of advocacy for refugees living with disabilities. (May, The Reporter) #### Spain Children and dependent adults with disabilities can obtain residency alongside their parents. (Apr, InfoMigrants) _Back tocontents._ ## Independent Living and Deinstitutionalization ### Overview #### Switzerland Love to the point of hoping for death: the terrible secret of parents of adults with intellectual disabilities. (In French, May, Couper L'herbe Sous les Roues) #### United States Feeling invisible, many disabled caregivers also need support. “Over a third of family caregivers in the U.S. have disabilities — and are more likely to be caregivers than people without disabilities.” (May, The 19th) ### Conditions in Institutions #### United States What being institutionalised taught me about resistance. And why these lessons come back as Trump attacks marginalised communities: > “It can feel like we must yield to those in power. But what the institutions of my childhood taught me is that obedience only gives permission for systems of exploitation to continue. When I had lost all other freedom, non-compliance reignited my will to survive.” (Jun, Disability Debrief) _Back tocontents._ ## International Cooperation #### International News Staying Relevant as Disability Inclusion Advisors in the Age of AI: > “But AI cannot walk into a room and read the silence. It cannot notice when a program manager is uncomfortable discussing disability. It cannot sense when a partner is using polite language to hide institutional resistance. It cannot observe that a young person with a disability in the room is present but not participating because the facilitation method is not accessible. It cannot feel the difference between a partner who is genuinely committed and one who is only complying because a funder has asked for disability inclusion.” (May, Ambrose Murangira) _Back tocontents._ ## Justice Systems and Legal Capacity #### China Judicial services made more accessible to nation's persons with disabilities: > “Recognizing Li's lack of hearing, the court quickly activated its fast-track service for disabled individuals. Using writing tablets and voice-to-text software, the court assisted Li in preparing his case, in which he sought 2,900 yuan ($426) in compensation for medical costs, bike repairs and lost wages, and prioritized the filing process. The court also arranged for a professional sign language interpreter through the China Disabled Persons' Federation and invited federation staff to assist with mediation.” (May, Chinadaily.com.cn) #### India When Detention Becomes Punishment Before a Verdict. “Structural inaccessibility in India’s criminal justice system violates the rights of persons with disabilities.” (May, OpenGlobalRights) #### New Zealand Disability Roadmap 2026. “From the New Zealand Crime & Victim Survey we know disabled people are on average 10% more likely to be a victim of a crime and are disproportionally represented in youth and prison facilities.” (Apr, NZ Police) #### United Kingdom ‘The biggest rollback of disability rights in a generation’ Charities respond to Supreme Court ruling. (Jun, Mencap) _Back tocontents._ ## Lived Experience and Opinion #### India My Octopus takes me to the Neem Tree. Sleepless childhood nights and the beings that inhabited them: an illustrated essay. (Jun, Disability Debrief) #### United Kingdom Crip Time. Existing in a different temporal register as a disabled person: > “Disability routinely disrupts and forecloses the normative development timeline. We experience our education interrupted, our careers fragmented, and our relationships strained by the unpredictability of our bodies and minds. The questions of milestones, such as marriage and children, also become complicated or closed. Those milestones arrive late, in the wrong order, or are replaced by others entirely.” (May, Jamie Hale) #### United States Disabled Adults Find Gainful Employment and Live Independently With New RICH PARENTS™ Program. (Jun, The Squeaky Wheel) Fine. I'll Say It. I'm Inspiring. Be Inspired By the Right Thing: > “I’m inspiring because I built a career inside a system that was designed to keep me out of it.” (May, Steve Way's Substack) Warhammer 40,000 Is an Accessibility Battle: > “If anything, I’m almost thankful to Games Workshop for making me understand that relying on others is beautifully intimate, especially when living with a physical disability.” (May, IGN) The Way Disabled People Love Each Other. A book by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. (Arsenal Pulp Press) _Back tocontents._ ## Mobility, Travel, Transport and Tourism ### Overview #### United Kingdom The politics of sitting down 140,000 Londoners with non-visible disabilities wear TfL's 'Please Offer Me A Seat' badge on public transport. Does it work? (Jun, Body Babble) ### Air Travel #### Nigeria Polio Survivor Alleges Discrimination At Lagos Airport after being denied boarding after airline officials informed him that the Ambi-Lift was not functional. (May, Qualitative) _Back tocontents._ ## Policy and Rights #### Argentina The “phantom model”: rights that exist, but are not fulfilled. (In Spanish, Yo También) #### Bahamas IACHR raises concerns on immigration and poor implementation of disability law. (Apr, The Nassau Guardian) #### Europe Enhancing the strategy for the rights of persons with disabilities up to 2030. (May, European Commission) #### Germany A law that protects barriers. “The proposed reform of the Disability Equality Act is insufficient for those affected.” (In German, May, Taz) #### India Benchmarking disability inclusion: 10 years of SDG implementation in India. (Mar, Rising Flame) #### New Zealand Human Rights Commission calls for rights-based approach to Disability Support, condemns raft of rollbacks. (May, Human Rights Commission) #### Saint Kitts and Nevis St. Kitts and Nevis Launches First Disability Policy 2026-20. (May, Nevis News) #### Saint Lucia Norbert Moves to Make Accessibility Law with Disability Registry and Prosthetic Centre. (Apr, Saint Lucia Daily Post) #### United States How a legal challenge over gender dysphoria became a fight for disability rights. Republican AGs continue quietly pushing for a rollback of civil rights in Section 504 disability case. (May, The 19th) Who gets to speak for mothers of autistic children? A key federal advisory committee has been reshaped around MAHA moms, raising questions about who gets heard in setting pivotal policy. (Apr, The 19th) #### Zambia The Limits of the Reasonable Accommodation Duty under Zambian Law: A Comparative Legal Perspective (Apr, International Journal of Disability and Social Justice) Human Rights situation of Persons with Albinism in Zambia. (Jan, Africa Albinism Network) _Back tocontents._ ## Politics and Elections #### United States Josh Turek, a Paralympian, Wins the Democratic Senate Primary in Iowa. (Jun, New York Times) The Populist Paralympian Who Wants to Roll Into the Senate. (May, Mother Jones) _Back tocontents._ ## Relationships, Sex and Reproductive Rights #### United Kingdom Choices and Support on the Maternity Journey in the UK: Voices from Women with Cerebral Palsy. (Apr, International Journal of Disability and Social Justice) _Back tocontents._ ## Sport and Paralympics #### International News Fifa criticized for ‘deeply concerning’ approach to ticketing for fans with disabilities. (Apr, the Guardian) FIFA World Cup 2026™ to feature sign language interpretation for all matches, additional accessible experiences to help all fans enjoy the global showcase. (FIFA) _Back tocontents._

disabilitydebrief.org

How did disability shape your day?

“Dear Disability Diary”, by Kinanty Andini Dear Debriefers, What images pop-up in your diary? Today's edition has a new open call for writing, and opens the Debrief mailbag to see reader responses to recent editions. Readers had quite a bit to say – and different views – on assisted dying (this section is marked clearly). Following that, readers explore questions about organisations that “represent” disabled people. Read on for all that and insights exploring AI, institutionalisation and turning the table on tokenism. ## About this edition **The Debrief shares voices from our community thanks to** reader support**.** **Peter Torres Fremlin** is editor of Disability Debrief and is from the UK. **Kinanty Andini** is an illustrator and digital artist from Indonesia. Sign-up for a disability lens on world news Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. Weekly in your inbox ## How did disability shape your day? You’re writing in your diary before you go to sleep. How did disability shape your day? That's the prompt for our new open call for writing: Dear Disability Diary. If it grabs you, please send us a page from your journal! This is our second call for writing from our community. The first one we did led to the beautiful Broken then Blooming where we published 6 writers' vision of a future where disability rights exist. Entries for the diary prompt are up to 500 words, and they can be fiction or non-fiction. The call is open to people with and without disabilities – after all, there's many ways that disability shows up in life. The deadline is 20th July. We'll publish our favourite entries (and pay £100 for each one published). See full details and make a submission on the page for the call. ## “Happy to be aboard” “Weathering the Storm”, by Kinanty Andini Last month's Weathering the Storm asked for help sailing against the winds that push against an independent publication covering disability issues. The Debrief can invite new writing and feature original work by writers and artists from around the globe thanks to the support it gets from readers. Claire was one of the many readers who made a contribution: > “A quick note to say - you wrote so fearlessly that I am not sure whether the latest Debrief felt in any way vulnerable to put out there, but I’m glad you did. > > I finally signed up, after long threatening to do so! After a period of unemployment affected by exactly the forces you outline in the issue, I’m grateful to be in my first week of a new job and capable of doing so. > > All the best with the Debrief moving forward, and I hope you’re suitably proud of what you and collaborators have and will continue to achieve through it. > > Happy to be aboard!” If it's comfortable to do so, do join Claire and other readers in supporting the Debrief. ## Discussions of assisted dying Readers had quite a bit to say about Joe Wood's piece on how different countries approach assisted dying. And just out yesterday is the discussion Joe and I had with Vanessa Rampton on the Assisted Lab podcast. **Taking back control of our own lives.** Many responded to say how they are firmly against legalising assisted dying. Among them, Phil Friend commented that “the talk about ‘dignity’ in dying feels like it’s missing the point of how we actually live”: > “The Canadian example you shared about the Paralympian offered death instead of a stairlift really hits home. When a system makes it easier to access a needle than a decent care package or a ramp, “choice’ is just a fancy word for an ultimatum. > > At Not Dead Yet UK, we don’t see the ‘slippery slope’ as an academic theory. It’s a real danger for people already fighting systemic barriers. For us, true dignity is about taking back control of our lives and having the agency to stay in the game. > > Let’s focus on helping people live well first. Offering an exit before we’ve offered a way forward is a failure of imagination. We shouldn't be making it easier to die until we've made it equally easy to live.” In a similar line, Andrew Pulrang in the US said that he is “strongly against” assisted dying: > “However, my position on this is heavily influenced by the fact that I live in a country, (one of the few), that doesn't have a comprehensive health care system for all, regardless of ability to pay. We do have a somewhat more developed and I would say empowering system of _long-term care_ than some countries that have better _health care_ systems. But our long term care systems are in the process of falling apart and being defunded right now. So that leaves little reason to feel confident that killing myself could really be purely a _choice_ here in the U.S.” **Not waiting for change.** Also writing from the US, Bella Radant, a disabled medical student, shared some of her experiences and the dilemmas it presented: > “For me, I think that the point brought up by Joe (and others of course) regarding the potential for medical assistance in dying (MAiD) to be used as a societal excuse for failing to provide adequate care and accommodations is one of the biggest sticking points for those less supportive of MAiD. > > At the same time, the real suffering people experience deserves timely decisions, oftentimes on a much shorter timescale than broad strokes infrastructure changes. [...] > > In my personal experience, I have met a variety of patients experiencing what I and most others would consider to be horrific quality of life in near complete despair of altering those circumstances. > > A non-zero number of them have died either by suicide or other ‘deaths of despair’ (e.g overdose, refusing treatment) and my reaction has varied from gut-punching anger at systemic failing to near-relief that the patient was able to exert some form of control and dignity over their circumstances. > > I am obviously all for creating the systemic changes needed to prevent such deaths, but I also can understand and support people who don't want to wait for such change.” **Dignified circumstances.** Debrief faithful Alexander Ogheneruemu, wasn't ready to make an overall judgement but responded on the question of dignity: > “Agency is the keyword but it's equally important to hold in mind how both external and internal dynamics come in to influence even that. > > I leave with a counter to one phrase from the article, [a quote of Marianne Karner, opposing assisted dying]: “There is no such thing as an undignified life. What does exist are undignified circumstances”. > > I think it's more complicated than that. There are certain dignified circumstances where the subject, for [their] own dignity just feels it best to throw in the towel.” And as well as these comments, it was moving to hear from several readers how the article helped them understand or discuss questions of assisted dying within their own families. ## “What we still aren't able to say out loud” “The Weight of the House we Built”, by Kinanty Andini Alberto Vásquez Encalada's piece rethinking representation of people with disabilities also sparked a lively set of reactions. **Who continues to be left out?** From Brazil, Luciana Viegas called it a “necessary outcry” about disabled-people's organisations, and about “what we still aren’t able to say out loud within our own movements”: > “The debate about Organizations of People with Disabilities cannot continue to be just a celebration. We need to talk about real representation, about who is included and who continues to be left out, even within our own spaces. > > And when I say ‘left out,‘ I’m talking about Black people with disabilities. About non-verbal people. About people who live at the intersection of multiple oppressions and who rarely see themselves reflected in the leaders who are supposed to represent them. > > Disability activism that doesn’t question itself is activism that reproduces the status quo.” See previously on the Debrief for my interview with Luciana which also explored some of these questions: “Without us, you won't move forward” **Burnout and ableist structures.** Sara Rocha also found Alberto's article a “fantastic piece” that “encapsulates a lot of my frustration with the way the need to organise in the disability movement”: > “In Portugal (and elsewhere), if we want to develop something that is funded, we have to create rigid, ultra-bureaucratic, institutionalising structures and rely on a lot (A LOT) of volunteer work. > > As autistic and neurodivergent people, we have less energy, and I don’t know any autistic advocate who doesn’t burnout at some point. Working 8 hours on another job a day to put food on the table, sometimes caring for children or people with disabilities (or both), and still doing unpaid activism for years, isn’t for everyone. In fact, it isn’t for autistic people. > > When we try to make the way we organize and work more flexible to be more accessible, we aren’t funded, and we’re penalized. [...] So even associations led by people with disabilities—which aren’t even formally distinguished from those that speak on our behalf—end up being forced to implement ableist, institutionalizing structures with exclusionary and oppressive policies just to have, perhaps, and with luck, the money to pay some people with disabilities to work.” **Turning the spotlight inwards**. Mark Carew, in the UK, shared the importance of going deeper on questions of what makes organisations representative: > “All policymaking and influencing is, of course, influenced by power and resources (as is pointed out in the article). It therefore makes complete sense, in my mind, to turn the searchlight inwards occasionally and have a look at the structures and categories of people that often most directly lobby the generalist, high power policy actors on disability issues. The Debrief is one of the only places I see this done, through multiple articles. ” Indeed, as Mark highlights, I see providing an independent view on the international disability movement as a key contribution of the Debrief. And as editor, I'm keen to publish a diversity of viewpoints on the topic. I'd love to hear, for example, a defence of the structures that Alberto critiques in his article. ## “Lived experiences should not be re-packaged” In April I wrote how Disability Debrief mostly doesn't use artificial intelligence (and when it does). It's a tricky and fluid subject. **AI curious.** It was great to see Andrew Pulrang over on Disability Thinking Weekly take it as inspiration to do his own AI audit: > “I guess you could say I am AI curious, especially as a tool of accessibility, though not really for me and my particular disabilities. I am also concerned, though not yet panicked, about the social, economic, political, and environmental implications of AI. And I am committed to AI-free originality in my own writing, including for this newsletter.” **Lived realities.** Dorodi Sharma responded to note how the article “deeply resonated” with her: > “Increasingly, I am seeing so much of AI generated content and imagery around disability rights. Social media graphics are full of images that do not reflect the lived realities of persons with disabilities. Bizarrely, sometimes they seem like whoever generated those images put a prompt asking for ‘persons with disabilities in xyz setting, with visible prosthetics or assistive devices' and for added measure , ‘include people of different ethnicities and race’. I would any day prefer real life photos that are not polished, taken in settings where people with disabilities live and thrive, over these AI generated images. The same holds true for narrative. Lived experiences should not be re-packaged, they are raw, they are not always polished. The disability movement, including leading organizations, need to reflect on the overuse of AI.” And again, on this subject and others, I'm interested in a diversity of views. I would love to hear from those who _are_ using AI to share disabilities stories and the way they navigate questions of authenticity. ## “Hasta la victoria, siempre” Breaking free, by Rachel Litchman In last week's edition Rachel Litchman wrote about the lessons of resistance she learned from being institutionalised as a child. One of the responses came from Alan Robinson, who says he went through very similar situations as a teenager in Argentina (translated from Spanish): > “It did me good to read your description of how they try to convince us that the only way to get out of a psychiatric institution is through obedience. It's not easy to find people who can express this openly. Thank you. > > In Argentina, the Milei administration is also trying to change the laws to allow for more involuntary hospitalizations and forced mental health treatments. > > Ernesto ‘Che‘ Guevara, the revolutionary, popularized the expression ‘Hasta la victoria, siempre’ [Onwards towards victory, always!] > > Among my mad friends in Latin America, we sometimes like to say ‘Hasta la locura, siempre!’ [Onwards towards madness, always!]” ## Who is using whom? **Escape my reality**. Fulltime Hedgehog's illustrated essay on her childhood dreams was welcomed by Yashmi Prasad: > “It helped me escape my reality and filled my heart with all those childhood memories which are lost in the daily din of urban Mumbai madness.” **Embedded throughout the exhibition.** Writing about inclusion of disabled people at the Met Gala led to questions of tokenism in elite spaces. Eleonora Censorii responded to describe how the Met museum has been pursuing accessibility for decades, and that: > “The fact that this exhibition was created in collaboration with professionals with disabilities—as it should be—and that inclusion is embedded throughout the exhibition, from the team involved up to the mannequins, is definitively not ‘purple washing’ in any way.” And Kamil Goungor argued that, even if the inclusion had been superficial, it can still be beneficial: > “It is still better to be there rather than not. Bad publicity is still good publicity etc. This whole discussion brings disabled people to the epicenter, and even if only one person gets the message right (many did in this case), it's a win. > > And in the end of the day, who is using whom? 😉 ” **An agony aunt with disability.** Indeed the question of how to know if someone is using you was also explored by Blossom in her debut advice column. Thanks to all the readers who welcomed our new agony-aunt-in-constant-agony, and please do share further questions with Blossom. That's all for today. Thanks all for such thoughtful reactions to these newsletters. Stay in touch, Peter ## Outro **Further reading**. There is a back catalogue of Debrief newsletters online, as well as a library of disability news from 170+ countries. **Let your friends know**. Sharing the newsletter is how people find it! **For more from Kinanty,** see her website. **Connect**. Get in touch. You can find me on Linkedin and Bluesky. **Help us do more**. The Debrief is free thanks to reader support. ## Acknowledgements Thanks to Kinanty Andini for the beautiful illustration of a diary entry, and for her other images. And to Rachel Litchman for her drawing of Breaking Free. Thanks to Celestine Fraser for designing the Dear Diary call. And as always, thanks to all you Debriefers for being in touch, and the readers and organisations whose support makes this project possible.

disabilitydebrief.org

What being institutionalised taught me about resistance

Breaking free, by Rachel Litchman Dear Debriefers, There is a presumed history of institutions closing in the United States through the 1980s. But the reality is that institutions never disappeared.**** I know because I lived in them. When I was thirteen years old, I had my first experience with psychiatric and residential institutionalisation. In these places, horrific abuse was the norm. Staff alleged that compliance would help us “get out.” But compliance merely demanded submission to our routine exploitation and acceptance of destructive narratives. We children were seen as the problems needing intervention, rather than the violence that caused our mental distress in the first place. As authoritarianism grows in the United States, my experiences come back to me. Many are targeted for protesting the violent practices of the administration, and more people are detained or disappeared into institutions. It can feel like we must yield to those in power. But what the institutions of my childhood taught me is that obedience only gives permission for systems of exploitation to continue. When I had lost all other freedom, non-compliance reignited my will to survive. ## About this edition **Rachel Litchman** is an artist and writer in Madison, Wisconsin, USA. **Original writing like this is made possible by** support from readers**.** Thanks to Belinda and Nicolette for new contributions. Sign-up for a disability lens on world news Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. Weekly in your inbox ## No longer treated like other children When I was 13 years old, I was institutionalised for the first time in a psychiatric hospital. It was a jarring and traumatic first introduction to the mental healthcare system. Rigid wooden beds. Thin green blankets. Locked doors. Strip searches. Solitary confinement. Windows, high up on the ceiling and covered in mesh wire netting. All my belongings — pens, notebooks, electronics — everything except a small soft cover book and pyjama pants gutted of their drawstring cinches, were taken from me. I believed people went to hospitals for healing. But those first few moments told me that I was not in a hospital but a prison. I would no longer be treated like other children, and I was placed in a ward that included adults. “You have to give in to get out,” a staff member told me. ## Finding ways to resist The idea of giving in, of losing my agency, only reaffirmed the powerlessness at the root of my distress. So I found ways to resist. I refused to sign consent forms or participate in therapy. I hid contraband swiped from the front desk—a pen—in the elastic waistband of my underwear. I used the pen to write notes in the margins of my paperback book. I told them I was doing homework, but my annotations were documentation of my inpatient experiences that might otherwise have been unrecoverable, discreditable under the influence of compulsory sedating medications. At the time, I assumed my refusal to comply would hurt my chance for self-sovereignty. And in some ways the adults there made sure it did. But years later I understand it was necessary to my survival. I would be sacrificing my humanity if I complied with people who did not recognise it. ## “We’re here to help you” The second time I arrived at an institution was several months later. I was 14 years old. I landed in rural, middle-of-nowhere New Hampshire a thousand miles away from my home in suburban Chicago, Illinois. This time there were no strip searches or solitary confinement. But what little freedom I gained over my body was consumed by the searing betrayal of displacement. In the intake office, a brochure lay on the coffee table, composed of smiling children and staff posing in front of a sign bearing the institution’s name. “We’re here to help you,” the intake official said to me, grinning. “Helping me would mean you’d let me go home,” I said. ## The autonomy to escape I said that even though home was terrifying. Home was an awful place where I experienced sexual, physical, and verbal abuse. These were the reasons that almost every child, like me, ended up in the institution in the first place. We were labeled troubled, but in reality we were begging any adult to listen to us, using any distressed, disruptive, embodied language we had. And yet, home was also a place I had the autonomy to escape — in school, at the library, on long bike rides through the forest preserve. The institution, however, made escape an impossibility, segregation total, and abuse a matter of protocol. Staying in the institution indefinitely was a greater fear than returning home. I had to behave in a way that would make staff believe I deserved to go back to it. And at the same time, not sacrifice myself to the shaming belief that I—not my circumstances—was the problem in need of fixing. ## Reluctant Compliance At home and in the institution, my fear whittled down the spectrum of safe behaviour to my parents’ or the staff’s desires and interests. I reluctantly complied. The staff frequently drove us several miles off campus. There, in a forest, we chopped piles of wood for a staff member of the institution’s home. We cleared trails, pulled weeds, and herded pigs to be slaughtered at another employee’s meat and dairy farm. On the way there, the staff pointed to the other institutions nestled alongside the road. “That’s for the kids that are really reactive, intellectually disabled,” the staff said, pointing to a white farmhouse similar to our own. “They do farm work.” Then, gesturing to a yellow building, “That’s the residential school for challenged teens.” Reactive. Challenged. Troubled. Difficult to treat. Delinquent. Disturbed. As if those words justified forced labor or our displacement. ## Kids for profit Years later, I learned that a child would run away from the residential school only to be found dead in our shared forest. And one of the two men that presided over the farm would be arrested for transporting illegal drugs (staff allegedly gave illegal drugs to the disabled children). In the end over one hundred children would file lawsuits against the facilities, seeking reparation for institutionalised sexual, physical, and psychological abuse. One of the incentives for our detainment was profit. An incredible serving of violence is doled out by the U.S. dollar. Families or the state often paid teen transport agencies to steal us out of our beds at night. And worse, the man arrested for transporting illegal drugs only went on to open more institutions. There was no justice. At the time, I did not make the connection that many of the same staff that operated the facility where I resided operated every facility on that strip of road. Nevertheless, I understood they had no incentive to release us. And that worse things could happen to me. ## Consequences of disobedience There was a girl who came to the institution a few weeks after me, sassy, self-righteous, and fighting. I did not like her. Her behaviour towards me, the other residents, and the staff was loud, confrontational, at times sexually explicit. She seemed to think disobedience would get her out of her institutionalisation. I thought she was being foolish. And then one night around 3 AM, curled in the thin blankets on my bed, I woke to the sound of crying and screaming. Someone was being dragged out of bed. Boots clanged against the creaky wooden floorboards. A door opened, then closed, then the footsteps returned. My heart pounded. I slid my feet out of bed and crept into the dark hallway. At first I saw his muck boots. Then his hands, holding the girl’s pair of shoes. His face. A loathed staff member, staring back at me. I glared back, saying nothing. ## Divide and conquer I knew, just as abruptly as she had arrived, that the new girl was gone. She had been forcibly transported to another institution. I did not need anyone to tell me that. It had been a common threat to tell us that, if we did not behave, we would be sent to more “suitable” places, like wilderness programs or locked psych wards. I regretted seeing her as a nuisance, a minor enemy. At the end of the day we were more alike than different. We just wanted to be heard. But the staff in the institution made us, not their control over our lives, the problems. Therefore, when us children reacted in ways that “disrupted the peace” we were encouraged to think that the disruptor was the issue. But how could peace exist in a place where our lives, stripped of almost all of our agency and freedom, had been catastrophically disrupted? ## Embodying my protest While fear was a powerful mechanism of keeping us children obedient, anger was a natural response to the widening scope of violence. I could not help but feel it. I wanted to run away, but there was nowhere to go. I wanted to smash and break things. I wanted to tell someone what I had experienced and seen, but there was no one trustworthy to tell. Consequently, I embodied my protest instead. This felt like the safest option. I didn’t sleep. I didn’t eat. I didn’t talk. I cycled through each of these behaviours to communicate my grief, and to ask adults to remove me from the harmful situation I was in, when they otherwise refused to listen. But the staff labeled my silence as an illness, justifying my prolonged institutionalisation primarily through their diagnosis of “social phobia”. They discarded my behaviour as irrational and dismissed the ways that my silence was a deliberate, albeit quiet, form of resistance. Anybody in power can call protest behaviour an illness. That makes it seem like it doesn’t serve a purpose or is not a protest. And it’s how ableism can be used to take away freedom from people who are demanding accountability for harm. ## “Let go of your anger” My therapist, exasperated by my refusal to speak, later took me to a bridge in the forest. She seemed to understand that rage simmered beneath my silence, but refused to acknowledge the purpose of it. “You need to let go of your anger.” She gripped the rail and yelled into the treetops to demonstrate for me. But I did not scream. I glared at her. I would not waste my sacred voice for the sake of a performance. My anger, enclosed within my silence, was the bridge between fear and rebellion, shame and self-love. I would hold onto it, for as long I was denied safety, consent, choice, a real home. ## A choice between two forms of violence A few weeks before I was supposed to return home, the staff, and then my parents asked, “how would you like to go to a therapeutic boarding school?” I remembered the girl who got taken in the middle of the night. They meant a school like the one for the kids they called challenged down the road. I understood if I did not select it, they would choose it for me. All along, I’d been deceived. The woman in the first institution was wrong: giving in would not let me “get out”, because neither home nor the institution meant freedom in the first place. I had merely been given the option to select between two forms of violence. And in either place I would have to pretend I wasn’t hurting, in order to avoid the other. ## Breaking free of chains At that moment, my silence, my embodied protest, felt pointless. Feigned compliance had only stalled the inevitable. I wanted to make my anger known. During art therapy, I made a ceramic plate. I painted a bird onto the hard clay. It flew upward, breaking free of chains. After dinner, staff presented us with our fired ceramic plates. They summoned me to take my meds. I refused them. I snatched my plate and marched outside in the pouring rain. A staff member followed me. I looked her in the eye, lifted the plate above my head and smashed it against the concrete. Then I threw the biggest chunk, part of the bird, down a hill into a marshy patch of grass. People who intended to take advantage of me would intend to do so regardless of my good behavior. How dare they take me away from everything I knew and pretend my anger was anything but righteous and justified. I have never forgiven them for this. ## My Greatest Fears Revisited Over a decade has passed since I was last in any psychiatric or residential facility. But as an adult, I still constantly revisit the fear that once again I could end up in an institution and never find my way back home to my community. The Trump administration is rapidly expanding criteria for involuntary institutionalisation. This means that more people than before, including migrants, disabled people, political dissidents, and children, are experiencing the frightening, prolonged severance of for-profit detention. As I recently wrote about in The Progressive, this violence just seems to build on the systems I experienced as a child. The language that the Trump administration uses also echoes the justifications for my own institutionalisation. Mass displacement is justified by calling migrants “the worst of the worst”. Or, in Trump’s words about disabled people after his last election: > “For those who are severely mentally ill and deeply disturbed, we will bring them back to mental institutions, where they belong.” I watch through my phone screen as my neighbours get snatched off the streets or out of their beds. Shattered windows. Mylar Blankets. Strip searches. Solitary confinement.__ Children, ripped away from their parents, and thrown in mesh wire cages. All belongings — phones, identification cards, photos — everything except the clothes on their backs, taken from them. This is the present violence of expanding authoritarianism. ## “Shame! Shame!” _This is not the America I know_ , I hear some people say. _We have civil rights._ _They closed the institutions in the 1980s._ Some institutions closed, but others like the ones I and many other children were sent to, flourished under the cover of institutionalisation being “over.” Authoritarianism expands from the normalisation of violence against people who society has already deemed disposable. I understood this from the little outcry toward my own or other children’s institutionalisation and abuse. In the public silence, what happened to me and other children was allowed to expand and continue. But now I watch protesters put their bodies on the line and chant “Shame! Shame!” at government agents who drag children away from their communities. This kind of disruption—collective, visible, sustained by people outside the institutions with more power—did not exist during my time in the institution. Resistance is stifled by a confusion over whose behaviour is shameful. When I eventually rebelled it was because I understood, as long as I lacked freedom, I could not protect myself from further violence. I could only preserve my will to live by asserting that shame wasn't something I should feel, despite all the way those in power tried to instil it in me. It was their legacy, not mine. ## Finding my own perch My own perch, by Rachel Litchman “Rachel, you need to come down from that tree,” a staff member scolded me on one of my last days in the residential institution. Once again I was trying to escape forced medications. This time I’d climbed to the top of a tree. I didn’t care about the consequences anymore. What more was there to lose? I wasn’t going home after all. I was going to a residential school. Compliance would not save me. It would only make me lie to myself about my willingness to endure the nightmare I was living. I was speaking again. The staff didn’t like what I had to say, and characterised my increasing boldness as a form of regression. They asked me when I was eventually going to give in. “How about you come up and get me yourself?” I taunted. “I’m not doing that, Rachel.” “Why not? You can’t climb a tree?” In the branches, the warm summer breeze felt good on my face. I stared down at the staff member and smirked. I felt victorious. From the trees, Rachel ## Outro **See Rachel's previous essays on the Debrief:** Get set for independence on how she left rehab hospital more disabled than she arrived, and Forgotten, on finding worth in a frightening shadow world. **Find Rachel online** : on her website, support her work on Patreon or follow on instagram. **Let your friends know**. Sharing the newsletter is how people find it! **Help us do more**. The Debrief is free thanks to reader support. ## Acknowledgements Thank you to Peter Torres Fremlin and Celestine Fraser for editing this piece and enduring my tendency to write dark, sad things, and helping me orient my final message toward a light. Thank you to all my professors in the UW-Madison Department of Gender & Women’s Studies and the Department of Medical History for guiding me to language to articulate systems of power. It was a privilege to learn from you. Thank you to writers Dorothy Roberts, Duaa Eldeib, and Rachel Aviv, whose writing on the child “welfare” system and disabled children brought clarity to the confusion of my childhood. And Alys, for being sad and mad with me on Davis Street. Finally, thanks to all the readers of the Debrief whose support made writing this piece possible. The two illustrations in the essay are by me.

disabilitydebrief.org

My Octopus takes me to the Neem Tree

****Din in my head:**** An explainer bee, dancing elephant, crawling ants, and the octopus around my neck. Illustrations by Fulltime Hedgehog. _Priya_ Debriefers, Everyone else could fall asleep around me, picked up by the sleep-demon. But I stayed behind, awake, a child of five or six years old. And for the first time, I became conscious of the tizzy of uninterrupted internal thoughts, growing to the size of a continent. As an adult I thought that words like “anxiety”, “ruminations”, “voices” might be useful to describe how I felt during those nights. But each learned word was serious, verbose, limiting, and made me wary. If I approached my experience through academic discourse, I might hide my experiences to fit. Instead, I started sketching to find my way, reimagining scenes and animated thoughts. I found myself and all the beings – animals, plants and humans – I loved. I disentangled myself from mental health jargon I’d learned as an adult. Here is the illustrated story of my childhood nights. I discovered that when adults disappeared into sleep, a world of non-human sentience took their place. Most of them gathered within the world of the Neem tree growing outside our house. ## About this edition **Fulltime Hedgehog** is the artist name of Shailza, an artist-illustrator and researcher from India. She illustrated this edition with acrylic colours and pens, and then some digital retouching. In Indian languages “hedgehog” is used to describe a person who has soft defences and questionable social graces. **The Debrief can publish original writing and art thanks to** support from readers**.** Thanks to Elizabeth, mj and Thomas for new contributions. Sign-up for a disability lens on world news Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. Weekly in your inbox ## Holding onto my day so strongly that I barely sleep Days and nights are extremely noisy in my neighbourhood of Hindi, Bhojpuri, Awadhi, Odia, Santhali and Bengali-speaking people in Calcutta. Two factories, one mechanical and one chemical, synchronise their mini concerto of sirens. Loud speakers bleed songs in different languages until 1 am on any and all public and religious holidays. When everything drops into a quiet state, the call of the _maal gaari_ (goods train) likely wakes someone up from their deep sleep. Adults are used to these sounds, but children are new humans. We find a wonder-bird in every stimulus and catch and hold it. My problem is that I hold onto my day’s stimuli so long that they become part of me and keep me awake. I admit out loud that I can’t sleep. But I hear back “ _Baccho ko kya chinta, bus bistar pe giro aur so jao_ ”, What does a child have to worry about, just go to sleep. But what to do if my thoughts are thumping? ## Sleeping together ****Noise in my bones.**** Sure to wake us all? I sleep in _barka ghar,_ the big room. I sleep with Ma (my grandmother), my unmarried aunts and uncle, and sometimes my grandfather when he is going through his asthma phase. He requires comforting words and heavy duty care. While there are personal rooms in the house, _barka ghar_ is a shared space where I feel my best. It has two large windows facing an open field and is airy in the hottest summer months. I am a precious grandchild so I get to sleep next to Ma. My aunts and uncle, who often gather in the room to discuss important things late into the night, take the remaining spaces: bed, sofa, mattress on the floor, _khat_ (a folding rollaway bed). My grandpa, despite his many privileges, only manages to get the sofa or the _khat_. We often ask him to go to his own room but I suppose he misses our company. This cosy arrangement can be a protection from the ten types of ghosts that I read about in the illustrated storybook an uncle gave me. But it becomes a nuisance when I Can. Not. Sleep. ## An anxious rectangle I am in an anxious rectangular space, awake next to people attached to their sleep. I cannot move much, nor can I lie still. I try copying the adult postures around me: putting my hands behind my head, turning over on my belly, curling up like a worm. But the rectangular shape is my tragic limit. The hardest time of the night is 3am when I should be asleep but I am not. ## Light sleepers, night-feeders ****Dense chaos****. The sound of sleeplessness, like bombs in murky waters. Sleeplessness puts me in an unnecessary, embarrassing, inconvenient spotlight. It marks me out as odd. Kindly put, as an “overthinker”, or “too sensitive”. Unkindly put, as _asamajik_ or _asadharan_ , asocial or unusual. Ma is a light sleeper, midnight cook and late night eater. She reports me to mummy if I sleepwalk (“that can be dangerous”) or stay past 4 am (“how will she stay awake in her school?”). For her it is normal to be awake until 1 am but not past 3 am: “everyone needs at least four hours of sleep.” But outside of those conditions, Ma defends my sleeplessness. She feeds me a midnight meal of rotis mashed into cold milk with jaggery. And she consolidates my trust in the night, why fear it? “The neighbourhood is safe, the people in the factory are awake, as are those in the _Thakur Bari_ , if you walk out of the door someone will drop you back.” And when I quail about ghosts? “ _Koi bhoot-voot nahi hai_ ”, there’re no ghostie-toastie, “ _bhooto se bure toh log hai_ ”, and they’re better than humans anyway. I have kept a mild liking for ghosts since then. ## Restless thought-beings In my wakefulness I listen to worried thought-demons. There is an over-explainer bee waiting for a way out of giving explanations. An elephant-fear who is wearing _ghungroo_ (anklets), and wants to get on the night stage and dance _dhaye-dhaye._ But, pulled out of watery emotions, I feel most sorry for the octopus. It wraps its tentacles around my neck for their dear life. These restless thought-beings wind me up with their agitations. And they also seek a way out of their trapped existence. ## Sleep nibblers ****Sleep nibblers.**** The days experiences, conversations, and scenes, like marauding fish. When I concentrate too hard on these animal sensations, the days or even months before glimmer in my mind like _jugnu_ , fireflies. I see the Tom and Jerry chase sequences I watch and rewatch during the day, or the horror stories I request any adult willing to indulge me to tell. I run over stories in my mind, of family members, neighbourhood ancestors and caregivers. They are part of every family member and visitor’s conversation, casually dropped between hellos, teas and chores. I eavesdrop on the miseries and bickerings of adults in the house and the neighbourhood. I feel highly anxious thinking about the unending pile of rotis that women need to get through, or changing colour of fumes from factories with changing owners. And the old boilers are so close to my house that I feel I need to inspect them, especially at night. ## The theatre of the night I see animals, real and imagined. The _siyal_ (jackal) ghost that Ma describes in her dreams from the time when she came to the house as a new bride. Snakes that Ma fears and I want to catch slithering past at least once in my life. A _bhaam_ (civet cat) that likes making its way from palm trees to the Neem tree to open kitchens. The roosting birds that are likely to claim every nook on the roof. This month’s cat warden who is clearing off the mice infestation. The squirrels who we jokingly call our ancestors, since they keep a close watch and bother us if we miss some crucial ritual. My brain makes what my mummy calls a _jatra_ , theatre. This _jatra_ is made of all the tiny visual and verbal syllables that inhabit the house and the neighbourhood and the conversations of adults who live with me and those who visit. They often burst into my night with a loud bang. ## Night strolls ****Escape****. Praying not to wake the others. This _jatra_ in my head triggers night strolls. I carefully pick up my head and its creatures. I try very hard not to step on any nerves or open hair or legs or arms, to make my escape without waking up an adult. My destination is the Neem tree. It is right outside our veranda, growing old in the adjacent _Thakur Bari_. The _Thakur Bari_ is a collective living space where a priest and his family lives with almost everyone from his village: the barber and his family, the paan shop owner and his helper, the occasional taxi driver, the day’s card winner. ## To my Neem ****To my Neem****. On the verandah. Neem tree leans into our house. She ignores the brick wall partition my father carefully built around the house to signal our difference from the neighbours, and lets herself in through the grilles. I am not alone at the Neem tree. Squirrels, sparrows, an occasional owl, a kite, quite a few mice, early morning sunbirds, two male cats, one distant kingfisher, and a civet are welcomed into a network of paths across rooftops. As everyone falls asleep, they become visible to silent observers. I watch, and I let loose the octopus from around my neck. ## Finding a way back to ourselves ****The Neem Welcomes me****. And the octopus takes its leave to go. In my childhood home, the Neem tree was a way for everyone, including regular and occasional visitors, to find their way back to themselves. I often caught adults lost around the open grille, silently observing the Neem tree. From them, I learnt to trust everything about the Neem tree, its leaves and their spreading fragrance, the chance to catch the buds being eaten by the birds and those that are left behind to flower into white dust that covers the crown. I learnt to stop and gaze at the many creatures that find their repose. In observing, I grew into a round bud, or white flower, or a bird, or a squirrel, or a _bhaam_ , ways back to the self. ## An antidote to isolation ****Back to the self****. Luminescent beings. Today, when I smell Neem in an unfamiliar place, I find an antidote to isolation. I start winding my way to neighbourhood wisdom and grandmas who hold rhythms of a life that has worked through the ages for their people. A confession, while I love sleeping in my own bed and my own room, I really like communal spaces and miss them with the same sense of loss as my Ma’s for ghost _siyal_. But the greatest gift I take from my childhood is trusting the night and nocturnal with the same courage as the day and diurnal. I learned to bring to the night an attentive observation. It has always responded with love. Best, Fulltime Hedgehog ## Outro **Further reading**. Explore the back catalogue of Debrief newsletters online for further writing around the world. **See more from Fulltime Hedgehog:** On her instagram or Linkedin. She also makes the Mahua Silent Zine Project, a community art project for children. **Help us do more**. The Debrief is free thanks to reader support. ## Acknowledgements I am grateful to Peter for wonderful conversations that made me feel so safe that my childhood came back to me in soft tones and colours. He has been kind with my thoughts as with my words while giving the piece the editorial flair it needs. I am grateful that I belong to this community of readers and creators, whose works I enjoy reading and learning from, and who support this work. It is amazing for me to realise that there are people who I probably share values and concerns with and we all show up for each other on and through this platform. I am grateful to all my family members, especially the women of my house, who have raised me along with a house full of cousins, and cared for us until we could share the care back and pay it forward. I am grateful to my neighbourhood that demonstrates a collectivistic way of being-which is not perfect or without flaw, but which does act on the impulse of living with difference. I am soul-grateful to all the creatures who continue to appear as presences in my life, to remind me to be less self conscious, fearful or obsessed. To my neighbourhood Neem Tree, who taught me how to be grateful, what can I say? I simply love her and hope she thrives and lives an enduring life.

disabilitydebrief.org

“An industry we cannot escape”

****In the picture.**** Aariana Rose Philip rolls up at the Met Gala, the first wheelchair user to do so in the Gala's history. New York, 4 May, 2026. Photo by Dia Dipasupil/MG26/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue. Dear Debriefers, Today we're on another tour of the world with a disability lens. We start at the Met Gala in New York. From there we go back to school and see the incentives that schools have _not_ to be inclusive in their mainstream provision. And, trying not to break our wheelchair on a US airline, we travel as far as Papua New Guinea. Plus, we see disability-gain in both journalism and for jousting parrots. **Explore the full guide of 108 hand-picked links:** curated across 31 countries or 40 subjects. This edition continues from the update in April. ## About this edition **The Debrief is published through a** pay-what-you-can**model.** Thanks to Áine, M., and Mark for new contributions. **Peter Torres Fremlin** is editor of Disability Debrief and is from the UK. Sign-up for a disability lens on world news Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. Weekly in your inbox ## “An industry we cannot escape” This year's Met Gala, sponsored by Jeff and Lauren Sánchez Bezos, included Aariana Rose Philip, a trans model and the first wheelchair user to star on its red carpet. Philip was one of several disabled people at the Gala. Alongside their participation, the Met's 2026 exhibition “Costume Art” includes a section on Disabled Body featuring artistic representations from the ancient to the contemporary, and custom-designed mannequins of disabled bodies. Inclusion of disabled people at the Gala and in the exhibition was supported by Tilting the Lens (friends of the Debrief). In Sinéad Burke's write-up of that work she shares how they found an accessible entrance to the Gala. The Gala is normally inside a tent stretching over two city blocks; extending it a further block allowed use of the Met's accessible entrance on the next street. Burke also explains why she works on fashion, and the tensions in it: > “I know that for some, fashion is frivolous, expensive, and harmful. It can be all of those things, and it is also an institution that shapes culture, society, and is an extraordinary art form. It has an urgent responsibility to do better for people and the planet, but it is also an industry that we cannot escape from. We all wear clothes.” And beyond these tensions, the visible and deliberate participation of disabled people in elite spaces naturally brings up tricky questions of who is co-opting who, and what message is sent by being at the “Bezos Ball”. What does “inclusion” mean in such an exclusive setting? Do disabled people benefit from the stage it gives, or does their presence serve as a virtuous cover for the interests of the rich and powerful? You tell me! Personally the impression I have is that the Gala's pop culture resonance gets far beyond the circumstances of the event itself (which, lest we forget, is fundraising for a public institution). It produced unforgettable images of people with physical disabilities turned out in the utmost glamour. ## Schools have an incentive not to meet disabled student's needs In Australia, data now shows that now 27% of Australian students are receiving an adjustment for disability at school. This is up from 18% in 2015, and the reasons for increase are explored by Linda J. Graham and Callula Killingly. One of the reasons is that schools get more funding if more intense needs are identified in a student. This ranges from from $4,000 USD for those with “supplementary” adjustments to $32,000 USD for those with “extensive” adjustments. As Graham and Killingly write: > “There is no incentive for schools to meet children’s needs through accessible quality universal teaching – in fact, there’s a perverse incentive not to. > > Meeting children’s needs at level 1 [where no additional financing is provided] currently means forgoing the additional funds that could be gained by providing adjustments later.” Meanwhile, in Bangladesh, money also speaks in inclusive education. S M Toibir Prosshod writes about exclusion from education: > ‘In Dhaka’s elite English-medium schools, disabled children access resource rooms, therapists and trained teachers. These schools charge 20,000-50,000 taka monthly [$163 to 407 USD], ten times what most families earn. For the poor, “inclusion” exists only in United Nations documents.’ ## Bridging policy and reality **“Bridging policy and reality”**. In Papua New Guinea an overview of challenges and opportunities on disability rights is given by the activist Jerry Hensen. The article was published last month, after he passed away in January: “Disability support in PNG today stands at a critical juncture.” **Young leaders.** In India, Young Leaders for Active Citizenship (YLAC) works with young people to become mobility champions: > “Last year, 40 Mobility Champions conducted 88 accessibility audits, surveyed 370 individuals, organised 8 empathy-building workshops with people with disabilities and mixed groups, reached 1,300 individuals through workshops and audits, and reached [160,000] cumulative online impressions and interactions.” **Lessons learned**. The Inclusive Futures development programme shares its lessons learned from work in six countries over eight years. Among them are the importance of working on stigma-reduction. And, as Mark Carew, Narayan Das and Stephen Thompson write, on transport access: > “Even within holistic, multi-level interventions that aim to both support individuals and address structural barriers to inclusion (e.g. inaccessible workplaces, negative attitudes), access to transport is often treated as peripheral or left unaddressed entirely.” ## “The biggest innovators and impact-makers” **New list**. Forbes has released its Accessibility 200 list, which “highlights the biggest innovators and impact-makers in accessibility”. See previously for more about the business model of Forbes lists. **Ranking US airlines.** Wheelchair Travel looks at the data on airlines handling assistive devices on domestic flights. In the rate of mishandled wheelchairs and scooters per 100, Delta airlines was the best performer at 0.43% and JetBlue Airways last place at 1.44%. **New leadership.** In Europe, the European Disability Forum (EDF) has elected its new governing bodies for the period 2026-2030. Along with wider renewal in the board, Gunta Anča was elected President. It was high time for new leadership, and before this election Yannis Vardakastanis had been President since EDF's founding in 1999. ## Inherent skillsets In the United States, Andrew Leland has written on why (and how) blind people produce audio. Independent journalist Jason Strother told Leland how his disability adds to his work: > “There are inherent skillsets that a visually impaired person has that can make them a better radio journalist. [...] When I’ve been out in the field covering a demonstration, for example, I can’t see what’s written on the signs, so I’ll ask a protester, ‘Hey, what’s written on your banner?’ [...] They don’t realize I’ve deputized them as my in-field guide,” Meanwhile, in terms of audio accessibility, check out Accessible Lines, a project that makes illustrations accessible through audio descriptions read by the artists, and enhanced with atmospheric sound production. Hatiye Garip introduces the project over on Illustration Research. I liked Circumcision Wedding by Uğur Altun. And in terms of accessible media, Laura Wissiak shares the history of sign language at the Eurovision Song Contest. ## “Bruce can't bite”: but finds disability-gain for fighting In New Zealand, Bruce is a kea with a broken beak (a kea is a type of parrot). Some years ago he became famous for how he used pebbles as an assistive technology to clean himself. Since then researchers have seen how his disability led him to a new way of fighting, and to the top of the pecking order. As described by the New York Times: > “Male keas typically bite one another around the neck. Bruce can’t bite; instead, he has learned to joust. He rushes his opponents and slams his lower beak into their bodies. > > Jousting proved a clever strategy. Bruce consistently won his fights, and the other males deferred to him. One perk of becoming the alpha male: Bruce got to visit the bird feeders first. > > [...] After enjoying a meal, Bruce permits lower-ranked males to preen his feathers and clean his bottom beak.” ## What if disabled people designed the world? In case you missed last month's Debriefs, check-out: * The Weight of the House We Built, Alberto Vásquez Encalada rethinking questions of representation in the disability movement. * Weathering the Storm: my piece on how the Debrief is sailing against strong winds impacting diversity and independent media. * Finding my armour in threads, Tanzila Khan's on fashion and identity as a wheelchair user in Pakistan. And for more from me, I recently joined a Tilting the Lens webinar asking What if Disabled People Designed the World? All best for your own adventures in disability news, and for the world you design. With my best beak forward, Peter ## Recent News This update has 108 curated links from 31 countries and regions, organized across 40 subjects. You can explore it organized by subject or by country. ### Subjects * Accessibility and Design * Assistive Technology * Civil Society and Community * Climate Crisis and Environment * Communication and Language * Conflict and Peace * Culture, Entertainment and Media * Data and Research * Digital Accessibility and Technology * Economics and Social Protection * Education and Childhood * Employment, Business and Work * Gender Equality and Women with Disabilities * Health * History and Memorial * Humanitarian, Migrants and Refugees * Independent Living and Deinstitutionalization * Indigenous People and Minority Communities * International Cooperation * Justice Systems and Legal Capacity * Lived Experience and Opinion * Mental Health * Mobility, Travel, Transport and Tourism * Policy and Rights * Politics and Elections * Relationships, Sex and Reproductive Rights * Space Exploration * Sport and Paralympics * Violence and Harassment ### Countries * Global * International News * Latin America and the Caribbean * Africa * Egypt * Nigeria * Sierra Leone * South Sudan * Asia * Bangladesh * India * Indonesia * Israel * Lebanon * Pakistan * South Korea * Taiwan * Vietnam * Europe * Europe * France * Greece * Hungary * Italy * Netherlands * Spain * Ukraine * United Kingdom * North America * Canada * Mexico * United States * Oceania * Australia * New Zealand * Papua New Guinea * South America * Brazil ## Outro **Explore Further.** All the links from these curated editions go into the Debrief library, which now has over 7,500 links from over 170 countries. **Let your friends know**. Sharing the newsletter is how people find it! **Connect**. Get in touch. You can find me on Linkedin and Bluesky. **Help us do more**. The Debrief is free thanks to reader support. ## Acknowledgements Photo by Dia Dipasupil/MG26/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue. Thanks to Celestine Fraser for help with its selection, and revision of an earlier draft. Many thanks to everyone who shares links, news and reports, and the readers and organisations whose support makes this work possible.

disabilitydebrief.org

Disability news, May 2026, by country

**Library > May 2026** _This page is organized by country, you can also see links organized by subject._ This update has 108 curated links from 31 countries and regions, organized across 40 subjects. ## Contents * Global * International News * Latin America and the Caribbean * Africa * Egypt * Nigeria * Sierra Leone * South Sudan * Asia * Bangladesh * India * Indonesia * Israel * Lebanon * Pakistan * South Korea * Taiwan * Vietnam * Europe * Europe * France * Greece * Hungary * Italy * Netherlands * Spain * Ukraine * United Kingdom * North America * Canada * Mexico * United States * Oceania * Australia * New Zealand * Papua New Guinea * South America * Brazil ## Resources ### Global #### International News **In Assistive Technology** : Robots can't replace guide dogs. “Man’s best friend shares an ‘invisible care world’ with humans that AI can’t beat—yet.” (Apr, Popular Science) **In Civil Society and Community** : The Weight of the House We Built. Rethinking representation of people with disabilities and the role of OPDs: > ‘The CRPD provided a framework for realising “nothing about us without us”, but in doing so it also shifted the emphasis towards identifying representative organisations. In practice, this shift has reduced the broader political principle to the technical question of “what counts as an OPD?”’ (May, Disability Debrief) **In Culture, Entertainment and Media** : Accessible Lines: Accessible illustrations in the voices of the illustrators. (Accessible Lines) See also an introduction of the project by Hatiye Garip, on Illustration Research. 'Code of Silence,' 'Pulse' and More Honored by Ruderman Family Foundation for Portrayals of Characters With Disabilities. (Apr, Variety) **In Data and Research** : Disability Identification Instruments in Low- and Lower-Middle-Income Countries: A Literature Review of Prevalence, Populations, and Characteristics. (Apr, Disabilities) Advancing Disability-Inclusive Participatory Research: Lessons, Challenges, and Future Directions: “Parents were motivated seeing me, a disabled person, interviewing them.” (IDS Bulletin) **In Digital Accessibility and Technology** : Accessibility fundamentals an introduction to accessibility. (Apr, Inklusivo) AAC, AI, and authenticity: “Should we be measuring authorship or agency?” (Apr, Beth Moulam) Robots can't replace guide dogs. “Man’s best friend shares an ‘invisible care world’ with humans that AI can’t beat—yet.” (Apr, Popular Science) **In Education and Childhood** : What Works: Learning from Inclusive Education Projects Across Five Countries. (IDS Bulletin) Is This Disability Justice? Hating and Wanting Hyflex. Discussion of hybrid events in academic settings. (Canadian Journal of Disability Studies) **In Employment, Business and Work** : 840,000 deaths a year linked to psychosocial risks at work, “such as long working hours, job insecurity, and workplace harassment”. (Apr, ILO) **In Health** : The autism spectrum isn’t a sliding scale: 39 traits show the complexity. (Mar) What is Required to Support the Implementation of Inclusive Health in Mainstream Programmes? (IDS Bulletin) **In Indigenous People and Minority Communities** : Review of Indigenous Disability Studies by John T Ward. (Canadian Journal of Disability Studies) **In International Cooperation** : Voices of strength: international civil servants share personal reflections on disability inclusion and their work. (April, newSpecial) What we have learnt about disability inclusive programming: Lessons from Inclusive Futures. (Mar, Inclusive Futures) Disability Stigma Reduction: Learnings From Disability-Inclusive Programming: > “The lack of a shared conceptualisation of stigma contributed to many Inclusive Futures projects not having stigma reduction as an explicit outcome and not being intentional in how they were going to reduce stigma through their interventions.” (IDS Bulletin) Lessons on Power and Partnership in Disability-Inclusive Safeguarding. (IDS Bulletin) Adapting Development Programmes or People with Disabilities with High Support Needs. (IDS Bulletin) People with Disabilities and Transport Access: Evidence from PENDA and Inclusive Futures: > “However, even within holistic, multi-level interventions that aim to both support individuals and address structural barriers to inclusion (e.g. inaccessible workplaces, negative attitudes), access to transport is often treated as peripheral or left unaddressed entirely.” (IDS Bulletin) **In Justice Systems and Legal Capacity** : Implementing the Right to Decide under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. A book on Supporting the Legal Capacity of All Persons with Disabilities by Janos Fiala-Butora. (2025, Bloomsbury) **In Policy and Rights** : CRPD Pulse: outcomes, highlights and new elements in recommendations from the 34th session of the CRPD Committee. (Apr, IDA) **In Politics and Elections** : ElectionPATHS. A platform with “transparent data about the accessibility features of election technology on the marketplace today.” (IFES) _Back tocontents._ #### Latin America and the Caribbean **In Mental Health** : Looking at madness from a rights perspective. (In Spanish, Apr, ElChasque) _Back tocontents._ ### Africa #### Egypt **In Gender Equality and Women with Disabilities** : In Search of Trans Identity and Community in Cairo: > “I firmly believe in the _becoming_ ; that through being perceived as disabled, we become just that. And I have witnessed, before my very eyes, the resilience wrought within us by virtue of being excluded … by being abnormally alone. By being different.” (Apr, Disability Culture Lab) _Back tocontents._ #### Nigeria **In Education and Childhood** : 'I was tortured and lost my hand' - one student's struggle to get an education in Nigeria. (Apr, BBC) _Back tocontents._ #### Sierra Leone **In Policy and Rights** : Positive Visibility: Demystifying Albinism in Sierra Leone: “Nobody can side-line you if you start by accepting and appreciating your state of being”. (Apr, International Journal of Disability and Social Justice) _Back tocontents._ #### South Sudan **In Sport and Paralympics** : From lockdown to Los Angeles: the rise and rise of South Sudan’s blind footballers. (Apr, The Telegraph) _Back tocontents._ ### Asia #### Bangladesh **In Economics and Social Protection** : Disability-Inclusive Budget 2026–27: > “Bangladesh currently runs 95 social security programmes, with only seven focused on persons with disabilities, and just two provide direct individual benefits. Although 35.31 lakh people receive support, including 1 lakh students, the overall allocation remains limited, only 0.52% of the national budget. The monthly allowances remain at Tk 900, significantly lower than the support in the neighbouring countries.” (May, The Daily Star) **In Education and Childhood** : The disability-poverty loop: school exclusion traps disabled workers: > ‘In Dhaka’s elite English-medium schools, disabled children access resource rooms, therapists and trained teachers. These schools charge 20,000-50,000 taka monthly, ten times what most families earn. For the poor, “inclusion” exists only in United Nations documents.’ (Apr, Development Policy Centre) _Back tocontents._ #### India **In Climate Crisis and Environment** : As Climate Threats Rise in Eastern India, Evacuations Still Fail Disabled People. (Apr, The Global Disability News Network) **In Economics and Social Protection** : Response to Union Budget 2026-27 Commitments Vs Expectation & Promises. (Mar, CIP) **In Mobility, Travel, Transport and Tourism** : How young leaders are advocating for more inclusive and accessible urban mobility in Indian cities: > “Last year, 40 Mobility Champions conducted 88 accessibility audits, surveyed 370 individuals, organised 8 empathy-building workshops with people with disabilities and mixed groups, reached 1,300 individuals through workshops and audits, and reached 1.6 lakh cumulative online impressions and interactions.” (Apr, Social Story) **In Policy and Rights** : Harish Rana: First Indian to be allowed 'passive euthanasia' dies. (Mar, BBC) _Back tocontents._ #### Indonesia **In Sport and Paralympics** : Indonesia targets 300 certified coaches for disability sports. (Apr, ANTARA News) _Back tocontents._ #### Israel **In Politics and Elections** : Naftali Bennett launches disability inclusion plan, pledges accessibility reforms if elected. (Apr, The Jerusalem Post) _Back tocontents._ #### Lebanon **In Conflict and Peace** : A War of Exclusion: Lebanon’s Displacement Crisis Hits People with Disabilities. (May, Humanity & Inclusion) _Back tocontents._ #### Pakistan **In Communication and Language** : AI-powered sign language alerts launched for deaf community. (Apr, The News) **In Culture, Entertainment and Media** : Finding my armour in threads. Fashion and identity as a wheelchair user in Pakistan: > “My disability made my body a unique canvas for fashion and styling. Through clothes I found new forms of inclusion and participation. And with a unique form of self-expression, I found my identity.” (May, Disability Debrief) _Back tocontents._ #### South Korea **In Civil Society and Community** : "Punish Sloppy Investigation" Disability Advocacy Group Holds Prostration Protest Over Late Director Kim Chang-min Case. (Apr, Seoul Economic Daily) Protests expose divide over disability care. With protests for and against provision of care in residential facilities. (Apr, The Korea Herald) SADD Protest Halts Seoul Traffic During Rush Hour, Officer Injured. (Apr, The Chosun Daily) _Back tocontents._ #### Taiwan **In Civil Society and Community** : Official apologizes for comment on disabled people. “A senior Ministry of Health and Welfare official has apologized for implying that people with disabilities should be excluded from public hearings to prevent them from slowing down the process, groups said yesterday.” (Apr, Taipei Times) _Back tocontents._ #### Vietnam **In Politics and Elections** : From beneficiaries to policymakers: Persons with disabilities seek a voice in Việt Nam’s legislature. (Mar, Viet Nam News) _Back tocontents._ ### Europe #### Europe **In Civil Society and Community** : Renewed leadership: meet our new governing bodies. (May, EDF) **In Communication and Language** : The History of Sign Language at the Eurovision Song Contest. (May, A11y News) **In Health** : Haemophilia Rights: The Half a Million Euro Question: > “A person with haemophilia whose treatment is switched without meaningful consent, whose clinician is constrained by tender outcomes, who has no say in decisions that directly affect their quality of life, is not living independently. They are subject to institutional discretion in exactly the way Independent Living principles exist to challenge. Haemophilia belongs on the disability spectrum not because of what it does to the body but because of what institutions do to the person living with it.” (Apr, ENIL) **In Humanitarian, Migrants and Refugees** : The EU Pact on Migration and Asylum Doesn’t Protect People with Disabilities: > “Among the gaps they identify are patterns of discrimination faced by persons with disabilities in detention and return procedures; inaccessibility and/or discrimination faced by many with disabilities to reception and screening procedures, and exclusion from social protection and risks of institutionalisation.” (Mar, HRRC) A Pact That Excludes: Closing the Protection Gap for Migrants and Asylum Seekers with Disabilities in the EU: > “From inaccessible reception systems and discriminatory migration requirements to exclusion from national social welfare schemes, discrimination within the migration and asylum frameworks continues to undermine the rights of migrants and asylum seekers with disabilities and restricts their full participation in society.” (Feb, EDF) **In Policy and Rights** : Update of EU Disability Rights Strategy lacks ambition to advance our rights: > “The Strategy focuses more on studies, preparatory work, and already foreseen actions than on adopting new legislative and funding initiatives.” (May, EDF) **In Sport and Paralympics** : A Europe-wide celebration of accessibility in football. (Apr, UEFA) _Back tocontents._ #### France **In Employment, Business and Work** : The Direct employment rate of people with disabilities in the civil service will exceed 6% by 2025. (Apr, fiphfp) _Back tocontents._ #### Greece **In History and Memorial** : Ancient Greece and Disability: A zine showing how: “disabled people were present across all levels of society, from soldiers, labourers, poets, seers, and even kings.” (Apr, DisabilityARK) A Dwarf Maiden on the Athenian Acropolis: Disability and Dedication in the Archaic Polis. (Feb, The Art Bulletin) _Back tocontents._ #### Hungary **In Politics and Elections** : System change has been promised to people with disabilities for 28 years, it's time for it to actually happen. (In Hungarian, Apr, Mérce) _Back tocontents._ #### Italy **In Civil Society and Community** : Francesca Sbianchi, the first female President of the Italian Disability Forum. (In Italian, Apr, Superando) _Back tocontents._ #### Netherlands **In Digital Accessibility and Technology** : 6 in 10 Dutch webshops inaccessible to users with disabilities: “In 61 percent of cases, ordering was entirely impossible, with assistive tools failing to function.” (Mar, NL Times) _Back tocontents._ #### Spain **In Policy and Rights** : Spanish woman to die by euthanasia after long legal battle with father. (Mar, BBC News) _Back tocontents._ #### Ukraine **In Economics and Social Protection** : For $25,000, she promised to issue a disability certificate, which would serve men of conscription age grounds for declaring them unfit for military service. (Apr, Prosecutor's Office) **In Sport and Paralympics** : Ukraine Wins First UEFA Grassroots Gold for War-Born Disability Initiative. (Apr, UNITED24 Media) _Back tocontents._ #### United Kingdom **In Assistive Technology** : This Designer Is Turning Assistive Devices Like Compression Gloves, Ostomy Bags Into Stylish Accessories. (Apr, Teen Vogue) **In Culture, Entertainment and Media** : This Designer Is Turning Assistive Devices Like Compression Gloves, Ostomy Bags Into Stylish Accessories. (Apr, Teen Vogue) **In Employment, Business and Work** : A Right to Try Work Must Come with the Support to Succeed: > “For many Disabled people, the greatest barrier to work is not the benefits system itself but whether the right support will be in place to make work possible and sustainable.” (Apr, Disability Rights UK) Government publishes response and “confirmed that it will proceed with mandatory ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting for large employers”. (Apr, Lexology) **In Gender Equality and Women with Disabilities** : EHRC Trans Guidance Disabled People and Adapted Toilets: “The new guidance on single sex toilets and trans people targets the trans community - and disabled people are becoming collateral damage in this cultural warfare.” (May, Jamie Hale) **In History and Memorial** : Graham Findlay obituary. ‘The idea of inclusive design was one of Graham’s main preoccupations, and he was a champion of disabled people becoming the “architects of their own lives”.’ (May, the Guardian) Piss On Pity: The Graphic Novel. “That gives a condensed history of the disability rights movement, from its original theory to its victory with the enshrinement of the Disability Discrimination Act” (Apr, NDMAC) **In Independent Living and Deinstitutionalization** : Book review of The Silence They Wrote for Me: A Black Disabled Woman’s Fight Against Institutional Erasure. (Mar, National Survivor User Network) **In Mobility, Travel, Transport and Tourism** : ‘People assume we’re grifters’: disabled Britons report rise in abuse over blue badges. (Apr, the Guardian) **In Relationships, Sex and Reproductive Rights** : From Sex To Ghosting, These Are The Realities Of Dating With A Disability. (2025, Elle) _Back tocontents._ ### North America #### Canada **In Civil Society and Community** : The R-word was taboo as a slur for people with disabilities. Now it's being normalized again. (Apr, CBC) **In Education and Childhood** : ”My Disability was Treated Like a Big Secret”: Disabled Perspectives on Anti-Ableist Discussion in Elementary and Secondary Classrooms in the United States. (Canadian Journal of Disability Studies) Student Perceptions on Academic Accommodations: Needs and Barriers for Support. (Canadian Journal of Disability Studies) **In Policy and Rights** : Ableism Entrenched: Inside the Pedagogical Politics of Canada’s MAiD Curriculum. (Canadian Journal of Disability Studies) _Back tocontents._ #### Mexico **In Sport and Paralympics** : With challenges and pending works, Electric Transport affirms: Light Rail will be 100% accessible for the World Cup. (In Spanish, Apr, Yo También) _Back tocontents._ #### United States **In Accessibility and Design** : How A Coalition Of Retail Giants Is Rewriting Accessibility Standards. (May, Forbes) How a blind man made it possible for others with low vision to build Lego sets. Profile of Matthew Shifrin, founder of Bricks for the Blind. (Apr, AP) The Access Coalition Releases Unprecedented Suite of Inclusive Design Resources to Transform Retail Spaces, including the inclusive spaces playbook. (Feb, AAPD) **In Assistive Technology** : A Definitive Ranking of Every Wheelchair I’ve Ever Owned. (May, Steve Way's Substack) **In Civil Society and Community** : Forbes' Accessibility List 2026: “highlights the biggest innovators and impact-makers in accessibility, from juggernauts like Microsoft to VC-seeking startups”. (May, Forbes) **In Communication and Language** : “My Deaf Kid Connected Me With a Whole Deaf Community”: A conversation with Will Fertman, author of The Deaf Baby Instruction Manual. (Apr, Switchbacks) **In Culture, Entertainment and Media** : The Met Gala's Inclusion of Disabled People Proves Fashion Can't Exist Without Body Diversity. (May, Teen Vogue) An Interview with Christine Sun Kim. “I realized that if I wanted to become an artist, I had to learn how to be with hearing people—like, really with them, not just next to them.” (Mar, Believer) Why (and How) to Hire a Blind Producer: > “There are inherent skillsets that a visually impaired person has that can make them a better radio journalist,” [Jason Strother told me] “When I’ve been out in the field covering a demonstration, for example, I can’t see what’s written on the signs, so I’ll ask a protester, ‘Hey, what’s written on your banner?’” It sounds better to have his sources read it than for Jason to repeat it back. “They don’t realize I’ve deputized them as my in-field guide,” (Apr, Transom) “Girls, I've Made It.” Aariana Rose Philip On Attending The 2026 Met Gala. (May, British Vogue) Tilting the Lens and the Met – a story of accessibility and representation in ‘Costume Art’. (May, Tilting the Lens) **In Economics and Social Protection** : Pasco County woman accused of hiding son’s disappearance to use his disability benefits: DOJ. (Apr, News Channel 8) **In Education and Childhood** : Helping Disabled College Students of Color Prepare for Life After Graduation. (Apr, Center for American Progress) **In Employment, Business and Work** : A hiring rule meant to help people with disabilities get federal jobs instead left them more vulnerable to DOGE mass firings. (Apr, Government Executive) **In Gender Equality and Women with Disabilities** : Queer and Trans Histories of Disability. (Apr, A journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies) **In History and Memorial** : Eleven Deaf Men Got Us To The Moon. That Talent Pool Is Still Untapped. (Apr, Forbes) In 1978, they stopped buses — and helped launch a disability rights movement. Civil disobedience in Denver. (Mar, NPR) The Disability History of Brown v. Board of Education: > “This Article concludes that the recognition of the disability history of a prominent civil rights case like _Brown_ adds important nuance to the story of desegregation.” (Feb, Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice) **In Independent Living and Deinstitutionalization** : Caregivers with Disabilities: “An estimated 36% of adult family caregivers in the U.S. are disabled themselves:” > “Caregivers with disabilities face the highest levels of housing insecurity, food insecurity, and transportation barriers. They are least likely to receive social and emotional support and report the highest levels of social isolation and loneliness. They experience high levels of multiple chronic conditions and report the greatest levels of stress, difficulty sleeping, poor mental health, and unmet healthcare needs.” (Apr, The Heller School) Trump’s Vision for the Homeless Is Already Here. “Forcing the most vulnerable among us into institutions only perpetuates their trauma. I know, because I’ve lived it.” (Apr, Progressive.org) **In Justice Systems and Legal Capacity** : Supreme Court Leaves Rulings on Executing the Intellectually Disabled in Place. “Alabama won’t be allowed to kill someone because of a single passing IQ test.” (May, Mother Jones) Mapping Disabled Justice: Empirical Research Towards a People-Centered Approach. (Global Perspectives on People-Centered Justice) **In Lived Experience and Opinion** : Oral History An excerpt from the new memoir _Mother Tongue_ , on deafness, parenting, and enduring communities. (Apr, Bomb) **In Mobility, Travel, Transport and Tourism** : A New Yorker Rediscovers Her City, in a Wheelchair. (Apr, NYT) Ranking: US Airlines Most Likely to Damage Wheelchairs. Delta airlines the best performer at 0.43% and JetBlue Airways last place at 1.44% in rate of mishandled wheelchairs and scooters per 100 enplaned. (Apr, Wheelchair Travel) **In Relationships, Sex and Reproductive Rights** : "It should have been my decision": A mixed methods investigation of contraceptive coercion among U.S. patients with and without disabilities. (Apr, Social Science & Medicine) **In Space Exploration** : Eleven Deaf Men Got Us To The Moon. That Talent Pool Is Still Untapped. (Apr, Forbes) **In Violence and Harassment** : Quadruple amputee and bean-bag-toss champion “facing a murder charge after he allegedly shot a man in his car during an argument.” (Mar, BBC) _Back tocontents._ ### Oceania #### Australia **In Education and Childhood** : 27% of Australian students now have an adjustment for disability at school: > “There is no incentive for schools to meet children’s needs through accessible quality universal teaching – in fact, there’s a perverse incentive not to.” (May, the Conversation) **In History and Memorial** : The sound of our cities: why the Australian pedestrian button belongs in our archives. (Apr, The Conversation) _Back tocontents._ #### New Zealand **In Assistive Technology** : How Bruce the Parrot Landed Atop the Pecking Order, Without a Beak: > “Male keas typically bite one another around the neck. Bruce can’t bite; instead, he has learned to joust. He rushes his opponents and slams his lower beak into their bodies.” (Apr, New York Times) **In Independent Living and Deinstitutionalization** : Eight patients in seclusion for more than 45,000 hours combined in one year: > “Five of the patients, who were in intellectual disability services, spent on average the equivalent of 283 days of the year in seclusion.” (Apr, RNZ News) **In Lived Experience and Opinion** : 'I was too scared... too angry': Journalist Sally Wenley revisits the school bus crash that changed her life about 40 years ago. (Apr, RNZ) _Back tocontents._ #### Papua New Guinea **In Policy and Rights** : Disability support in PNG: bridging policy and reality. (Apr, The National) _Back tocontents._ ### South America #### Brazil **In History and Memorial** : Luciana Novaes. “Quadriplegic after being shot at a university, she served three terms as a city councilor and was active in defending people with disabilities and victims of violence.” (In Portuguese, Apr, Globo) _Back tocontents._

disabilitydebrief.org

Disability news, May 2026, by subject

**Library > May 2026** _This page is organized by subject, you can also see links organized by country._ This update has 108 curated links from 31 countries and regions, organized across 40 subjects. # Contents * Accessibility and Design * Assistive Technology * Civil Society and Community * Climate Crisis and Environment * Communication and Language * Conflict and Peace * Culture, Entertainment and Media * Data and Research * Digital Accessibility and Technology * Economics and Social Protection * Education and Childhood * Employment, Business and Work * Gender Equality and Women with Disabilities * Health * History and Memorial * Humanitarian, Migrants and Refugees * Independent Living and Deinstitutionalization * Indigenous People and Minority Communities * International Cooperation * Justice Systems and Legal Capacity * Lived Experience and Opinion * Mental Health * Mobility, Travel, Transport and Tourism * Policy and Rights * Politics and Elections * Relationships, Sex and Reproductive Rights * Space Exploration * Sport and Paralympics * Violence and Harassment ## Accessibility and Design #### United States How A Coalition Of Retail Giants Is Rewriting Accessibility Standards. (May, Forbes) How a blind man made it possible for others with low vision to build Lego sets. Profile of Matthew Shifrin, founder of Bricks for the Blind. (Apr, AP) The Access Coalition Releases Unprecedented Suite of Inclusive Design Resources to Transform Retail Spaces, including the inclusive spaces playbook. (Feb, AAPD) _Back tocontents._ ## Assistive Technology #### International News Robots can't replace guide dogs. “Man’s best friend shares an ‘invisible care world’ with humans that AI can’t beat—yet.” (Apr, Popular Science) #### New Zealand How Bruce the Parrot Landed Atop the Pecking Order, Without a Beak: > “Male keas typically bite one another around the neck. Bruce can’t bite; instead, he has learned to joust. He rushes his opponents and slams his lower beak into their bodies.” (Apr, New York Times) #### United Kingdom This Designer Is Turning Assistive Devices Like Compression Gloves, Ostomy Bags Into Stylish Accessories. (Apr, Teen Vogue) #### United States A Definitive Ranking of Every Wheelchair I’ve Ever Owned. (May, Steve Way's Substack) _Back tocontents._ ## Civil Society and Community #### International News The Weight of the House We Built. Rethinking representation of people with disabilities and the role of OPDs: > ‘The CRPD provided a framework for realising “nothing about us without us”, but in doing so it also shifted the emphasis towards identifying representative organisations. In practice, this shift has reduced the broader political principle to the technical question of “what counts as an OPD?”’ (May, Disability Debrief) #### Canada The R-word was taboo as a slur for people with disabilities. Now it's being normalized again. (Apr, CBC) #### Europe Renewed leadership: meet our new governing bodies. (May, EDF) #### Italy Francesca Sbianchi, the first female President of the Italian Disability Forum. (In Italian, Apr, Superando) #### South Korea "Punish Sloppy Investigation" Disability Advocacy Group Holds Prostration Protest Over Late Director Kim Chang-min Case. (Apr, Seoul Economic Daily) Protests expose divide over disability care. With protests for and against provision of care in residential facilities. (Apr, The Korea Herald) SADD Protest Halts Seoul Traffic During Rush Hour, Officer Injured. (Apr, The Chosun Daily) #### Taiwan Official apologizes for comment on disabled people. “A senior Ministry of Health and Welfare official has apologized for implying that people with disabilities should be excluded from public hearings to prevent them from slowing down the process, groups said yesterday.” (Apr, Taipei Times) #### United States Forbes' Accessibility List 2026: “highlights the biggest innovators and impact-makers in accessibility, from juggernauts like Microsoft to VC-seeking startups”. (May, Forbes) _Back tocontents._ ## Climate Crisis and Environment #### India As Climate Threats Rise in Eastern India, Evacuations Still Fail Disabled People. (Apr, The Global Disability News Network) _Back tocontents._ ## Communication and Language ### Sign Languages #### Europe The History of Sign Language at the Eurovision Song Contest. (May, A11y News) #### Pakistan AI-powered sign language alerts launched for deaf community. (Apr, The News) #### United States “My Deaf Kid Connected Me With a Whole Deaf Community”: A conversation with Will Fertman, author of The Deaf Baby Instruction Manual. (Apr, Switchbacks) _Back tocontents._ ## Conflict and Peace #### Lebanon A War of Exclusion: Lebanon’s Displacement Crisis Hits People with Disabilities. (May, Humanity & Inclusion) _Back tocontents._ ## Culture, Entertainment and Media ### Overview #### International News Accessible Lines: Accessible illustrations in the voices of the illustrators. (Accessible Lines) See also an introduction of the project by Hatiye Garip, on Illustration Research. #### Pakistan Finding my armour in threads. Fashion and identity as a wheelchair user in Pakistan: > “My disability made my body a unique canvas for fashion and styling. Through clothes I found new forms of inclusion and participation. And with a unique form of self-expression, I found my identity.” (May, Disability Debrief) #### United States The Met Gala's Inclusion of Disabled People Proves Fashion Can't Exist Without Body Diversity. (May, Teen Vogue) An Interview with Christine Sun Kim. “I realized that if I wanted to become an artist, I had to learn how to be with hearing people—like, really with them, not just next to them.” (Mar, Believer) ### TV and Film #### International News 'Code of Silence,' 'Pulse' and More Honored by Ruderman Family Foundation for Portrayals of Characters With Disabilities. (Apr, Variety) ### Media #### United States Why (and How) to Hire a Blind Producer: > “There are inherent skillsets that a visually impaired person has that can make them a better radio journalist,” [Jason Strother told me] “When I’ve been out in the field covering a demonstration, for example, I can’t see what’s written on the signs, so I’ll ask a protester, ‘Hey, what’s written on your banner?’” It sounds better to have his sources read it than for Jason to repeat it back. “They don’t realize I’ve deputized them as my in-field guide,” (Apr, Transom) ### Clothing and Fashion #### United Kingdom This Designer Is Turning Assistive Devices Like Compression Gloves, Ostomy Bags Into Stylish Accessories. (Apr, Teen Vogue) #### United States “Girls, I've Made It.” Aariana Rose Philip On Attending The 2026 Met Gala. (May, British Vogue) Tilting the Lens and the Met – a story of accessibility and representation in ‘Costume Art’. (May, Tilting the Lens) _Back tocontents._ ## Data and Research ### Overview #### International News Disability Identification Instruments in Low- and Lower-Middle-Income Countries: A Literature Review of Prevalence, Populations, and Characteristics. (Apr, Disabilities) ### Research #### International News Advancing Disability-Inclusive Participatory Research: Lessons, Challenges, and Future Directions: “Parents were motivated seeing me, a disabled person, interviewing them.” (IDS Bulletin) _Back tocontents._ ## Digital Accessibility and Technology ### Overview #### International News Accessibility fundamentals an introduction to accessibility. (Apr, Inklusivo) ### Artificial Intelligence #### International News AAC, AI, and authenticity: “Should we be measuring authorship or agency?” (Apr, Beth Moulam) Robots can't replace guide dogs. “Man’s best friend shares an ‘invisible care world’ with humans that AI can’t beat—yet.” (Apr, Popular Science) ### Online Accessibility #### Netherlands 6 in 10 Dutch webshops inaccessible to users with disabilities: “In 61 percent of cases, ordering was entirely impossible, with assistive tools failing to function.” (Mar, NL Times) _Back tocontents._ ## Economics and Social Protection ### Financial Inclusion #### Bangladesh Disability-Inclusive Budget 2026–27: > “Bangladesh currently runs 95 social security programmes, with only seven focused on persons with disabilities, and just two provide direct individual benefits. Although 35.31 lakh people receive support, including 1 lakh students, the overall allocation remains limited, only 0.52% of the national budget. The monthly allowances remain at Tk 900, significantly lower than the support in the neighbouring countries.” (May, The Daily Star) #### India Response to Union Budget 2026-27 Commitments Vs Expectation & Promises. (Mar, CIP) ### Social Protection #### Ukraine For $25,000, she promised to issue a disability certificate, which would serve men of conscription age grounds for declaring them unfit for military service. (Apr, Prosecutor's Office) #### United States Pasco County woman accused of hiding son’s disappearance to use his disability benefits: DOJ. (Apr, News Channel 8) _Back tocontents._ ## Education and Childhood ### Overview #### International News What Works: Learning from Inclusive Education Projects Across Five Countries. (IDS Bulletin) #### Australia 27% of Australian students now have an adjustment for disability at school: > “There is no incentive for schools to meet children’s needs through accessible quality universal teaching – in fact, there’s a perverse incentive not to.” (May, the Conversation) #### Bangladesh The disability-poverty loop: school exclusion traps disabled workers: > ‘In Dhaka’s elite English-medium schools, disabled children access resource rooms, therapists and trained teachers. These schools charge 20,000-50,000 taka monthly, ten times what most families earn. For the poor, “inclusion” exists only in United Nations documents.’ (Apr, Development Policy Centre) #### Canada ”My Disability was Treated Like a Big Secret”: Disabled Perspectives on Anti-Ableist Discussion in Elementary and Secondary Classrooms in the United States. (Canadian Journal of Disability Studies) #### Nigeria 'I was tortured and lost my hand' - one student's struggle to get an education in Nigeria. (Apr, BBC) ### Higher Education #### International News Is This Disability Justice? Hating and Wanting Hyflex. Discussion of hybrid events in academic settings. (Canadian Journal of Disability Studies) #### Canada Student Perceptions on Academic Accommodations: Needs and Barriers for Support. (Canadian Journal of Disability Studies) #### United States Helping Disabled College Students of Color Prepare for Life After Graduation. (Apr, Center for American Progress) _Back tocontents._ ## Employment, Business and Work #### International News 840,000 deaths a year linked to psychosocial risks at work, “such as long working hours, job insecurity, and workplace harassment”. (Apr, ILO) #### France The Direct employment rate of people with disabilities in the civil service will exceed 6% by 2025. (Apr, fiphfp) #### United Kingdom A Right to Try Work Must Come with the Support to Succeed: > “For many Disabled people, the greatest barrier to work is not the benefits system itself but whether the right support will be in place to make work possible and sustainable.” (Apr, Disability Rights UK) Government publishes response and “confirmed that it will proceed with mandatory ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting for large employers”. (Apr, Lexology) #### United States A hiring rule meant to help people with disabilities get federal jobs instead left them more vulnerable to DOGE mass firings. (Apr, Government Executive) _Back tocontents._ ## Gender Equality and Women with Disabilities #### Egypt In Search of Trans Identity and Community in Cairo: > “I firmly believe in the _becoming_ ; that through being perceived as disabled, we become just that. And I have witnessed, before my very eyes, the resilience wrought within us by virtue of being excluded … by being abnormally alone. By being different.” (Apr, Disability Culture Lab) #### United Kingdom EHRC Trans Guidance Disabled People and Adapted Toilets: “The new guidance on single sex toilets and trans people targets the trans community - and disabled people are becoming collateral damage in this cultural warfare.” (May, Jamie Hale) #### United States Queer and Trans Histories of Disability. (Apr, A journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies) _Back tocontents._ ## Health #### International News The autism spectrum isn’t a sliding scale: 39 traits show the complexity. (Mar) What is Required to Support the Implementation of Inclusive Health in Mainstream Programmes? (IDS Bulletin) #### Europe Haemophilia Rights: The Half a Million Euro Question: > “A person with haemophilia whose treatment is switched without meaningful consent, whose clinician is constrained by tender outcomes, who has no say in decisions that directly affect their quality of life, is not living independently. They are subject to institutional discretion in exactly the way Independent Living principles exist to challenge. Haemophilia belongs on the disability spectrum not because of what it does to the body but because of what institutions do to the person living with it.” (Apr, ENIL) _Back tocontents._ ## History and Memorial #### Australia The sound of our cities: why the Australian pedestrian button belongs in our archives. (Apr, The Conversation) #### Brazil Luciana Novaes. “Quadriplegic after being shot at a university, she served three terms as a city councilor and was active in defending people with disabilities and victims of violence.” (In Portuguese, Apr, Globo) #### Greece Ancient Greece and Disability: A zine showing how: “disabled people were present across all levels of society, from soldiers, labourers, poets, seers, and even kings.” (Apr, DisabilityARK) A Dwarf Maiden on the Athenian Acropolis: Disability and Dedication in the Archaic Polis. (Feb, The Art Bulletin) #### United Kingdom Graham Findlay obituary. ‘The idea of inclusive design was one of Graham’s main preoccupations, and he was a champion of disabled people becoming the “architects of their own lives”.’ (May, the Guardian) Piss On Pity: The Graphic Novel. “That gives a condensed history of the disability rights movement, from its original theory to its victory with the enshrinement of the Disability Discrimination Act” (Apr, NDMAC) #### United States Eleven Deaf Men Got Us To The Moon. That Talent Pool Is Still Untapped. (Apr, Forbes) In 1978, they stopped buses — and helped launch a disability rights movement. Civil disobedience in Denver. (Mar, NPR) The Disability History of Brown v. Board of Education: > “This Article concludes that the recognition of the disability history of a prominent civil rights case like _Brown_ adds important nuance to the story of desegregation.” (Feb, Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice) _Back tocontents._ ## Humanitarian, Migrants and Refugees ### Migration #### Europe The EU Pact on Migration and Asylum Doesn’t Protect People with Disabilities: > “Among the gaps they identify are patterns of discrimination faced by persons with disabilities in detention and return procedures; inaccessibility and/or discrimination faced by many with disabilities to reception and screening procedures, and exclusion from social protection and risks of institutionalisation.” (Mar, HRRC) A Pact That Excludes: Closing the Protection Gap for Migrants and Asylum Seekers with Disabilities in the EU: > “From inaccessible reception systems and discriminatory migration requirements to exclusion from national social welfare schemes, discrimination within the migration and asylum frameworks continues to undermine the rights of migrants and asylum seekers with disabilities and restricts their full participation in society.” (Feb, EDF) _Back tocontents._ ## Independent Living and Deinstitutionalization ### Overview #### United States Caregivers with Disabilities: “An estimated 36% of adult family caregivers in the U.S. are disabled themselves:” > “Caregivers with disabilities face the highest levels of housing insecurity, food insecurity, and transportation barriers. They are least likely to receive social and emotional support and report the highest levels of social isolation and loneliness. They experience high levels of multiple chronic conditions and report the greatest levels of stress, difficulty sleeping, poor mental health, and unmet healthcare needs.” (Apr, The Heller School) ### Conditions in Institutions #### New Zealand Eight patients in seclusion for more than 45,000 hours combined in one year: > “Five of the patients, who were in intellectual disability services, spent on average the equivalent of 283 days of the year in seclusion.” (Apr, RNZ News) #### United Kingdom Book review of The Silence They Wrote for Me: A Black Disabled Woman’s Fight Against Institutional Erasure. (Mar, National Survivor User Network) #### United States Trump’s Vision for the Homeless Is Already Here. “Forcing the most vulnerable among us into institutions only perpetuates their trauma. I know, because I’ve lived it.” (Apr, Progressive.org) _Back tocontents._ ## Indigenous People and Minority Communities #### International News Review of Indigenous Disability Studies by John T Ward. (Canadian Journal of Disability Studies) _Back tocontents._ ## International Cooperation #### International News Voices of strength: international civil servants share personal reflections on disability inclusion and their work. (April, newSpecial) What we have learnt about disability inclusive programming: Lessons from Inclusive Futures. (Mar, Inclusive Futures) Disability Stigma Reduction: Learnings From Disability-Inclusive Programming: > “The lack of a shared conceptualisation of stigma contributed to many Inclusive Futures projects not having stigma reduction as an explicit outcome and not being intentional in how they were going to reduce stigma through their interventions.” (IDS Bulletin) Lessons on Power and Partnership in Disability-Inclusive Safeguarding. (IDS Bulletin) Adapting Development Programmes or People with Disabilities with High Support Needs. (IDS Bulletin) People with Disabilities and Transport Access: Evidence from PENDA and Inclusive Futures: > “However, even within holistic, multi-level interventions that aim to both support individuals and address structural barriers to inclusion (e.g. inaccessible workplaces, negative attitudes), access to transport is often treated as peripheral or left unaddressed entirely.” (IDS Bulletin) _Back tocontents._ ## Justice Systems and Legal Capacity #### International News Implementing the Right to Decide under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. A book on Supporting the Legal Capacity of All Persons with Disabilities by Janos Fiala-Butora. (2025, Bloomsbury) #### United States Supreme Court Leaves Rulings on Executing the Intellectually Disabled in Place. “Alabama won’t be allowed to kill someone because of a single passing IQ test.” (May, Mother Jones) Mapping Disabled Justice: Empirical Research Towards a People-Centered Approach. (Global Perspectives on People-Centered Justice) _Back tocontents._ ## Lived Experience and Opinion #### New Zealand 'I was too scared... too angry': Journalist Sally Wenley revisits the school bus crash that changed her life about 40 years ago. (Apr, RNZ) #### United States Oral History An excerpt from the new memoir _Mother Tongue_ , on deafness, parenting, and enduring communities. (Apr, Bomb) _Back tocontents._ ## Mental Health #### Latin America and the Caribbean Looking at madness from a rights perspective. (In Spanish, Apr, ElChasque) _Back tocontents._ ## Mobility, Travel, Transport and Tourism ### Overview #### India How young leaders are advocating for more inclusive and accessible urban mobility in Indian cities: > “Last year, 40 Mobility Champions conducted 88 accessibility audits, surveyed 370 individuals, organised 8 empathy-building workshops with people with disabilities and mixed groups, reached 1,300 individuals through workshops and audits, and reached 1.6 lakh cumulative online impressions and interactions.” (Apr, Social Story) #### United Kingdom ‘People assume we’re grifters’: disabled Britons report rise in abuse over blue badges. (Apr, the Guardian) #### United States A New Yorker Rediscovers Her City, in a Wheelchair. (Apr, NYT) ### Air Travel #### United States Ranking: US Airlines Most Likely to Damage Wheelchairs. Delta airlines the best performer at 0.43% and JetBlue Airways last place at 1.44% in rate of mishandled wheelchairs and scooters per 100 enplaned. (Apr, Wheelchair Travel) _Back tocontents._ ## Policy and Rights ### Overview #### International News CRPD Pulse: outcomes, highlights and new elements in recommendations from the 34th session of the CRPD Committee. (Apr, IDA) #### Europe Update of EU Disability Rights Strategy lacks ambition to advance our rights: > “The Strategy focuses more on studies, preparatory work, and already foreseen actions than on adopting new legislative and funding initiatives.” (May, EDF) #### Papua New Guinea Disability support in PNG: bridging policy and reality. (Apr, The National) #### Sierra Leone Positive Visibility: Demystifying Albinism in Sierra Leone: “Nobody can side-line you if you start by accepting and appreciating your state of being”. (Apr, International Journal of Disability and Social Justice) ### Assisted Dying and Euthanasia #### Canada Ableism Entrenched: Inside the Pedagogical Politics of Canada’s MAiD Curriculum. (Canadian Journal of Disability Studies) #### India Harish Rana: First Indian to be allowed 'passive euthanasia' dies. (Mar, BBC) #### Spain Spanish woman to die by euthanasia after long legal battle with father. (Mar, BBC News) _Back tocontents._ ## Politics and Elections #### International News ElectionPATHS. A platform with “transparent data about the accessibility features of election technology on the marketplace today.” (IFES) #### Hungary System change has been promised to people with disabilities for 28 years, it's time for it to actually happen. (In Hungarian, Apr, Mérce) #### Israel Naftali Bennett launches disability inclusion plan, pledges accessibility reforms if elected. (Apr, The Jerusalem Post) #### Vietnam From beneficiaries to policymakers: Persons with disabilities seek a voice in Việt Nam’s legislature. (Mar, Viet Nam News) _Back tocontents._ ## Relationships, Sex and Reproductive Rights #### United Kingdom From Sex To Ghosting, These Are The Realities Of Dating With A Disability. (2025, Elle) #### United States "It should have been my decision": A mixed methods investigation of contraceptive coercion among U.S. patients with and without disabilities. (Apr, Social Science & Medicine) _Back tocontents._ ## Space Exploration #### United States Eleven Deaf Men Got Us To The Moon. That Talent Pool Is Still Untapped. (Apr, Forbes) _Back tocontents._ ## Sport and Paralympics #### Europe A Europe-wide celebration of accessibility in football. (Apr, UEFA) #### Indonesia Indonesia targets 300 certified coaches for disability sports. (Apr, ANTARA News) #### Mexico With challenges and pending works, Electric Transport affirms: Light Rail will be 100% accessible for the World Cup. (In Spanish, Apr, Yo También) #### South Sudan From lockdown to Los Angeles: the rise and rise of South Sudan’s blind footballers. (Apr, The Telegraph) #### Ukraine Ukraine Wins First UEFA Grassroots Gold for War-Born Disability Initiative. (Apr, UNITED24 Media) _Back tocontents._ ## Violence and Harassment #### United States Quadruple amputee and bean-bag-toss champion “facing a murder charge after he allegedly shot a man in his car during an argument.” (Mar, BBC) _Back tocontents._

disabilitydebrief.org

The Weight of the House We Built

“The Weight of the House we Built”, by Kinanty Andini Dear Debriefers, For decades, the disability movement has largely organised around the idea that representative Organisations of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs) should be the primary vehicle for change. I’ve spent much of my career defending and strengthening that model. I’ve advocated for consultation mandates in the law, helped draft guidance to operationalise it, and worked to ensure that states and international actors recognise and engage with representative OPDs. I believed – and still believe – that Mad and disabled people must shape decisions that affect our lives. But I’m no longer convinced that the architecture we built around that principle is working. I wonder if we have mistaken the structure for the movement, the house for the home. OPDs are the house meant to hold our politics. The people make up the home: the relationships, the urgency, the anger, the imagination. The house exists to serve the home, never the other way around. When preserving the house becomes the priority, we risk losing the life inside. People grow restless, or quietly move elsewhere. This is not an argument against OPDs. It is an attempt to ask whether the way we center them still serves the movement they were meant to strengthen. ## About this edition **Alberto Vásquez Encalada** is a Mad/disability activist based in Switzerland. **Kinanty Andini** is an illustrator and digital artist from Indonesia. **The Debrief needs help to** weather the storm **faced by independent media and disability rights initiatives.** Thanks for new contributions to Annie, Alison, Amy, Bernd, C., Christine, Claire, E, Freddy, Katherine, Michael, Mostafa, Philippa, Shirin and Wendy, Sign-up for a disability lens on world news Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. Weekly in your inbox ## The need to come together One of the most meaningful experiences of my activist life has been being part of RedEsfera, a network of Mad and neurodivergent activists across Latin America. It gave me space to belong, think, and build with peers. At the core, this is why organisations of persons with disabilities exist. OPDs emerged from a long history of being spoken about by others – families, institutions, professionals, and decision-makers – and from disabled people’s need to come together, support one another, and act collectively. Around the world, OPDs have been essential to advancing rights, shaping policy, and responding to moments of crisis. They helped assert disability as an identity rather than an individual tragedy and gave form to a demand that has long powered our movement: _nothing about us without us_. With the adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), the role of “representative organisations” was formalised, embedding OPDs at the centre of national and international consultation frameworks.**** ## What counts as an OPD is less clear than it seems Saying what OPDs do is easier than defining what they are. OPDs are commonly understood as organisations led, directed, and run by persons with disabilities. This distinction reflects a political demand: that those excluded from decision-making should shape the decisions that affect their lives. But leadership and governance structures take many forms. Formal arrangements say little about how decisions are made, how priorities are set, or how accountability is practised. I co-founded Mad Thinking with another Mad activist, but initiatives like ours might not be classified as an OPD. Yet some organisations recognised as OPDs may be run by non-disabled staff or operate with minimal engagement from a broader base. Even the question of who counts as “disabled” is not straightforward. These boundaries shift, making it less clear which organisations are considered “of persons with disabilities.” For example, organisations of people living with cancer or other health conditions might not be recognised, or see themselves, as OPDs. ## Representation through membership An additional, sometimes implicit, part of the definition of OPDs is that they are membership organisations. Having members makes them representative, which in turn confers the authority to speak. A broader membership is meant to bring a wider range of experiences, making it more likely that organisational positions resonate beyond those directly involved. In that sense, membership could better reflect the diversity of the disability community. It should also help keep priorities and decisions accountable to lived experience. The legitimacy of OPDs comes from these assumptions. But a problem arises when membership is treated simply as a metric, where legitimacy comes from member numbers and from how well organisations can tick the boxes of representation. ## A widening distance from the people represented In most contexts, OPDs are organised into layers, built on top of one another. Local organisations are part of national federations, which are themselves part of regional bodies and, in turn, members of global organisations. These layers are meant to connect different parts of the movement, bringing together diverse groups and experiences into a broader collective voice. But as layers accumulate, the distance between decision-making spaces and the people supposedly represented widens. Power concentrates at the top, while the broad base is rarely consulted, leaving a small group of leaders to speak for many. Leadership turnover is minimal, with the same individuals in their roles for years, sometimes decades. As ties to a social base weaken, accountability increasingly flows upwards, towards donors, states, and international organisations. Organising adapts to their timelines and priorities. As I’ve written before, professionalisation and gatekeeping progressively replace grassroots politics. Stability becomes an end in itself, and dissent is managed in the name of unity. This isn’t unique to disability. Across movements, organising tends to narrow as it moves upwards, driven by the demands of institutions, funding structures, and access to power. In the disability field, it just feels more entrenched. Sometimes our organisations end up speaking more _about_ those they represent than _with_ them. ## The pressure to appear representative OPDs compete for recognition, access, and resources in a system that rewards those who can claim to speak for the broadest possible constituency. Donors, partners, and institutions begin to ask whether they include people from rural areas, specific impairment groups, or those at the intersection of different constituencies. The pressure to fill these gaps incentivises shortcuts, as organisations seek to demonstrate representativeness. In some cases, local or smaller OPDs are brought in to fill these gaps without meaningful engagement. They may be invited to join coalitions or processes in a superficial way, echoing the tokenistic inclusion that OPDs often criticise in other actors. In recent years, this has been evident in efforts to include young people with disabilities. Youth sections in OPDs remain tightly controlled and have limited decision-making power or resources. In other cases, external expectations can lead to the artificial formation of new organisations aimed at filling constituency gaps. This can happen alongside, or even in competition with, existing groups already doing the same work. The resulting organisation may be formed largely on paper, with little social base or political life beyond that. Rather than building power from below, some OPDs are more preoccupied with appearing representative to those looking down from above. ## When people opt out This kind of hierarchical, hollowed-out participation drains time, energy, and political imagination. And it puts many of us off. More and more, disabled people, particularly younger activists, opt out. They do not recognise themselves in these structures and do not see them as effective means of bringing about change. In the space that opens up, other forms of organising emerge: informal networks, small collectives, mutual aid groups, start-ups, and individual activists whose reach is amplified by social media. Much of the more innovative and transformative work today comes from these actors at the edges of traditional OPD structures. While the OPD architecture remains in place, the politics it was meant to enable are shifting elsewhere. Layered organising itself is not the problem. Most political movements rely on it to coordinate action and share resources. The problem is that, in much of the disability sector, layering has hardened into a means of aggregating numbers, managing access, and presenting a single, stable voice to states, donors, and international institutions. ## Claiming to represent people with disabilities as a whole Across contexts, from national to international levels, federated and umbrella bodies tend to present themselves as representing the entire disability population. The scale implied by this claim far exceeds the size of organised participation. Even where organisations play an important advocacy role, many are sustained by a small number of overextended leaders working across multiple organisations. It is difficult to think of many other movements in which a single organisation claims to represent an entire population in this way. The reach of OPDs was tested by Morgon Banks and others in a population-based study across several low- and middle-income countries. They found that membership among people with disabilities ranged from 3.5% to 14% across settings. And, given the variation in how “organisations for persons with disabilities” are understood, these figures likely overestimate the number who participate in member-led, representative organisations. ## Does representation have to work this way? Disability organising inherited forms designed for a different political moment: trade unions, veterans’ associations, and welfare-era mass organisations. These models were built for negotiation with states and employers through formal systems of representation – for a politics structured around recognition, redistribution, and institutional bargaining. Other movements emerged from similar roots but followed different trajectories. Women’s movements, for example, have built power through a wide range of strategies: grassroots organising, cultural production, protest, and informal networks, often alongside more institutional, representative structures. Their influence has commonly stemmed from shaping the broader social base rather than speaking through a single organisational voice. The disability movement has largely remained within federated, representative architectures. Some worry that if we loosen the hold of representation, then space is created for non-disabled people to speak on behalf, through large NGOs or other professionalised actors. But these actors already hold considerable power within the system as it stands today, sometimes through their relationships with OPDs. The formal structures of representation did not keep them out. ## Pressure for a unified voice Disability is a very diverse constituency, shaped by intersecting forms of oppression. Yet our dominant organisational model pulls in the opposite direction, seeking to reduce this diversity to a single, coherent voice. Perhaps the problem is that the broader political and institutional context demands an unrealistic form of representation. The disability movement often seeks to have an impact in institutional contexts where “unity”, formal structure, and simplified representation are rewarded. These dynamics are particularly visible within international systems, including the UN and other multilateral spaces. Consultation frameworks privilege identifiable counterparts, and donor systems favour entities that can demonstrate scale, hierarchy, and stability. These incentives shape how organising is imagined. There is an old Soviet joke about work culture: “They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work.” At times, a similar dynamic can be seen here: states and international actors pretend to consult OPDs, and OPDs pretend to represent all people with disabilities. ## Who belongs to the disability movement?**** While working on this piece, I recalled times when I’ve heard someone or an organisation described as “not part of the movement.” I’ve heard versions of this said about grassroots groups, loose networks, informal collectives, or individuals who advocate on their own – those who don’t fit neatly into established structures of the “disability movement”. If I’m honest, I’ve said it too. Not long ago, in a strategic discussion with activists, funders, and allies, I told someone from a donor intermediary organisation exactly that: I wasn’t sure they were really part of “the movement.” I tell myself that I’m trying to protect space or signal where power should sit. Maybe I was. But I can’t ignore the possibility that my comment stems from the same instinct – the urge to define the movement by how well people fit the OPD mould.**** ## Overlapping struggles and many movements The large house we have built – with many floors, formal entrances, and carefully maintained facades – cannot substitute for the life that animates it. A structure may endure even when some of its rooms sit empty. A movement cannot. In fact, there isn’t a single movement at all, but many. What we commonly describe as a unified front may be better understood as overlapping struggles, organising in different ways and different conditions. Some operate within institutions and under formal mandates. Others move across networks, communities, and digital spaces, less visible yet often more agile. The spaces that feel most alive to me – grassroots collectives, disability justice groups, Mad and neurodivergent networks, and transnational feminist organising spaces – are rarely the ones that speak for “the movement” in official settings. However, those spaces are often where new language takes shape, solidarity is built in practice, and different futures are imagined. They move faster, take risks, and experiment. Their work can be uneven and sometimes fragile, as they operate with fewer resources and without guaranteed recognition. But they are alive. ## Moving from a pyramid to an ecosystem What if the focus was less on representing everyone and more on connection? The dominant model imagines movements as pyramids. An ecosystem works differently. It has no single centre and no final summit. Different forms of organising play distinct roles: providing continuity, convening, enabling others, engaging with institutions, or generating disruption. Some are visible and recognised, while others operate quietly. No single actor can carry this alone. A networked approach would loosen the grip of single structures or voices. OPDs, collectives, NGOs, peer groups, and informal initiatives can coexist without being ranked in a hierarchy of authenticity. It would also create more space for flexible and localised forms of organising. In truth, disability movements already contain this plurality. Federations, collectives, networks, informal groups, and individual organisers interact in complex ways. The problem is not diversity, it is imbalance – the tendency of one organisational form to stand in for the whole, and the exclusion of forms that don’t align neatly with those claiming authority. In a healthier ecosystem, solidarity would replace representation as the organising principle: people act with and for one another, rather than speaking on others’ behalf. Accountability comes from trust, shared risk, and responsiveness to one another, instead of membership lists or formal mandates. This is not a quick fix. Ecosystems are not designed overnight; they are cultivated over years with care and attention.**** ## A claim about power “Nothing about us without us” has always been a claim about power, not about a particular organisational structure. It is a demand that Mad and disabled people shape the decisions that affect our lives. That no policy, programme, or decision about us be made without our direct engagement. And that we refuse to be spoken for. The CRPD provided a framework for realising “nothing about us without us”, but in doing so it also shifted the emphasis towards identifying representative organisations. In practice, this shift has reduced the broader political principle to the technical question of “what counts as an OPD?” Of course I believe that OPDs are still vitally important. We need spaces where disabled people can come together and organise. But I don’t think the future of disability politics can rest on our current structures alone. At least not without fundamentally reimagining them. ## Rebuilding through everyday choices It might be rare to share doubts about OPDs so publicly, but many have been grappling with these concerns for a while. I don’t think the answers are simple, but perhaps we can begin to shape our organising through everyday choices: * Who am I accountable to? * Do I question where power lies in my own spaces and how it is used? * Do I use my position to create space for those often left out? * Do I build relationships across groups, or do I ask them to come together under a single banner or to support a pre-set agenda? * Who do I offer solidarity to? We built our movements with the tools available to us, on foundations laid long before us. They gave us shelter and enabled us to be recognised, to build power, and to gain rights. But movements are not monuments. They are living things. If our structures have grown rigid, we need to take down a few walls. Rebuilding is not decline. It is how movements endure. In solidarity, Alberto ## Outro **See Alberto's previous pieces on the Debrief** : exploring the risks posed to the disability movement by gatekeeping and by professionalisation. **And find Alberto** at Mad Thinking or find on Linkedin. **For more from Kinanty,** see her website. **Have your say**. Share your view with Peter or in the comments below. **Help us do more**. The Debrief is free thanks to reader support. ## Acknowledgements Many thanks to Victoria, Akriti, and Akwe for reviewing different iterations of this piece and for their thoughtful suggestions. Thanks also to Kinanty Andini for the illustration that accompanies this piece, and to the readers and organisations that support the Debrief and make this work possible. Finally, to Peter Torres Fremlin, for thoroughly editing this piece, shaping it, and trimming it with care.

disabilitydebrief.org

Weathering the storm

“Weathering the Storm”, by Kinanty Andini Dear Debriefers, The last year has been tough for making an independent media project on international disability rights. There are severe funding cuts on disability work, a rising backlash against diversity issues, and it's steadily harder to get attention online. But, thanks to the support and generosity of its readers, the Debrief continued to grow. Week-in-week out we published global coverage of disability news, original stories told by disabled people in our own words, and an honest and independent view on the international disability movement. Yet the storms continue to build. I need your help to carry on this work with writers and illustrators from around the world, and to build the ship that allows us to chart our own way. ## Help support the Debrief If you can, please join those supporting Disability Debrief financially: * One-off support of any amount. * Subscribing, monthly at £5, £10 or £20, or annually at a discount. You can also help by sharing this post. To see details of how this support is used, see the annual review and the accounts for past twelve months. ## About this edition **Peter Torres Fremlin** is editor of Disability Debrief and is from the UK. **Kinanty Andini** is an illustrator and digital artist from Indonesia. Sign-up for a disability lens on world news Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. Weekly in your inbox ## Picking up sail It's now over six years since I sent the first Debrief. Through that time it's steadily picked up sail, to where it's now a reference trusted by policy-makers, academics and activists. And even though it became my full-time work a few years ago, it's still hard for me to explain to a stranger what I do. “Blogger” sounds silly. And “I make a newsletter” raises more questions than it answers. Now I say “journalist”, which is true but is only part of the story. It doesn't get across the work that goes into making the journalism possible, or how steadily my role is more and more than of an editor, working closely with writers and illustrators from around the world. One of the reasons that it's hard to introduce myself is because, with the challenges faced by media today, there aren't many examples of how a project like this might work. And that's especially true for journalism covering marginalised groups, stories usually over-looked by mainstream media. The Debrief is also unusual in that it distributes its content openly, available to all and free of cost. Through the years we've found a pay-what-you-can model that makes it possible. Organisations give small grants, and readers contribute at whatever level they are comfortable to. It's a model that goes against the currents of modern media, increasingly filled with paywalls and pop-ups. But improbably, it was working. And then last year, Trump came into office. ## Changing seas Rights washed away, by Kinanty Andini At first I didn't realise how serious the “pause” in US international aid would be. But soon it became clear the cuts were devastating. And other countries followed, cutting international cooperation and increasing spending on their militaries. I knew these changes would impact disabled people around the world, and undermine the rights frameworks and advocacy organisations working to improve our opportunities. This new context changed the role of the Debrief, and meant we had to work to meet the moment. That led to pieces exploring these global trends and their impact on disabled people. In Central Europe, Gabor Petri wrote on disability and backsliding democracy, and in Argentina, Eduardo Quiroga on chainsaw austerity. At the same time I knew the disability movement needed a space to reflect honestly on where we are and think through new directions going forward. In this vein, Alberto Vásquez Encalada wrote on the threat of professionalisation to an authentic movement and I.K. Ero on need for more collective leadership. But even as I worked with such brilliant people I didn't know how far we could go. I had started the financial year with news from Sightsavers wouldn't be continuing their support, and they'd been the single largest funder of the previous years. ## Stormy weather Flood, by Kinanty Andini I wondered whether the Debrief had gone too far out to sea. I had struck out with an independent voice, but was there support to continue? To deal with a the loss of the largest funder, I started contacting the Debrief network. But calls I had with organisations to ask for further support started with they themselves telling me about how they were reeling from funding cuts, and cutting voluntary costs like network membership. I persevered, making the case for why the Debrief was important a this time. I argued that organisations working on disability need to give money to the infrastructure that connects us, especially at a time when things are falling apart. At the same time as this bad fundraising weather, covering the news itself wasn't easy. The seas of AI slop were rising quickly. And covering the Trump administration and the genocide in Gaza become quite hard for my mental health. I wanted to bear witness but I was starting to feel quite bare. As I looked at the Debrief budget, I wondered when I should cut back on commissioning articles, and whether I would be able to renew the invaluable support that Celestine Fraser was giving behind the scenes. Or, take the risk of further expenses? Any shortfall would come out of my own salary. ## Coming through the storm Broken then blooming, by Kinanty Andini But then I started to get better news. Individual readers responded to my call for help. And organisations too, with increased support from Ford Foundation and a new grant from Robert Bosch Stiftung, among others. I breathed a sigh of relief, and felt how much easier it is to think creatively when you're not worried about a bottom line. And, as all this support came together, it meant that the Debrief not only weathered the storm, but grew on previous years. Here are the highlights of that growth. See the full details in the annual review and the accounts: * **The weekly newsletter is now sent to over four thousand people**. Subscribers grew by 14% on the year before. * **Annual revenue rose to £106,659,** a 17% increase on the year before. 10% of the audience contribute financially, as individuals or through their organisations. * **Feature articles were published by 16 writers.** These writers came from 12 different countries. Plus an open call for writing which published a further 6 writers from 5 countries. A growing set of collaborations made this work possible. Celestine gave a couple of days editorial support each month. The investment in editing, commissioning articles and illustrations came to £26,500 (25% of expenses). And as well as our own work, Debrief continued paying-it-forward to other disability media. A total of £1,943, (2% of expenses) was paid to other creators through micro-grants and subscriptions. Please join me in supporting disability creators more widely, not just this project! ## Navigating strong winds At the table, together, by Sonaksha. The Debrief came through the storm of the last twelve months, but the waters are still rough. We continue to sail against ever-stronger global winds that push back against human rights, villainise disabled people, and sweep away independent media. This context just makes it more urgent for us to have a space to tell our own stories in our own words. Through the years the Debrief has grown as a platform that publishes disability stories told in new ways. That comes out of intense work behind-the-scenes, where draft and redraft our stories. It leads to unique pieces that wouldn't find anywhere else. For example, Nyuki Msimulizi's personal revelations from special education in Tanzania. Or, from Trinidad and Tobago, Tharā Gabriel's piece, co-written with her tinnitus, on searching for silence. Several writers have told me how being part of the Debrief opens new connections. Among them, Ida Putri tells me how writing about her grassroots organisation in Indonesia led to international recognition from the Zero Project. And, that when she went to share her work with the Australian government, one official already knew the name of her wheelchair from her article on assistive technology. Last year 16 of the newsletters (36%) were written by contributors like Ida. I'm aiming to increase this to 50% of the newsletters. And the growth in the Debrief revenue means I've been able to raise the starting fee for a published article from £450 to £500. ## New horizons The Debrief project continues to grow, and our journey continues. The ship has a more solid base of funding than it did twelve months ago. But, as ever, what we can achieve in the next year depends on your support. Making this project has shown me that we do not have to give into the forces that make our media ever-more bite-sized, hate-fuelled, and right-leaning. If we want a space that does something differently, we can make it ourselves. You can support the Debrief by continuing to read it, share it with friends, and contributing financially if it's comfortable to do so. With thanks, and the hope that this improbable voyage takes us further in the years to come, Peter ## Outro **See more on** supporting the Debrief**.** And for a summary of what we did with the support in the past year, read the annual review and the accounts. **Let your friends know**. Sharing the newsletter is how people find it! **For more from Kinanty,** see her website. **Connect**. Get in touch. You can find me on Linkedin and Bluesky. ## Acknowledgements This email was composed with the dancing of Zsolt Hegedűs, the new Hungarian health minister, on repeat in the background. Thanks to Kinanty Andini for the illustration for this edition, and her previous work that also illustrates the piece. Thanks to Áine Kelly-Costello for review of a previous draft. Thanks to Center for Inclusive Policy whose fiscal sponsorship and support in the US has been a big part of what allows the Debrief to grow. And of course to you readers, for the time you give this work, and for the contributions that make it possible.

disabilitydebrief.org

Finding my armour in threads

Clothes as a Canvas, by Kinanty Andini _Salam_ Debriefers, I grew up with a disability in Lahore, Pakistan. It meant facing the challenges of inaccessibility, stigma and the attitudes of people around me who understood very little about why I used a wheelchair. But that did not limit my interaction with the city itself, its vibrant culture, food and above all the evolution of Punjabi fashion around me. My disability took me on a journey of its own through fashion and styling. I found myself being more creative in every step of my journey with clothes, which shaped my mind about my own growth and changing body. And clothes for me played the part of armour, or billboard to make my statement on. My disability made my body a unique canvas for fashion and styling. Through clothes I found new forms of inclusion and participation. And with a unique form of self-expression, I found my identity. ## About this edition **Original writing like this is made possible by** support from readers**.** Thanks to new contributions from Bill, Gordon and M. **Tanzila Khan** is an activist and travel writer from Pakistan. **Kinanty Andini** is an illustrator and digital artist from Indonesia. Sign-up for a disability lens on world news Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. Weekly in your inbox ## Need for protection It's a humid day in Pakistan in 1995. I am five years old, and we’re attending a wedding in the village my mother comes from. I am as excited as all the other kids to go to the candyman outside to try some sugary treats. But my mother won't let me: candy is bad and so is wandering outside in a crowd. I curl up with my head resting on my _Baji’s_ chest, my nanny since I was 2 years old. I am bored as all the other children are running around outside the wedding tent. I suddenly feel a hand reach out and pick up my pink frock to expose my legs. I turn around to see some curious women looking at my legs with a mixed expression of pity and wonder. There had already been a buzz going around the village about “a girl being born with crooked legs”. This was their chance to confirm it. I feel shame. My cheeks go red. I remember my mother’s phrase, “It’s shameful to let anyone see you without clothes”. In an instant I pull down my frock to cover my legs. In that moment I wished I my frock wasn’t just cute, but also long enough to hide my legs, to hide all of me. From that moment I became more aware of my disability. And I started to see my clothes not just as a covering, but an armour that would protect me. ## Finding myself in frills and fabric As a toddler I mostly wore ready-made children’s frocks that fit me easily. But as I grew, the clothes had to be modified. For example, a ready-made trouser was useless for me as my legs were not long enough to wear it. My mother found a woman in our village who would sew clothes. Before fast fashion grew, clothes were mostly stitched by local home tailors like these. Using fabric leftover from my mother’s clothes or from the grand textile market, this tailor custom-made my clothes. They were made to be easy to put on and take off, and, on my request, “cover my legs to cover the deformity” as much as possible. The woman would sew a simple frock and with her imagination add a patchwork of traditional artisan work in the front. All the frocks had a unique style of buttons placed on the collar or in front and frills on sleeves. ## “Make something like this for me” I always felt that my cousins wore better clothes than I did. Their clothes had more vibrant colours, better finishing, and cartoons on them. It made them look like the kids on TV. I made cut-outs from magazines and took them to the woman who made my clothes. While she and my mother had tea and talked. I pointed to them and said, “Please make something like this for me”. My mother laughed and said, “These are machine-made and those cartoons are printed”. The next time the woman brought a brown dress with a hand knitted yellow flower on the left side of the chest. It was her attempt to make something as close as possible to the cartoon. It became one of my favourites. ## A time to sew When I reached my early teens I started developing more opinions on fashion around me. Television was the main inspiration. Commercials showed confident Pakistan women taking up space in public as teachers, receptionists and air hostesses and their clothing always became a discussion and inspiration. Soon I didn’t want my mum to pick fabrics with printed fruits, cartoons or flowers. I was a big girl now! I wanted more bright colours: pink, orange, yellow and green. And I wanted patches to add on top of the fabric, accessories and collar designs like I saw on the air hostess. Talking about clothes meant more ways to socialise and make friends. In a family gathering or at school, the whole conversation could revolve around the comedy or horror of getting clothes custom made. At school we talked about tailors, compared stitching prices and scribbled designs in our notebooks. ## Taking to trousers Pakistan takes its fashion inspiration from Mughal history, the wider subcontinent, and now new Western influences from the media. The national dress for men and women is the _shalwar kameez, a_ knee length, full sleeved loose fitted shirt, with pants made of the same fabric. And together with it, women wear a _dupatta_ , a long scarf, to cover their head, shoulders and chest. I could never fully embrace the national dress. I could wear the _kameez_(top) but not the _shalwar_(pants) due to my disability. But then I started using prosthetic legs. And that meant one new thing in my life: trousers! Prosthetics gave me the possibility of wearing the clothes that I saw on billboards and fashion magazines. They expanded my body and with it my creative expression and fashion canvas. I was excited for bell bottom trousers, long skirts, or South Asian wear like _patiala shalwars, ghagra_ , _garara_ or _choordaar pyjamas._ I even wore a _saari._ The process was straightforward. Lay down the _saari_ on the bed and then lie on top of it to roll from one side to the other, then ask someone to lift you up for the fall of the fabric to settle on your body, like curtains would drape around a pillar. But I still couldn’t get anything without customisation. Every detail had to be considered: the process of putting it on, of taking it off, the comfort while seated, getting up and the bathroom visits. ## Scarves and safety-pins As a Muslim girl growing up in a Muslim household, we all learn the importance of covering the body and being modest. In Pakistan most girls after puberty are required to wear the _dupatta_. But the fabric of the _dupatta_ is soft and silky. So as I moved my manual wheelchair with my arms, it slipped off.. It also got tangled in the wheels. I was frustrated. But then I found I could use safety pins. We had a uniform at the all-girls school where I studied. But we managed to customise it so we each looked unique. Other girls would loosely hang their _dupattas_ in whichever way they liked. My customisation was using safety pins so it stayed in one place. “Colour days” were exciting school functions where we could wear coloured clothes. It was the day to show the dresses we all had been talking about throughout the year, and to show our personalities and creative expression. Looking back later I see myself in a purple long dress with green sleeves and gold embroidery on the sleeves. On that day I thought it was my best, but today I think that, gosh, I looked like an eggplant. ## Secret designs in the parking lot Later we found a family tailor who could stitch clothes for me, my mother and my cousins. His shop was in a busy market with all kind of mobile phones and electronics stores, crowded with men. But his shop was in the basement, and I always felt the frustration of not being able to go in and explain how I wanted my dress to look like. Instead he would come to the parking lot to discuss and take my measurements in front of a dozen strangers. For Eid holidays and family weddings, clothing would get a little competitive, so designs and ideas were kept a secret until the actual day. The tailor was given strict instructions to never share the design of one with another. Yet a dozen strangers in a parking lot knew exactly what I would be wearing. ## Fast fashion In my twenties things were changing, and fast fashion was becoming widely available. The mannequins in markets wore three-piece dresses with different styles. Most shops were in malls where wheelchair access is possible, although they didn't have accessible changing rooms to try the clothes on. I would be hesitant to take them home to try. But still it allowed me to choose my own dresses, and it was better than the hassle of parking lots. My own creativity did go in the backseat though. The tailors were now working for big brands producing clothes in bulk. I couldn’t find anyone that was reliable and didn’t charge too much. ## Making an activist message During my college days, I started building a career as an activist of disability rights which involved a lot of public speaking, traveling and media interactions. After one talk at a university, an audience member told me, “I love the flower in your headscarf, this is also my takeaway from this event”. I laughed, gave her the flower and wondered if people notice everything when you are in the public eye. And I realised I can also use my fashion ideas to make my activism’s message clear: disabled people can participate in every sphere of life. ## Armour became Canvas I started collaborating with a friend who was pursuing fashion as a career. We customised my clothes to add features that could help me as part of my work. For example, pockets on the dresses. A handbag is hard to carry with both hands on the wheels of my wheelchair. And longer fronts for my dresses are great for power-pose pictures that show the clothes, instead of the disability. Even if the mainstream fashion space did not help, I was able to pick up the control, and to design and style my own clothes to make a statement. There’s no representation on billboards or on runways for disabled models but that never stopped me from creating my own options. ## In between grey and pink Years later, when I came to Sweden to study, I packed my best clothes. Naturally they were colourful, and I had many frocks as gifts from friends and family to wish me luck for my new journey. But to my surprise, in Sweden most people wear grey, black or blue on the streets and for all occasions. Back in Pakistan, these dull colours would be associated with sadness. People wearing dull colours would attract attention a sick person would. Of course in winters I also need to wear a coat or large puffer jacket to protect from cold. But below the jacket I wear an entire world of colours, fabrics, laces and buttons that make me me no matter in which part of the world I am. ## More than just an armour When a Swedish friend borrowed my green frock, I realised that clothes have evolved as an icebreaker, and carrier of my culture and identity. My new classmates complimented my colour themes and we talked about what fashion meant to us. Clothes aren’t just an armour for me now. Fashion has become more like a canvas. As well as my culture, it can project power, mood, or my inner child. And using a wheelchair adds an extra stroke of creativity. _Allah Hafiz. Apki Apni,_ Tanzila ## Outro **See Tanzila's previous writing on the Debrief:** Finding my Fairy-tale, on travelling with a wheelchair and a green passport.**** And for more from Tanzila see her website. **For more from Kinanty,** see her website. **Let your friends know**. Sharing the newsletter is how people find it! **Help us do more**. The Debrief is free thanks to reader support. ## Acknowledgements A big thanks to Disability Debrief for making me relive my journey around clothes and fashion and enjoy each and every reflection while writing this piece. Shout-out to Peter who is always invested in my stories and ideas, asking the right questions before I start writing and then refining the work with his editing. Thanks to the readers and organisations who give their attention and love to Disability Debrief. Thank you to Kinanty Andini for the beautiful cover photo. I want to also thank Ayesha Hamza, who is my friend and my collaborator, for designing many of my outfits that I have enjoyed wearing daily and at special occasions.

disabilitydebrief.org

“We used to live like kings”

****Displaced.**** In Beirut, Lebanon, a woman at the Camille Chamoun Sports City stadium, one of the few facilities with adaptations for displaced people with disabilities. March 27, 2026. Photo by Dimitar Dilkoff / AFP via Getty Images. Dear Debriefers, Today's edition is another world tour with the latest in geopolitics and fighting with government offices. We start with the wars in Iran and Lebanon and their wider impact. From there we go to rich countries cutting disability benefits, but it's not all bad news (especially when we see how we can take revenge). And then we have other highs and lows in disability news, from air-travel to downhill skiing. And, in Ethiopia, climbing to the eighth floor of a government office to prove you're disabled. **Explore the full guide of 125 hand-picked links:** curated across 36 countries or 43 subjects. This edition continues from the update in March. ## About this edition **The Debrief is published through a** pay-what-you-can**model.** Thanks to Kelly and Maria for new contributions. **Peter Torres Fremlin** is editor of Disability Debrief and is from the UK. Sign-up for a disability lens on world news Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. Weekly in your inbox ## “We used to live like kings” **In** Lebanon**,** the Camille Chamoun Sports City Stadium in Beirut is sheltering over a thousand displaced people. It is one of the few sites with some adjustments made for displaced people with disabilities, according to Handicap.fr. The article quotes Khodr Salem, who walks with a crutch: “We used to live like kings in our homes. Our life has become a nightmare.” (Translated). The emergency task force for persons with disabilities has made an emergency checklist to address disability. And local disability organisations are making efforts for the overall humanitarian response to be inclusive. For example, Friends of the Disabled Association is featured in this protection situation report for providing shelter, rehab services, and psychosocial support. **In** Iran**.** Exclusive reporting from Solmaz Nazari Orakani on the D*List shares information about how the attacks on Iran are impacting disabled people. Disability facilities and institutions have been heavily damaged. And the government isn't able to continue these residential services, so 17,000 disabled people have been sent home (although I guess many might not have families they can go back to). Meanwhile, the Iranian government continues its crackdowns on its citizens, and among its victims was Hossein Ghavi, a 28-year-old with a physical disability, according to Iran Human Rights Monitor. **Meanwhile, in the wider world,** the conflict knocks over energy and economic dominoes that will affect us all. The D*list takes a look at the impact on disability communities in New Zealand. ## “The real strain on taxpayer money” **In** Australia, the government has announced it needs to cut the costs of its National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). It aim to reduce the numbers supported from 760,000 to 600,000 disabled people by the end of the decade, and reform the eligibility test. The idea of not being able to afford disability supports raises the question of what can be afforded. Or, as John Delmenico writes in the Shot: > “In a country where billionaires avoid tax, fossil fuel companies avoid tax, social media companies avoid tax and media empires avoid tax, apparently the real strain on taxpayer money is disabled people who have the nerve to want to be alive.” As with other rich countries looking to cut disability benefits, the justifications for the cuts are based on misunderstandings, ableism and disinformation spread by politicians and the media. But there are also many real reasons to reform the NDIS. And, as with disability benefits in many rich countries (including the UK) there is a snowballing bill, a widening scope of who qualifies for them, and escalating projections of future costs. If we put the bad faith arguments for cuts to one side, I wonder how the disability sector should advise governments about how to realistically budget for these supports. ## “Pervasive Chaos” **In the** United States**, disability benefits are also under serious threat.** The Trump administration floats cruel rule changes. But even where the rules stay the same, the social security administration has gone through cuts and reforms that make it at even more hostile than before. A report from the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund (DREDF) shares the new barriers to disability benefits: > “Although navigating SSA’s complex rules has always required determination, respondents told us that changes initiated by the second Trump administration in 2025 have undermined their sense that persistence and deep knowledge of program rules could eventually make the system work. They described how longstanding challenges, such as application processing delays, understaffing, and long wait times on the phone and in the field office, have intensified. In addition to this worsening of long-term issues, respondents described rapidly changing policies, unprecedented errors, and pervasive chaos to a degree that longtime service providers had never seen before.” **However, it's not all bad news on disability benefits.** **In** Zambia**,** A UNICEF budget analysis of disability spending shows “important progress in increasing public expenditure”. The increase largely comes through a cash benefit for households with a person with disability, which now has widened eligibility and has a “more proactive outreach”. ## “Department for Scapegoating & Frustration” A welcome antidote to news of benefit cuts comes from these responses... In the US, Robert Kingett faces a disability review from a government department that won't accept communication in email. He has a story of joyful revenge. And from the UK, Blossom HB (Debrief agony-aunt) wrote a satirical letter from the Department for Scapegoating & Frustration: > “We have considered your claim but have decided you don't qualify for Human Dignity. We made our decision using the information you gave us.” ## Housing **This week I learned about the** Integrated Housing Development Programme**in** Ethiopia. Over the past twenty years it has provided half a million subsidised flats in new condominiums, housing around two million people. And since 2021, five percent of these units are reserved for persons with disabilities. Great idea, but as Biruk Eshetu G/Kidan writes, there are many barriers to accessing this in practice. The authorities seem to have no idea how to even register disabled people properly. Applicants must plunge into the chaos of a government office on the eighth floor and hope their documents somehow get into the system: > “There is no dedicated disability service desk or officer assigned to assist applicants with disabilities. Instead, they must navigate crowded offices and long queues alongside hundreds of other applicants. For individuals with mobility challenges, climbing to the eighth floor and waiting in crowded spaces can be physically exhausting.” ## Disability caused by road accidents A new paper from Nora Groce et al looks at Road Traffic Accidents and Disability as a global health concern. The authors argue that the subject is overlooked by those interested in road safety as well as those in the disability community: > “When asked why they had not previously considered people disabled in an [road traffic accident], the Road Traffic Safety experts interviewed reported assuming some disability organization, government program or medical service would be there to help. Disability experts had not considered the psychological, social and economic implications of being faced with sudden catastrophic disability and assumed that their experiences were no different than that of people disabled through other causes.” It might seem obvious that it's important how disability is caused, but it's one of the realisations that has come to me through writing the Debrief. I come from a disability rights background where the _causes_ of disability are deliberately seen as a separate concern, to be dealt with through health and other areas. But whether it's a road accident, or, say, protests, roots of the climate crisis, or ageing, how you become disabled matters a good ideal. ## International cooperation digest **In humanitarian issues:** how the humanitarian reset relates to organisations of persons with disabilities. (Disability Reference Group) **In development work:** a collection of articles with lessons from building disability-inclusive futures. (IDS Bulletin) **In rights issues** : catch-up on the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (IDA). And how the Committee condemned “grave and systemic” rights violations against children and adults with disabilities confined in institutions in Mexico. ## Take-off **Take-off**. Good news for a prototype of a wheelchair securement system on Airbus planes. And a “Metamorphic” accessible toilet. (Wheelchair Travel) **All downhill from here** : an animated explainer of Paralympic winter sports. (Channel 4) **A history I knew nothing about:** the experiences of disabled Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II. (Densho) **Giving Alice her flowers**... folk sharing their memories of Alice Wong. (Disabled Journalists Association). **Building disability culture...** How the D*List has grown in three years, publishing disability stories and developing community. (The D*List) **Finding their freedom**. For those following the story of Austrian nuns who escaped from their care home to break back into the convent they were taken away from... they are closer to being able to stay. (The Guardian). Let me know your journeys in disability news! All best, Peter ## Recent News This update has 125 curated links from 36 countries and regions, organized across 43 subjects. You can explore it organized by subject or by country. ### Subjects * Accessibility and Design * Assistive Technology * COVID-19 * Civil Society and Community * Climate Crisis and Environment * Communication and Language * Conflict and Peace * Culture, Entertainment and Media * Data and Research * Digital Accessibility and Technology * Disaster Risk Reduction and Crisis Response * Economics and Social Protection * Education and Childhood * Employment, Business and Work * Gender Equality and Women with Disabilities * Health * History and Memorial * Humanitarian, Migrants and Refugees * Independent Living and Deinstitutionalization * International Cooperation * Justice Systems and Legal Capacity * Lived Experience and Opinion * Mental Health * Mobility, Travel, Transport and Tourism * Policy and Rights * Politics and Elections * Relationships, Sex and Reproductive Rights * Sport and Paralympics * Violence and Harassment * Water and Sanitation (WASH) ### Countries * Global * International News * Africa * Angola * Egypt * Ethiopia * Morocco * South Sudan * Tanzania * Zambia * Zimbabwe * Asia * Bangladesh * India * Indonesia * Iran * Japan * Lebanon * Myanmar * Palestine * South Korea * Europe * Europe * Austria * France * Germany * Greece * Italy * Luxembourg * Netherlands * Ukraine * United Kingdom * North America * Canada * Mexico * United States * Oceania * Australia * New Zealand * South America * Argentina * Peru * Venezuela ## Outro **Explore Further.** All the links from these curated editions go into the Debrief library, which now has over 7,400 links from over 170 countries. **Let your friends know**. Sharing the newsletter is how people find it! **Connect**. Get in touch. You can find me on Linkedin and Bluesky. **Help us do more**. The Debrief is free thanks to reader support. ## Acknowledgements Photo by Dimitar Dilkoff / AFP via Getty Images. Thanks to Celestine Fraser for help with its selection. Many thanks to everyone who shares links, news and reports, and the readers and organisations whose support makes this work possible.

disabilitydebrief.org

Disability news, April 2026, by country

**Library > April 2026** _This page is organized by country, you can also see links organized by subject._ This update has 125 curated links from 36 countries and regions, organized across 43 subjects. ## Contents * Global * International News * Africa * Angola * Egypt * Ethiopia * Morocco * South Sudan * Tanzania * Zambia * Zimbabwe * Asia * Bangladesh * India * Indonesia * Iran * Japan * Lebanon * Myanmar * Palestine * South Korea * Europe * Europe * Austria * France * Germany * Greece * Italy * Luxembourg * Netherlands * Ukraine * United Kingdom * North America * Canada * Mexico * United States * Oceania * Australia * New Zealand * South America * Argentina * Peru * Venezuela ## Resources ### Global #### International News **In Accessibility and Design** : Universal Accessibility Toolbox: “a comprehensive resource designed to support the integration of UA into infrastructure projects across the following key sectors – urban development, disaster risk management, transport, water, and digital development.” (Feb, World Bank) **In Civil Society and Community** : Disability Focused Proms To Be Held Across Globe. > ‘Over 950 churches in all 50 states and more than 70 countries are hosting the events this Friday as part of “Night to Shine,” an annual series of proms put on by the Tim Tebow Foundation.’ (Feb, Disability Scoop) **In Climate Crisis and Environment** : Who Gets to Shape the Future? A historic win for persons with disabilities: reflections on the formal recognition of the Disability Caucus within the UNFCCC. (Mar, Portal Psiloba) **In Culture, Entertainment and Media** : Made by humans, for humans. Why Disability Debrief doesn’t use AI (and when it does): > ‘I think the wider disability community needs to be cautious too. Sharing our lived experience is an essential part of our advocacy, and if we undermine it with reckless use of AI tools, we undermine our mantra of “nothing about us without us”.’ (Apr, Disability Debrief) The Global Directory of Disabled News Media Professionals. (Reframing Disability) **In Digital Accessibility and Technology** : Made by humans, for humans. Why Disability Debrief doesn’t use AI (and when it does): > ‘I think the wider disability community needs to be cautious too. Sharing our lived experience is an essential part of our advocacy, and if we undermine it with reckless use of AI tools, we undermine our mantra of “nothing about us without us”.’ (Apr, Disability Debrief) Instagram investigating AI profiles 'fetishising' disabled people. (Feb, BBC) **In Health** : Separating disability stigma from health stigma: implications for health and rehabilitation research and practice. (Apr, Disability and Rehabilitation) Road Traffic Accidents and Disability: A global health concern: > “When asked why they had not previously considered people disabled in an RTA, the Road Traffic Safety experts interviewed reported assuming some disability organization, government program or medical service would be there to help. Disability experts had not considered the psychological, social and economic implications of being faced with sudden catastrophic disability and assumed that their experiences were no different than that of people disabled through other causes.” (Social Science & Medicine) **In Humanitarian, Migrants and Refugees** : Humanitarian Reset and Organisations of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs) meeting – Summary Report. (Mar, Disability Reference Group) Experiences of Asian mothers of children with disability who migrated to Western countries: a systematic review of qualitative studies. (Jan, Disability and Rehabilitation) **In International Cooperation** : Building Disability-Inclusive Futures a special issue dedicated to insights and lessons from international programmes on disability. (Mar, IDS Bulletin) **In Lived Experience and Opinion** : How do I know if I'm being used? Advice on ableism, friendship and mobility aids from an Agony Aunt in Agony. (Apr, Disability Debrief) **In Mobility, Travel, Transport and Tourism** : People with Disabilities and Transport Access: “Provisions to ensure transport access must be integrated systematically into the design and implementation of disability-inclusive development programmes”. (IDS Bulletin) Airbus Wheelchair Securement System Becomes First to Fly. (Apr, Wheelchair Travel) First Look: Airplane Lavatory with Adult Changing Table. (Apr, Wheelchair Travel) **In Sport and Paralympics** : Winter Para Sport Explainers. Milano Cortina 2026 Paralympic Winter Games. (Animated video, Mar, Channel 4 Sport) _Back tocontents._ ### Africa #### Angola **In Sport and Paralympics** : Wheelchair basketball: absence of the public takes the shine off the competition. (In Portuguese, Mar, Jornal de Angola) _Back tocontents._ #### Egypt **In Policy and Rights** : Details of the National Strategy for Empowering Persons with Disabilities 2026-2030. (In Arabic, Mar, Youm7) _Back tocontents._ #### Ethiopia **In Accessibility and Design** : Rights on Paper, Barriers in Practice: Inside Ethiopia’s broken housing registration system for persons with disabilities. (Mar, Addis Standard) **In Health** : Inequalities in health and healthcare utilization among people with disabilities in Ethiopia: evidence from the 2021/2022 Ethiopian Socio-Economic Panel Survey: > “People with disabilities in Ethiopia had greater healthcare needs than people without disabilities, which were not fully matched by increased levels of healthcare utilization, and they incurred higher healthcare costs, indicating systemic inequalities in health.” (Feb, Disability and Rehabilitation) _Back tocontents._ #### Morocco **In Accessibility and Design** : Only 25% of Moroccan public administrations are inclusive, according to a new study: > “barely 26% of public administrations have a regulatory framework or formalized guidelines governing the accessibility of services for people with disabilities. Furthermore, basic equipment, particularly adapted sanitary facilities and accessible signage, remains insufficient, especially near the main entrances of administrative buildings.” (In French, Mar, le360) _Back tocontents._ #### South Sudan **In Education and Childhood** : Accessible learning for all: first inclusive education hub opens in South Sudan. (Mar, Light for the World International) _Back tocontents._ #### Tanzania **In Economics and Social Protection** : Impacts of the “Ujana Salama” Cash Plus Program Across Multiple Domains of Well-Being for Adolescents With and Without Disability: Results of a Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial in Tanzania: > “For adolescents with disabilities, this expanded intervention increased their participation in farm work and reduced experiences of sexual violence and showed some positive trends toward improving self-rated health.” (Mar, Journal of Adolescent Health) Impacts of the “Ujana Salama” Cash Plus programme on well-being for adolescents with and without disability, an evidence brief. (Feb, LSHTM) _Back tocontents._ #### Zambia **In Economics and Social Protection** : Disability budget analysis in Zambia. “Zambia has made important progress in increasing public expenditure on disability inclusion in recent years.” (Feb, UNICEF) _Back tocontents._ #### Zimbabwe **In Civil Society and Community** : Disability, spirituality and the politics of belonging in postcolonial Zimbabwe. “The study concludes that belonging and belongingness of PWD should be within the grassroots movements and Ubuntu ethics, which encourage humaneness.” (Jan, African Journal of Disability) _Back tocontents._ ### Asia #### Bangladesh **In Climate Crisis and Environment** : Extreme weather and sanitation in Bangladesh: a mixed-methods study of lived experiences of people with disabilities: > “When I was going to the latrine with my crutch, my leg slipped, and I fell in the mud. Then, there was a brick on the ground, and my amputated leg side fell on that brick. I cut the upper part of the amputated leg, and blood came out. I used a plastic pot for my toileting at that time, and my mother or wife cleaned it after defecation and urination.” (Apr, The Lancet Regional Health - Southeast Asia) **In Politics and Elections** : Will disability rights be finally delivered? “BNP’s election manifesto—specifically pledging to advance disability rights and the existing legislation about disability—signals hope.” (Mar, The Daily Star) **In Water and Sanitation (WASH)** : Extreme weather and sanitation in Bangladesh: a mixed-methods study of lived experiences of people with disabilities: > “When I was going to the latrine with my crutch, my leg slipped, and I fell in the mud. Then, there was a brick on the ground, and my amputated leg side fell on that brick. I cut the upper part of the amputated leg, and blood came out. I used a plastic pot for my toileting at that time, and my mother or wife cleaned it after defecation and urination.” (Apr, The Lancet Regional Health - Southeast Asia) _Back tocontents._ #### India **In Policy and Rights** : All you need to know about: passive euthanasia. The principles of passive euthanasia have been practically applied by the apex court for the first time. (Mar, The Hindu) _Back tocontents._ #### Indonesia **In Education and Childhood** : Survey of Lecturers with Disabilities Reveals Indonesian Campuses Are Still Far from Inclusive. (Feb, Universitas Gadjah Mada) _Back tocontents._ #### Iran **In Civil Society and Community** : Escalation of State Killings, under Torture and Executions including of Hossein Ghavi, a person with a physical disability. (Apr, Iran HRM) **In Conflict and Peace** : We are never meant to run: Disabled people during the Iran war: > “For instance, on March 10, air strikes in Alborz Province heavily damaged a residential facility that housed 80 children (under 14) with learning disabilities. All children had to be transferred to other centres. On March 12, a specialist hospital for disabled people in Ahvaz was damaged due to an airstrike on the nearby buildings. According to the State Welfare Organisation of Iran (the government agency in charge of disability support services), so far, 30,000 households with disabled people have been directly impacted, 41 homes have been completely destroyed and 915 homes have sustained damage, with the extent of the damage ranging from 5% to 50%. Two disabled people in State care have died in Ilam Province in western Iran.” (Mar, The D*List) _Back tocontents._ #### Japan **In Sport and Paralympics** : Tokyo Deaflympics 2025 leaves lasting boost for accessible tourism. “Tokyo is gradually becoming more accessible, with major hotels, museums and transportation hubs introducing visual alert systems, such as vibration alarms, and staff receiving basic sign language training.” (Feb, TTG Asia) _Back tocontents._ #### Lebanon **In Conflict and Peace** : The ordeal of displaced people with disabilities. “We used to live like kings in our homes. Our lives have become a living hell.” (In French, Apr, Handicap.fr) **In Humanitarian, Migrants and Refugees** : Protection Sector Weekly Response Sitrep. Features the work of the Friends of the Disabled Association: > “In the context of Lebanon’s ongoing crisis, FDA has expanded its emergency response to assist displaced persons with disabilities and their families by providing shelter, rehabilitation services, psychosocial support, and coordination with humanitarian actors to ensure access to assistive devices and specialized care. Since the onset of the emergency, FDA hosts 18 displaced families (60 individuals, including 11 persons with disabilities).” (Apr, Relief Web) Disability Emergency Checklist “essential guidelines and outlining the minimum standards that must be ensured in any emergency situation in Lebanon.” (Mar, Disability Hub) _Back tocontents._ #### Myanmar **In Conflict and Peace** : ‘Everything Has Gone Back’: How Myanmar’s 2021 Military Coup Reversed Hard-Won Disability Reforms and Pushed Advocates Underground. (Feb, Disability Justice Project) **In Disaster Risk Reduction and Crisis Response** : “Work with us, from the start”: what inclusive recovery means for women with disabilities in Myanmar, after the 2025 earthquake. (Apr, UN Women) _Back tocontents._ #### Palestine **In Assistive Technology** : Gaza's war amputees short of prostheses under Israeli restrictions. (Apr, Reuters) **In Conflict and Peace** : Gaza’s Amputation Crisis Deepens Amid Prosthetics Shortage: > “The prosthetics sector inside Gaza is under immense pressure. Only nine prosthetists are currently active in the territory, one of them working for Humanity & Inclusion. This is far below what is needed to meet demand. Restrictions on the entry of international specialists have further limited technical support and training for local teams.” (Apr, Humanity & Inclusion) _Back tocontents._ #### South Korea **In Health** : Disability inclusion in health data systems and policy in Korea: time for action: > “In Korea, despite having a well-established administrative infrastructure—most notably the Korean National Disability Registration System—disability-inclusive health data remain limited.” (Jan, Health Affairs Scholar) _Back tocontents._ ### Europe #### Europe **In Data and Research** : Living with disability in Europe: what open data shows: > “People with disabilities are more exposed to poverty and less likely to be employed, but higher public spending does not always translate into better outcomes.” (Feb, data.europa.eu) **In Gender Equality and Women with Disabilities** : Gender Mainstreaming Package: Gender Equality must be part of every aspect of our movement. (Mar, EDF) A Crip and Lesbian Perspective on Disability Rights: New EL*C Research Report: > “The persistent marginalisation documented in this report does not merely point to a lack of legal standards, but rather to the need for a more consistent, intersectional and transformative interpretation of existing ones. Strengthening this reading of the CRPD requires not only action at the national level, but also supportive and coherent policy engagement at the EU level, particularly to enhance how gender mainstreaming is applied within disability policies and how disability perspectives are integrated within broader gender, LGBTIQ and equality frameworks” (EuroCentralAsian Lesbian Community) **In Mental Health** : Report: Rethink To Rebuild: Towards Rights-Based and Gender-Just Mental Health Systems in Europe. (Mar, Mental Health Europe) **In Mobility, Travel, Transport and Tourism** : Dear Vueling: A Broken Wheelchair Demands Accountability—Not a Look Under My Skirt. (Apr, Tanzila Khan) **In Policy and Rights** : Three great reasons to create the European Agency for Accessibility. (Mar, EDF) _Back tocontents._ #### Austria **In Independent Living and Deinstitutionalization** : Nuns who broke back into their Austrian convent ‘are step closer to being able to stay’. (Apr, the Guardian) _Back tocontents._ #### France **In Communication and Language** : Publishing of braille books threatened in France. (In French, Feb, Handicap.fr) **In Lived Experience and Opinion** : Nihal, Child of the Moon: how she lives with extreme UV sensitivity. (Mar, the Guardian) **In Relationships, Sex and Reproductive Rights** : Disability, intimacy, emotional and sexual life: a government plan lacking scope and boldness. (In France, Feb, APF France Handicap) _Back tocontents._ #### Germany **In Relationships, Sex and Reproductive Rights** : Will There Be No More Disabled Children Born In The Future? “Until a 1995 reform, in Germany, it was allowed to abort a fetus purely because of a diagnosed disability. The law was repealed, but in practice, not much has changed.” (2025, Global Disability News Network) _Back tocontents._ #### Greece **In History and Memorial** : Disassembled Cyborgs: Interpreting Cretan Warriorhood and War Booty through Disability Theory with Jesse Obert: > “As a heuristic device, the cyborg works well for ancient Crete. Warriors used their metal armor to protect and accentuate their bodies, but when they lost their armor to rival warriors, they were symbolically disassembled and dismembered, failing to actuate the great cybernetic warriors that they claimed to be.” (Jan, Peopling the Past) _Back tocontents._ #### Italy **In Policy and Rights** : First assisted suicide with an eye-activated device made by the CNR. (Mar, Il Sole) **In Sport and Paralympics** : The Paralympic Village Was Proof That Truly Accessible Cities Can and Should Exist. (Mar, Teen Vogue) _Back tocontents._ #### Luxembourg **In Culture, Entertainment and Media** : One Centimetre at a Time: How a Luxembourg Podcast Demonstrated Practical Disability Inclusion. (Mar, Reframing Disability) _Back tocontents._ #### Netherlands **In Politics and Elections** : Thousands of Dutch polling stations fail accessibility standards. (Mar, NL Times) _Back tocontents._ #### Ukraine **In Economics and Social Protection** : Wanted to buy a fake disability for 6,000 US dollars – a colonel of the National Guard was detained. (Mar, Prosecutor General's Office) Ukraine's Defense Ministry Announces One-Time Disability Compensation: Eligibility and Payment Details. (Mar, 112.ua) _Back tocontents._ #### United Kingdom **In Civil Society and Community** : Engaging Local Creative Groups: A Toolkit for Disabled People's Organisations (DPOs). (Feb, Disability Rights UK) **In Culture, Entertainment and Media** : The blind aesthetic: What I’ve learned about beauty from blind sculptors and friends. (Mar, Body Babble) People Like Us: Filling the Gaps Through Portraits of Disabled Activism. (Mar, Disability Arts Online) Bridgerton actor was told her disability would hold her back before Netflix role. Profile of Gracie McGonigal. (Mar, BBC) **In Economics and Social Protection** : ‘A cruel penalty’: disabled people face lower benefit payments if conditions not deemed lifelong. (Mar, the Guardian) **In Education and Childhood** : What are the Send changes in England likely to cost and what are the hurdles? (Feb, the Guardian) **In Employment, Business and Work** : Millions of Workers Have Energy Limiting Conditions. Why Aren’t We Designing for Them? (Mar, Disability Insight) Government commits to introducing mandatory ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting for large employers. (Mar, GOV.UK) **In Gender Equality and Women with Disabilities** : Scottish Trans and Non-binary Experiences Report: > ‘61% of people had avoided at least one public service for fear of being harassed, read as trans, or being outed, and just over half (54%) had has at least one negative experience in a public service.’ (Mar, Scottish Trans) **In Health** : Maternal decision-making through temporal uncertainties: The anticipatory biopolitics of Vosoritide in dwarfism communities. (Social Science & Medicine) **In History and Memorial** : Michael Campbell: Actor with MND who won top award for playing Richard III dies. (Apr, BBC) Graham Findlay, a tireless and influential advocate for disabled people’s rights, died on 4th February 2026. (Feb, Inclusive Design) From Amputee to Author: Shadrack Byfield and the Making of a War of 1812 Veteran. (Jan, Journal of British Studies) **In Violence and Harassment** : Woman kept in ‘Dickensian’ servitude for 25 years speaks out as abuser jailed. (Mar, the Guardian) _Back tocontents._ ### North America #### Canada **In History and Memorial** : History in 60: Disability rights in Canada TV Series. (Jan, H60) **In Policy and Rights** : Alberta bill will ban MAID for all non-terminal conditions and minors: > “The bill would also prohibit physicians and other health-care professionals from initiating unsolicited conversations about MAID with patients, and from referring individuals to receive euthanasia outside the province, and would also ban advertisements for MAID in hospitals.” (Mar, National Post) _Back tocontents._ #### Mexico **In Independent Living and Deinstitutionalization** : “Grave and Systemic”: UN Exposes abuse against people with disabilities in institutions. (Mar, Disability Rights International) _Back tocontents._ #### United States **In COVID-19** : Long COVID disability burden in US adults: > “Long COVID’s disability burden rivals that of Alzheimer’s and asthma. Yet Long COVID receives only 14% of its YLD-proportionate funding—$106 million instead of $739.8 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Conditions affecting mostly men receive 5.2 times more funding/YLD than those affecting mostly women.” (Mar, Communications Medicine) **In Civil Society and Community** : Fighting Cancer Has Given Me New Insights on the Anti-Fascist Challenge We Face: “To resist authoritarianism, our work must be deeply relational. We must act even in uncertainty. Nurturing builds power.” (Mar, Truthout) How the term ‘neurodivergent’ moved from activists to pop culture — and politics. (Mar, The 19th News) Power in Protest – toolkit about demonstrations and civil disobedience. (Mar, ASAN) **In Communication and Language** : What Deafness Can Teach Us About Being ‘Articulate’. Interview with Rachel Kolb. (Mar, Emory Magazine) ASL Interpreters Are Unionizing —And They Say They’re Getting Fired for It. (Mar, Mother Jones) **In Digital Accessibility and Technology** : One Week with NVDA: A JAWS User’s Immersion Journey. (Feb, Blind Access Journal) Malice as modernization: Twenty-first century eugenics, AI, Project 2025, and disability. (Feb, First Monday) **In Economics and Social Protection** : Funding the ADA’s Promise. Why Disability Access Requires Investment Across Systems. (Mar, New America) Trump SSI Rule Change Targets Disabled Adults Who Live With Families. (Apr, ProPublica) “In the last year, it’s gotten a lot worse”. A Qualitative Investigation of Barriers to Disability Benefits in 2025: > “Although navigating SSA’s complex rules has always required determination, respondents told us that changes initiated by the second Trump administration in 2025 have undermined their sense that persistence and deep knowledge of program rules could eventually make the system work. They described how longstanding challenges, such as application processing delays, understaffing, and long wait times on the phone and in the field office, have intensified. In addition to this worsening of long-term issues, respondents described rapidly changing policies, unprecedented errors, and pervasive chaos to a degree that longtime service providers had never seen before.” (Mar, DREDF) KU study tracks 43 years of intellectual and developmental disability funding trends: > “Of the FY23 total of $105 billion, State of the States researchers showed that the federal government spent $60.2 billion, states spent $43 billion, and local programs spent $1.37 billion on programs that help support people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.” (Mar, KU News) Nation's Disability Services System Faces 'Unprecedented' Threats. (Mar, Disability Scoop) **In Education and Childhood** : These blind students say their college blocked their education. A new rule could help. (Apr, NPR) Accessibility Isn’t the Problem. Exam Design Is. Thoughtful reflections on the increase and risks of accommodations in exams: > “Grades should reflect mastery of course material. As such, timed assessments are only one tool — sometimes a good one, sometimes a poor one — to measure that mastery. In some contexts, time pressure is meaningful. If it takes a student four hours to translate a sentence in French, their fluency is certainly in question. In other contexts, speed is incidental. In many advanced problem-solving settings, arriving at the correct method and justification matters more than racing against the clock.” (Feb, Harvard Crimson) **In Employment, Business and Work** : New Data Show Unemployment Rising for Black and Asian Disabled Workers Amid Trump's Attacks. (Mar, National Partnership for Women & Families) “They Attend Strictly to Their Own Business”: Disability and the Construction of the Worker-Citizen. (Feb, American Political Science Review) **In Health** : Long COVID disability burden in US adults: > “Long COVID’s disability burden rivals that of Alzheimer’s and asthma. Yet Long COVID receives only 14% of its YLD-proportionate funding—$106 million instead of $739.8 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Conditions affecting mostly men receive 5.2 times more funding/YLD than those affecting mostly women.” (Mar, Communications Medicine) Should the Autism Spectrum Be Split Apart? “Families of people with severe autism say the repeated expansion of the diagnosis pushed them to the sidelines.” (2025, New York Times) **In History and Memorial** : Alice Wong showed us Disability Justice makes our advocacy stronger. (Apr, The Sick Times) A Michigan man built a life-changing mobility device for his wife — then the world took notice. Obituary of Allan "Al" Thieme, who invented a mobility scooter. (Mar, MLive) Giving Alice Wong Her Flowers. A series gathering memories of Alice. See also part 2 and part 3. (Mar, Disabled Journalists Association) What were the Experiences of Disabled People during WWII Incarceration of Japanese Americans? (Feb, Densho) “They Attend Strictly to Their Own Business”: Disability and the Construction of the Worker-Citizen. (Feb, American Political Science Review) Celebration of Life of Alice Wong. (Feb, Disability Visibility Project) These “Children Won’t Become Women”: Depo-Provera, Intellectual Disability, and the Indian Health Service: > “Beyond its utility as a contraceptive, many physicians and institutional administrators saw Depo-Provera as a treatment for menstrual anxiety, a reprieve for care workers, a non-surgical substitute for sterilization, and a delayer of puberty for women with intellectual disabilities.” (Jan, History of Medicine and Allied Sciences) Reassessing Helen Keller’s Reform Writings: Disability And Gender In Progressive Era American Feminism (1900-1960). (Jan, ASJP) **In Humanitarian, Migrants and Refugees** : Nurul Amin Shah Alam’s Death Was a Homicide. (Apr, Mother Jones) Hayward family, including deaf child deported to Colombia. (Mar, KTVU FOX 2) Disabled Organizers Are Facing Down Trump’s Immigration Crackdown. (Mar, Truthout) **In Independent Living and Deinstitutionalization** : Massachusetts Unseals Records of Abuse of Disabled People in State Institutions. (Mar, Truthout) How involuntary commitment could become indefinite detention. “Federal authorities should not be able to turn civil commitment into a life sentence for anyone the government deems inconvenient.” (Feb, Reason) These “Children Won’t Become Women”: Depo-Provera, Intellectual Disability, and the Indian Health Service: > “Beyond its utility as a contraceptive, many physicians and institutional administrators saw Depo-Provera as a treatment for menstrual anxiety, a reprieve for care workers, a non-surgical substitute for sterilization, and a delayer of puberty for women with intellectual disabilities.” (Jan, History of Medicine and Allied Sciences) **In Lived Experience and Opinion** : The 'Paperwork Flood': How I Drowned a Bureaucrat before dinner. (Mar, Sightless Scribbles) **In Mobility, Travel, Transport and Tourism** : For disabled fliers, hope took wing. Then Trump returned to office. (Mar, Los Angeles Times) **In Politics and Elections** : Protect Voting Rights for People with Disabilities. Congress is considering several bills right now that could make voter registration more difficult for many Americans, including millions of voters with disabilities. (Mar, Disability Belongs) **In Relationships, Sex and Reproductive Rights** : These “Children Won’t Become Women”: Depo-Provera, Intellectual Disability, and the Indian Health Service: > “Beyond its utility as a contraceptive, many physicians and institutional administrators saw Depo-Provera as a treatment for menstrual anxiety, a reprieve for care workers, a non-surgical substitute for sterilization, and a delayer of puberty for women with intellectual disabilities.” (Jan, History of Medicine and Allied Sciences) **In Sport and Paralympics** : We're Not Winning Because We're Not Investing. What the 2026 Winter Paralympics Reveals About How the United States Values Disabled Athletes. (Mar, Kara Ayers) _Back tocontents._ ### Oceania #### Australia **In Culture, Entertainment and Media** : The media wants disabled people to be locked inside until they die: > “In a country where billionaires avoid tax, fossil fuel companies avoid tax, social media companies avoid tax and media empires avoid tax, apparently the real strain on taxpayer money is disabled people who have the nerve to want to be alive.” (Mar, The Shot) **In Economics and Social Protection** : Disability community 'scared' by dramatic NDIS changes: > “Mr Butler announced a major overhaul of the NDIS to slash the growth of the scheme and reduce the number of participants from 760,000 to around 600,000 by the end of the decade.” (Apr, ABC News) More than 160,000 people to be kicked off NDIS as government overhauls eligibility test. (Apr, ABC News) NDIS eligibility will be based on ‘functional capacity’, not diagnostic labels. But what does that mean? (Apr, the Conversation) If we “can’t afford” the NDIS, what can we afford? (Apr, Powerd Media) **In Health** : A new diagnosis of ‘profound autism’ is on the cards. Here’s what could change. (Feb, The Conversation) **In Mobility, Travel, Transport and Tourism** : $3000 fines for cab drivers “who refuse to accept travel subsidy dockets and cards from passengers with disability or rip off passengers who use a wheelchair”. (Mar, NSW Government) _Back tocontents._ #### New Zealand **In Accessibility and Design** : Disabled man’s wait for housing finally over - 'it's taken its toll'. (Apr, 1News) **In Conflict and Peace** : How the Iran conflict is impacting disabled communities in Aotearoa - and what we can do about. (Mar, The D*List) **In Culture, Entertainment and Media** : We're three years old... is The D _List what we thought it would be? (Mar, The D_ List) We're three years old... is The D _List what we thought it would be? (Mar, The D_ List) **In Data and Research** : From Data to Dignity 2026. Health and wellbeing indicators for New Zealanders with intellectual disability: “People with intellectual disability live on average 17 years less than the general population” (Feb, ihc) **In Economics and Social Protection** : When “Natural Supports” Aren’t Natural at All: > “Many disabled people want to be supported by their whānau. Many whānau want to provide that care. The issue is not willingness. The issue is whether the State will continue to depend on that willingness while refusing to resource it. Because if it does, we need to stop calling it “natural supports.” And start calling it what it is, a system built on unpaid labour, despite the law increasingly recognising that labour as work.” (Apr, Huhana Hickey) _Back tocontents._ ### South America #### Argentina **In Assistive Technology** : Monster Chair: A giant wheelchair taking on accessibility barriers in Argentina. (Apr, Roastbrief US) _Back tocontents._ #### Peru **In Civil Society and Community** : Changing the Script: A Story of Self-Advocacy in Peru. (Mar, Mad Thinking) _Back tocontents._ #### Venezuela **In Justice Systems and Legal Capacity** : Autism in prison: an invisible population within the Venezuelan prison system. (In Spanish, Apr, La Patilla) _Back tocontents._

disabilitydebrief.org

Disability news, April 2026, by subject

**Library > April 2026** _This page is organized by subject, you can also see links organized by country._ This update has 125 curated links from 36 countries and regions, organized across 43 subjects. # Contents * Accessibility and Design * Assistive Technology * COVID-19 * Civil Society and Community * Climate Crisis and Environment * Communication and Language * Conflict and Peace * Culture, Entertainment and Media * Data and Research * Digital Accessibility and Technology * Disaster Risk Reduction and Crisis Response * Economics and Social Protection * Education and Childhood * Employment, Business and Work * Gender Equality and Women with Disabilities * Health * History and Memorial * Humanitarian, Migrants and Refugees * Independent Living and Deinstitutionalization * International Cooperation * Justice Systems and Legal Capacity * Lived Experience and Opinion * Mental Health * Mobility, Travel, Transport and Tourism * Policy and Rights * Politics and Elections * Relationships, Sex and Reproductive Rights * Sport and Paralympics * Violence and Harassment * Water and Sanitation (WASH) ## Accessibility and Design ### Overview #### International News Universal Accessibility Toolbox: “a comprehensive resource designed to support the integration of UA into infrastructure projects across the following key sectors – urban development, disaster risk management, transport, water, and digital development.” (Feb, World Bank) #### Morocco Only 25% of Moroccan public administrations are inclusive, according to a new study: > “barely 26% of public administrations have a regulatory framework or formalized guidelines governing the accessibility of services for people with disabilities. Furthermore, basic equipment, particularly adapted sanitary facilities and accessible signage, remains insufficient, especially near the main entrances of administrative buildings.” (In French, Mar, le360) ### Housing #### Ethiopia Rights on Paper, Barriers in Practice: Inside Ethiopia’s broken housing registration system for persons with disabilities. (Mar, Addis Standard) #### New Zealand Disabled man’s wait for housing finally over - 'it's taken its toll'. (Apr, 1News) _Back tocontents._ ## Assistive Technology #### Argentina Monster Chair: A giant wheelchair taking on accessibility barriers in Argentina. (Apr, Roastbrief US) #### Palestine Gaza's war amputees short of prostheses under Israeli restrictions. (Apr, Reuters) _Back tocontents._ ## COVID-19 ### Living with COVID-19 #### United States Long COVID disability burden in US adults: > “Long COVID’s disability burden rivals that of Alzheimer’s and asthma. Yet Long COVID receives only 14% of its YLD-proportionate funding—$106 million instead of $739.8 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Conditions affecting mostly men receive 5.2 times more funding/YLD than those affecting mostly women.” (Mar, Communications Medicine) _Back tocontents._ ## Civil Society and Community #### International News Disability Focused Proms To Be Held Across Globe. > ‘Over 950 churches in all 50 states and more than 70 countries are hosting the events this Friday as part of “Night to Shine,” an annual series of proms put on by the Tim Tebow Foundation.’ (Feb, Disability Scoop) #### Iran Escalation of State Killings, under Torture and Executions including of Hossein Ghavi, a person with a physical disability. (Apr, Iran HRM) #### Peru Changing the Script: A Story of Self-Advocacy in Peru. (Mar, Mad Thinking) #### United Kingdom Engaging Local Creative Groups: A Toolkit for Disabled People's Organisations (DPOs). (Feb, Disability Rights UK) #### United States Fighting Cancer Has Given Me New Insights on the Anti-Fascist Challenge We Face: “To resist authoritarianism, our work must be deeply relational. We must act even in uncertainty. Nurturing builds power.” (Mar, Truthout) How the term ‘neurodivergent’ moved from activists to pop culture — and politics. (Mar, The 19th News) Power in Protest – toolkit about demonstrations and civil disobedience. (Mar, ASAN) #### Zimbabwe Disability, spirituality and the politics of belonging in postcolonial Zimbabwe. “The study concludes that belonging and belongingness of PWD should be within the grassroots movements and Ubuntu ethics, which encourage humaneness.” (Jan, African Journal of Disability) _Back tocontents._ ## Climate Crisis and Environment ### Overview #### Bangladesh Extreme weather and sanitation in Bangladesh: a mixed-methods study of lived experiences of people with disabilities: > “When I was going to the latrine with my crutch, my leg slipped, and I fell in the mud. Then, there was a brick on the ground, and my amputated leg side fell on that brick. I cut the upper part of the amputated leg, and blood came out. I used a plastic pot for my toileting at that time, and my mother or wife cleaned it after defecation and urination.” (Apr, The Lancet Regional Health - Southeast Asia) ### Conference of Parties (COP) #### International News Who Gets to Shape the Future? A historic win for persons with disabilities: reflections on the formal recognition of the Disability Caucus within the UNFCCC. (Mar, Portal Psiloba) _Back tocontents._ ## Communication and Language ### Overview #### United States What Deafness Can Teach Us About Being ‘Articulate’. Interview with Rachel Kolb. (Mar, Emory Magazine) ### Sign Languages #### United States ASL Interpreters Are Unionizing —And They Say They’re Getting Fired for It. (Mar, Mother Jones) ### Braille #### France Publishing of braille books threatened in France. (In French, Feb, Handicap.fr) _Back tocontents._ ## Conflict and Peace ### Overview #### Iran We are never meant to run: Disabled people during the Iran war: > “For instance, on March 10, air strikes in Alborz Province heavily damaged a residential facility that housed 80 children (under 14) with learning disabilities. All children had to be transferred to other centres. On March 12, a specialist hospital for disabled people in Ahvaz was damaged due to an airstrike on the nearby buildings. According to the State Welfare Organisation of Iran (the government agency in charge of disability support services), so far, 30,000 households with disabled people have been directly impacted, 41 homes have been completely destroyed and 915 homes have sustained damage, with the extent of the damage ranging from 5% to 50%. Two disabled people in State care have died in Ilam Province in western Iran.” (Mar, The D*List) #### Lebanon The ordeal of displaced people with disabilities. “We used to live like kings in our homes. Our lives have become a living hell.” (In French, Apr, Handicap.fr) #### Myanmar ‘Everything Has Gone Back’: How Myanmar’s 2021 Military Coup Reversed Hard-Won Disability Reforms and Pushed Advocates Underground. (Feb, Disability Justice Project) #### New Zealand How the Iran conflict is impacting disabled communities in Aotearoa - and what we can do about. (Mar, The D*List) ### Israel-Palestine Conflict #### Palestine Gaza’s Amputation Crisis Deepens Amid Prosthetics Shortage: > “The prosthetics sector inside Gaza is under immense pressure. Only nine prosthetists are currently active in the territory, one of them working for Humanity & Inclusion. This is far below what is needed to meet demand. Restrictions on the entry of international specialists have further limited technical support and training for local teams.” (Apr, Humanity & Inclusion) _Back tocontents._ ## Culture, Entertainment and Media ### Overview #### New Zealand We're three years old... is The D _List what we thought it would be? (Mar, The D_ List) #### United Kingdom The blind aesthetic: What I’ve learned about beauty from blind sculptors and friends. (Mar, Body Babble) People Like Us: Filling the Gaps Through Portraits of Disabled Activism. (Mar, Disability Arts Online) ### TV and Film #### United Kingdom Bridgerton actor was told her disability would hold her back before Netflix role. Profile of Gracie McGonigal. (Mar, BBC) ### Media #### International News Made by humans, for humans. Why Disability Debrief doesn’t use AI (and when it does): > ‘I think the wider disability community needs to be cautious too. Sharing our lived experience is an essential part of our advocacy, and if we undermine it with reckless use of AI tools, we undermine our mantra of “nothing about us without us”.’ (Apr, Disability Debrief) The Global Directory of Disabled News Media Professionals. (Reframing Disability) #### Australia The media wants disabled people to be locked inside until they die: > “In a country where billionaires avoid tax, fossil fuel companies avoid tax, social media companies avoid tax and media empires avoid tax, apparently the real strain on taxpayer money is disabled people who have the nerve to want to be alive.” (Mar, The Shot) #### Luxembourg One Centimetre at a Time: How a Luxembourg Podcast Demonstrated Practical Disability Inclusion. (Mar, Reframing Disability) #### New Zealand We're three years old... is The D _List what we thought it would be? (Mar, The D_ List) _Back tocontents._ ## Data and Research #### Europe Living with disability in Europe: what open data shows: > “People with disabilities are more exposed to poverty and less likely to be employed, but higher public spending does not always translate into better outcomes.” (Feb, data.europa.eu) #### New Zealand From Data to Dignity 2026. Health and wellbeing indicators for New Zealanders with intellectual disability: “People with intellectual disability live on average 17 years less than the general population” (Feb, ihc) _Back tocontents._ ## Digital Accessibility and Technology ### Overview #### United States One Week with NVDA: A JAWS User’s Immersion Journey. (Feb, Blind Access Journal) ### Artificial Intelligence #### International News Made by humans, for humans. Why Disability Debrief doesn’t use AI (and when it does): > ‘I think the wider disability community needs to be cautious too. Sharing our lived experience is an essential part of our advocacy, and if we undermine it with reckless use of AI tools, we undermine our mantra of “nothing about us without us”.’ (Apr, Disability Debrief) #### United States Malice as modernization: Twenty-first century eugenics, AI, Project 2025, and disability. (Feb, First Monday) ### Social Media #### International News Instagram investigating AI profiles 'fetishising' disabled people. (Feb, BBC) _Back tocontents._ ## Disaster Risk Reduction and Crisis Response #### Myanmar “Work with us, from the start”: what inclusive recovery means for women with disabilities in Myanmar, after the 2025 earthquake. (Apr, UN Women) _Back tocontents._ ## Economics and Social Protection ### Overview #### United States Funding the ADA’s Promise. Why Disability Access Requires Investment Across Systems. (Mar, New America) #### Zambia Disability budget analysis in Zambia. “Zambia has made important progress in increasing public expenditure on disability inclusion in recent years.” (Feb, UNICEF) ### Social Protection #### Australia Disability community 'scared' by dramatic NDIS changes: > “Mr Butler announced a major overhaul of the NDIS to slash the growth of the scheme and reduce the number of participants from 760,000 to around 600,000 by the end of the decade.” (Apr, ABC News) More than 160,000 people to be kicked off NDIS as government overhauls eligibility test. (Apr, ABC News) NDIS eligibility will be based on ‘functional capacity’, not diagnostic labels. But what does that mean? (Apr, the Conversation) If we “can’t afford” the NDIS, what can we afford? (Apr, Powerd Media) #### New Zealand When “Natural Supports” Aren’t Natural at All: > “Many disabled people want to be supported by their whānau. Many whānau want to provide that care. The issue is not willingness. The issue is whether the State will continue to depend on that willingness while refusing to resource it. Because if it does, we need to stop calling it “natural supports.” And start calling it what it is, a system built on unpaid labour, despite the law increasingly recognising that labour as work.” (Apr, Huhana Hickey) #### Tanzania Impacts of the “Ujana Salama” Cash Plus Program Across Multiple Domains of Well-Being for Adolescents With and Without Disability: Results of a Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial in Tanzania: > “For adolescents with disabilities, this expanded intervention increased their participation in farm work and reduced experiences of sexual violence and showed some positive trends toward improving self-rated health.” (Mar, Journal of Adolescent Health) Impacts of the “Ujana Salama” Cash Plus programme on well-being for adolescents with and without disability, an evidence brief. (Feb, LSHTM) #### Ukraine Wanted to buy a fake disability for 6,000 US dollars – a colonel of the National Guard was detained. (Mar, Prosecutor General's Office) Ukraine's Defense Ministry Announces One-Time Disability Compensation: Eligibility and Payment Details. (Mar, 112.ua) #### United Kingdom ‘A cruel penalty’: disabled people face lower benefit payments if conditions not deemed lifelong. (Mar, the Guardian) #### United States Trump SSI Rule Change Targets Disabled Adults Who Live With Families. (Apr, ProPublica) “In the last year, it’s gotten a lot worse”. A Qualitative Investigation of Barriers to Disability Benefits in 2025: > “Although navigating SSA’s complex rules has always required determination, respondents told us that changes initiated by the second Trump administration in 2025 have undermined their sense that persistence and deep knowledge of program rules could eventually make the system work. They described how longstanding challenges, such as application processing delays, understaffing, and long wait times on the phone and in the field office, have intensified. In addition to this worsening of long-term issues, respondents described rapidly changing policies, unprecedented errors, and pervasive chaos to a degree that longtime service providers had never seen before.” (Mar, DREDF) KU study tracks 43 years of intellectual and developmental disability funding trends: > “Of the FY23 total of $105 billion, State of the States researchers showed that the federal government spent $60.2 billion, states spent $43 billion, and local programs spent $1.37 billion on programs that help support people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.” (Mar, KU News) Nation's Disability Services System Faces 'Unprecedented' Threats. (Mar, Disability Scoop) _Back tocontents._ ## Education and Childhood ### Overview #### South Sudan Accessible learning for all: first inclusive education hub opens in South Sudan. (Mar, Light for the World International) #### United Kingdom What are the Send changes in England likely to cost and what are the hurdles? (Feb, the Guardian) ### Higher Education #### Indonesia Survey of Lecturers with Disabilities Reveals Indonesian Campuses Are Still Far from Inclusive. (Feb, Universitas Gadjah Mada) #### United States These blind students say their college blocked their education. A new rule could help. (Apr, NPR) Accessibility Isn’t the Problem. Exam Design Is. Thoughtful reflections on the increase and risks of accommodations in exams: > “Grades should reflect mastery of course material. As such, timed assessments are only one tool — sometimes a good one, sometimes a poor one — to measure that mastery. In some contexts, time pressure is meaningful. If it takes a student four hours to translate a sentence in French, their fluency is certainly in question. In other contexts, speed is incidental. In many advanced problem-solving settings, arriving at the correct method and justification matters more than racing against the clock.” (Feb, Harvard Crimson) _Back tocontents._ ## Employment, Business and Work #### United Kingdom Millions of Workers Have Energy Limiting Conditions. Why Aren’t We Designing for Them? (Mar, Disability Insight) Government commits to introducing mandatory ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting for large employers. (Mar, GOV.UK) #### United States New Data Show Unemployment Rising for Black and Asian Disabled Workers Amid Trump's Attacks. (Mar, National Partnership for Women & Families) “They Attend Strictly to Their Own Business”: Disability and the Construction of the Worker-Citizen. (Feb, American Political Science Review) _Back tocontents._ ## Gender Equality and Women with Disabilities #### Europe Gender Mainstreaming Package: Gender Equality must be part of every aspect of our movement. (Mar, EDF) A Crip and Lesbian Perspective on Disability Rights: New EL*C Research Report: > “The persistent marginalisation documented in this report does not merely point to a lack of legal standards, but rather to the need for a more consistent, intersectional and transformative interpretation of existing ones. Strengthening this reading of the CRPD requires not only action at the national level, but also supportive and coherent policy engagement at the EU level, particularly to enhance how gender mainstreaming is applied within disability policies and how disability perspectives are integrated within broader gender, LGBTIQ and equality frameworks” (EuroCentralAsian Lesbian Community) #### United Kingdom Scottish Trans and Non-binary Experiences Report: > ‘61% of people had avoided at least one public service for fear of being harassed, read as trans, or being outed, and just over half (54%) had has at least one negative experience in a public service.’ (Mar, Scottish Trans) _Back tocontents._ ## Health #### International News Separating disability stigma from health stigma: implications for health and rehabilitation research and practice. (Apr, Disability and Rehabilitation) Road Traffic Accidents and Disability: A global health concern: > “When asked why they had not previously considered people disabled in an RTA, the Road Traffic Safety experts interviewed reported assuming some disability organization, government program or medical service would be there to help. Disability experts had not considered the psychological, social and economic implications of being faced with sudden catastrophic disability and assumed that their experiences were no different than that of people disabled through other causes.” (Social Science & Medicine) #### Australia A new diagnosis of ‘profound autism’ is on the cards. Here’s what could change. (Feb, The Conversation) #### Ethiopia Inequalities in health and healthcare utilization among people with disabilities in Ethiopia: evidence from the 2021/2022 Ethiopian Socio-Economic Panel Survey: > “People with disabilities in Ethiopia had greater healthcare needs than people without disabilities, which were not fully matched by increased levels of healthcare utilization, and they incurred higher healthcare costs, indicating systemic inequalities in health.” (Feb, Disability and Rehabilitation) #### South Korea Disability inclusion in health data systems and policy in Korea: time for action: > “In Korea, despite having a well-established administrative infrastructure—most notably the Korean National Disability Registration System—disability-inclusive health data remain limited.” (Jan, Health Affairs Scholar) #### United Kingdom Maternal decision-making through temporal uncertainties: The anticipatory biopolitics of Vosoritide in dwarfism communities. (Social Science & Medicine) #### United States Long COVID disability burden in US adults: > “Long COVID’s disability burden rivals that of Alzheimer’s and asthma. Yet Long COVID receives only 14% of its YLD-proportionate funding—$106 million instead of $739.8 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Conditions affecting mostly men receive 5.2 times more funding/YLD than those affecting mostly women.” (Mar, Communications Medicine) Should the Autism Spectrum Be Split Apart? “Families of people with severe autism say the repeated expansion of the diagnosis pushed them to the sidelines.” (2025, New York Times) _Back tocontents._ ## History and Memorial #### Canada History in 60: Disability rights in Canada TV Series. (Jan, H60) #### Greece Disassembled Cyborgs: Interpreting Cretan Warriorhood and War Booty through Disability Theory with Jesse Obert: > “As a heuristic device, the cyborg works well for ancient Crete. Warriors used their metal armor to protect and accentuate their bodies, but when they lost their armor to rival warriors, they were symbolically disassembled and dismembered, failing to actuate the great cybernetic warriors that they claimed to be.” (Jan, Peopling the Past) #### United Kingdom Michael Campbell: Actor with MND who won top award for playing Richard III dies. (Apr, BBC) Graham Findlay, a tireless and influential advocate for disabled people’s rights, died on 4th February 2026. (Feb, Inclusive Design) From Amputee to Author: Shadrack Byfield and the Making of a War of 1812 Veteran. (Jan, Journal of British Studies) #### United States Alice Wong showed us Disability Justice makes our advocacy stronger. (Apr, The Sick Times) A Michigan man built a life-changing mobility device for his wife — then the world took notice. Obituary of Allan "Al" Thieme, who invented a mobility scooter. (Mar, MLive) Giving Alice Wong Her Flowers. A series gathering memories of Alice. See also part 2 and part 3. (Mar, Disabled Journalists Association) What were the Experiences of Disabled People during WWII Incarceration of Japanese Americans? (Feb, Densho) “They Attend Strictly to Their Own Business”: Disability and the Construction of the Worker-Citizen. (Feb, American Political Science Review) Celebration of Life of Alice Wong. (Feb, Disability Visibility Project) These “Children Won’t Become Women”: Depo-Provera, Intellectual Disability, and the Indian Health Service: > “Beyond its utility as a contraceptive, many physicians and institutional administrators saw Depo-Provera as a treatment for menstrual anxiety, a reprieve for care workers, a non-surgical substitute for sterilization, and a delayer of puberty for women with intellectual disabilities.” (Jan, History of Medicine and Allied Sciences) Reassessing Helen Keller’s Reform Writings: Disability And Gender In Progressive Era American Feminism (1900-1960). (Jan, ASJP) _Back tocontents._ ## Humanitarian, Migrants and Refugees ### Overview #### International News Humanitarian Reset and Organisations of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs) meeting – Summary Report. (Mar, Disability Reference Group) #### Lebanon Protection Sector Weekly Response Sitrep. Features the work of the Friends of the Disabled Association: > “In the context of Lebanon’s ongoing crisis, FDA has expanded its emergency response to assist displaced persons with disabilities and their families by providing shelter, rehabilitation services, psychosocial support, and coordination with humanitarian actors to ensure access to assistive devices and specialized care. Since the onset of the emergency, FDA hosts 18 displaced families (60 individuals, including 11 persons with disabilities).” (Apr, Relief Web) Disability Emergency Checklist “essential guidelines and outlining the minimum standards that must be ensured in any emergency situation in Lebanon.” (Mar, Disability Hub) ### Migration #### International News Experiences of Asian mothers of children with disability who migrated to Western countries: a systematic review of qualitative studies. (Jan, Disability and Rehabilitation) #### United States Nurul Amin Shah Alam’s Death Was a Homicide. (Apr, Mother Jones) Hayward family, including deaf child deported to Colombia. (Mar, KTVU FOX 2) Disabled Organizers Are Facing Down Trump’s Immigration Crackdown. (Mar, Truthout) _Back tocontents._ ## Independent Living and Deinstitutionalization ### Overview #### Austria Nuns who broke back into their Austrian convent ‘are step closer to being able to stay’. (Apr, the Guardian) ### Conditions in Institutions #### Mexico “Grave and Systemic”: UN Exposes abuse against people with disabilities in institutions. (Mar, Disability Rights International) #### United States Massachusetts Unseals Records of Abuse of Disabled People in State Institutions. (Mar, Truthout) How involuntary commitment could become indefinite detention. “Federal authorities should not be able to turn civil commitment into a life sentence for anyone the government deems inconvenient.” (Feb, Reason) These “Children Won’t Become Women”: Depo-Provera, Intellectual Disability, and the Indian Health Service: > “Beyond its utility as a contraceptive, many physicians and institutional administrators saw Depo-Provera as a treatment for menstrual anxiety, a reprieve for care workers, a non-surgical substitute for sterilization, and a delayer of puberty for women with intellectual disabilities.” (Jan, History of Medicine and Allied Sciences) _Back tocontents._ ## International Cooperation #### International News Building Disability-Inclusive Futures a special issue dedicated to insights and lessons from international programmes on disability. (Mar, IDS Bulletin) _Back tocontents._ ## Justice Systems and Legal Capacity #### Venezuela Autism in prison: an invisible population within the Venezuelan prison system. (In Spanish, Apr, La Patilla) _Back tocontents._ ## Lived Experience and Opinion #### International News How do I know if I'm being used? Advice on ableism, friendship and mobility aids from an Agony Aunt in Agony. (Apr, Disability Debrief) #### France Nihal, Child of the Moon: how she lives with extreme UV sensitivity. (Mar, the Guardian) #### United States The 'Paperwork Flood': How I Drowned a Bureaucrat before dinner. (Mar, Sightless Scribbles) _Back tocontents._ ## Mental Health #### Europe Report: Rethink To Rebuild: Towards Rights-Based and Gender-Just Mental Health Systems in Europe. (Mar, Mental Health Europe) _Back tocontents._ ## Mobility, Travel, Transport and Tourism ### Overview #### International News People with Disabilities and Transport Access: “Provisions to ensure transport access must be integrated systematically into the design and implementation of disability-inclusive development programmes”. (IDS Bulletin) #### Australia $3000 fines for cab drivers “who refuse to accept travel subsidy dockets and cards from passengers with disability or rip off passengers who use a wheelchair”. (Mar, NSW Government) ### Air Travel #### International News Airbus Wheelchair Securement System Becomes First to Fly. (Apr, Wheelchair Travel) First Look: Airplane Lavatory with Adult Changing Table. (Apr, Wheelchair Travel) #### Europe Dear Vueling: A Broken Wheelchair Demands Accountability—Not a Look Under My Skirt. (Apr, Tanzila Khan) #### United States For disabled fliers, hope took wing. Then Trump returned to office. (Mar, Los Angeles Times) _Back tocontents._ ## Policy and Rights ### Overview #### Egypt Details of the National Strategy for Empowering Persons with Disabilities 2026-2030. (In Arabic, Mar, Youm7) #### Europe Three great reasons to create the European Agency for Accessibility. (Mar, EDF) ### Assisted Dying and Euthanasia #### Canada Alberta bill will ban MAID for all non-terminal conditions and minors: > “The bill would also prohibit physicians and other health-care professionals from initiating unsolicited conversations about MAID with patients, and from referring individuals to receive euthanasia outside the province, and would also ban advertisements for MAID in hospitals.” (Mar, National Post) #### India All you need to know about: passive euthanasia. The principles of passive euthanasia have been practically applied by the apex court for the first time. (Mar, The Hindu) #### Italy First assisted suicide with an eye-activated device made by the CNR. (Mar, Il Sole) _Back tocontents._ ## Politics and Elections #### Bangladesh Will disability rights be finally delivered? “BNP’s election manifesto—specifically pledging to advance disability rights and the existing legislation about disability—signals hope.” (Mar, The Daily Star) #### Netherlands Thousands of Dutch polling stations fail accessibility standards. (Mar, NL Times) #### United States Protect Voting Rights for People with Disabilities. Congress is considering several bills right now that could make voter registration more difficult for many Americans, including millions of voters with disabilities. (Mar, Disability Belongs) _Back tocontents._ ## Relationships, Sex and Reproductive Rights #### France Disability, intimacy, emotional and sexual life: a government plan lacking scope and boldness. (In France, Feb, APF France Handicap) #### Germany Will There Be No More Disabled Children Born In The Future? “Until a 1995 reform, in Germany, it was allowed to abort a fetus purely because of a diagnosed disability. The law was repealed, but in practice, not much has changed.” (2025, Global Disability News Network) #### United States These “Children Won’t Become Women”: Depo-Provera, Intellectual Disability, and the Indian Health Service: > “Beyond its utility as a contraceptive, many physicians and institutional administrators saw Depo-Provera as a treatment for menstrual anxiety, a reprieve for care workers, a non-surgical substitute for sterilization, and a delayer of puberty for women with intellectual disabilities.” (Jan, History of Medicine and Allied Sciences) _Back tocontents._ ## Sport and Paralympics #### International News Winter Para Sport Explainers. Milano Cortina 2026 Paralympic Winter Games. (Animated video, Mar, Channel 4 Sport) #### Angola Wheelchair basketball: absence of the public takes the shine off the competition. (In Portuguese, Mar, Jornal de Angola) #### Italy The Paralympic Village Was Proof That Truly Accessible Cities Can and Should Exist. (Mar, Teen Vogue) #### Japan Tokyo Deaflympics 2025 leaves lasting boost for accessible tourism. “Tokyo is gradually becoming more accessible, with major hotels, museums and transportation hubs introducing visual alert systems, such as vibration alarms, and staff receiving basic sign language training.” (Feb, TTG Asia) #### United States We're Not Winning Because We're Not Investing. What the 2026 Winter Paralympics Reveals About How the United States Values Disabled Athletes. (Mar, Kara Ayers) _Back tocontents._ ## Violence and Harassment #### United Kingdom Woman kept in ‘Dickensian’ servitude for 25 years speaks out as abuser jailed. (Mar, the Guardian) _Back tocontents._ ## Water and Sanitation (WASH) #### Bangladesh Extreme weather and sanitation in Bangladesh: a mixed-methods study of lived experiences of people with disabilities: > “When I was going to the latrine with my crutch, my leg slipped, and I fell in the mud. Then, there was a brick on the ground, and my amputated leg side fell on that brick. I cut the upper part of the amputated leg, and blood came out. I used a plastic pot for my toileting at that time, and my mother or wife cleaned it after defecation and urination.” (Apr, The Lancet Regional Health - Southeast Asia) _Back tocontents._

disabilitydebrief.org

Listen and smell intently

“Navigating the world in similar ways”, by Kinanty Andini Dear Debriefers, Today's edition shares my favourite quotes from the past months of disability reading. We've got blind cats, Braille Playboy, and governments abandoning disabled people. And the history of disability rights, plus a wedding conducted in sign language in the sixteenth century. There's inspirational stories (and the problem with them), North American elevators (and the problem with _them_), and more in an edition that goes to the moon and back. ## About this edition **Disability Debrief is funded through a** pay-what-you-can model**.** With thanks for new contributions to El, Rosemary and Thomas. **Peter Torres Fremlin** is editor of Disability Debrief and is from the UK. **Kinanty Andini** is an illustrator and digital artist from Indonesia. Sign-up for a disability lens on world news Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. Weekly in your inbox ## “Listen and smell intently” In the United States, Paul Jager writes about his family, which includes: “three blind cats and one visually impaired human”. He shares how the adaptations he makes in the house for himself (like keeping things consistently placed) also benefit his cats, and the other parallels they have in navigating their disabilities: > “Grace and I navigated through the world in very similar ways: use memorized paths to walk, count steps, listen and smell intently to orient, and use hands/front paws to find something familiar when disoriented. When she encountered something new, Grace examined it thoroughly with her paws and her nose. The main difference between us was that she also scent marked the furniture to help her find it. Cats have those extremely useful whiskers and a much more pronounced sense of smell than humans, which seems to make them better prepared to live without sight.” ## “Undesirable activities” Over on the Accessibility Apprentice, Kristian writes about making sex accessible. He shares how in the US the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled collection included, for over a decade, braille editions of Playboy magazine. (With the articles, no advertisements or photographs.) However, back in 1985, a group of Republican politicians led a debate to cut funding for this, with one congressman justifying a cut of support by saying: > “I believe that promoting the reading of Playboy in this way does lead to undesirable activities.” A contemporary report from the Los Angeles Times condemned this view in terms of freedom of speech: > “That is the pious cant of born censors. Censorship and discrimination by Congress are activities much more undesirable and far-reaching than any inspired by Braille editions of Playboy.” A federal court agreed with the LA Times, and overturned the Senate funding cut on grounds of the first amendment, which guarantees free expression. ## “An era of sickness caused by political choices” Last year, Disability Rights UK responded to the government's budget with harsh critique of lack of investment in public services: > “We are living in an era of sickness caused by political choices. Many are getting more ill under the weight of poor working conditions, inadequate incomes, precarious housing and overstretched health and social care services. The fault for this lies squarely at the feet of successive governments who have chosen profit over people.” Also last year, Tressa Burke, CEO of Glasgow Disability Alliance shared similar sentiments when she turned down an honour from the government for her services to people with disabilities: > “I feel that I cannot accept a personal honour because disabled people are being so dishonoured at this time. In fact we are being demonised, dehumanised and scapegoated for political choices and policy failures by consecutive governments.” Meanwhile historian Lucy Delap, who has written on the Debrief, shares that this position from the government is nothing new: > “The UK state has a history of creating and amplifying disability stigma. Politicians have regularly stoked public fears of disabled people, through talk of shirkers and scroungers. Lower-level officials have casually and harmfully judged, ignored and discriminated against disabled people.” ## “Because of their sacrifices” In the United States, Alex Green interviewed Bob Williams on his decades-long activism on disability rights. Looking back at the way the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) came to be, Williams said: > “[There] are many stories about how and why the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) was enacted that are barely known. The main narrative is that in the 90s, disabled folks brought it about ourselves. > > “That is understandable, though also ahistorical, like much of our culture today. It obscures, if not completely erases, the fact that disabled people, especially those deported to institutions and other hell holes, have been abused, killed, violated, and forcefully silenced throughout our history. It is because of their sacrifices that we have the law, that we have the laws we have, and that we must persist. > > “Another thing that should be built on is that everything we did to gain passage of the ADA, we did in unison with the wider civil rights, women, faith, sexual identity, and labor communities. Whenever we met with Senate and House members, we did so in unison. When we strategized and made tough judgment calls, we did it as a coalition. When we celebrated a victory or lamented a setback, we joined together. Not just because there is strength and wisdom in numbers, but because we knew that the ADA has to be about justice for all.” ## “A fairy tale” In India, the popular understanding of the path of disability rights is also questioned, by Vijay K. Tiwari, Sanjay Jain and Shrutika Pandey. In their article on Maharashtra State's questioning of employees with disabilities, they write: > “The history of the disability rights movement in India is a history of modest victories alongside some crucial setbacks. However, in recent years, mainstream historiography has valorised these victories to such an extent that it appears as though India is firmly on a progressive path of disability discourse that cannot be reversed. This belief resembles a fairy tale. As if at a time when several minority groups have faced violent ‘othering’, bulldozer justice and the force of authoritarian politics, middle-class, apolitical disabled persons have been able to secure certain rights through the instruments of liberal legalism.” ## “Took her by the hande” Leicester Cathedral, in the UK, has shared the certificate of a wedding in 1576 that was conducted using sign language. The groom, Thomas Tilsye, was deaf, and used sign in his marriage to Ursula Russel. The certificate records that “for the expression of his minde instead of words”: > “First he embraced her with his armes, and took her by the hande, putt a ring upon her finger and layde his hande upon her harte, and held his hands towards heaven; and to show his continuance to dwell with her to his lyves ende he did it by closing of his eyes with his hands and digging out of the earthe with his foote, and pulling as though he would ring a bell with divers other signs approved." For more, see Rosamund Oates who contextualises the wedding in an article on the history of sign as a legal language. ## Disabled with a capital D In the United States, the Disabled Journalists Association (DJA) capitalises the word “Disabled” in their coverage. Founder Cara Reedy explains why: > “It is a political choice, absolutely, as are most things in journalism and I think that because DJA is a disability-justice organization, we capitalize it because we value being Disabled as an identity. Just like I value being Black and capitalize Black, just like the Associated Press does.” ## “What I hoped for was for people to listen” At the end of last year, Giles Duley completed his term as the first UN Global Advocate for Persons with Disabilities in Conflict and Peacebuilding Situations. He left with a stark message: > “I did not expect in my three years here for everything to change. What I hoped for was for people to listen – and that’s where I feel I failed, and that’s where I feel the system failed.” Even in his role as a global advocate, people preferred to hear him tell his story, and be an inspiration himself, rather than share the stories of those with disabilities he had seen on the frontlines of conflict. He warns that stories around disability are still “too often romanticised”, and that the inclusion of people with disabilities is symbolic, rather than substantive: > “I have been to many conferences where on stage there will be somebody who is a landmine victim or a survivor of sexual violence… and again and again it’s performative. Everybody clapping, everybody saying ‘I’m really inspired’… but how often do those people then get involved in the conversation about true policy change?” ## Sitting on a gold mine In Switzerland, Debrief-favourite Malick Reinhard also reflected on influencers with disabilities able to monetize their inspiring stories. He pauses, and wonders what that might mean for him: > “I look down at my own electric wheelchair. I take stock of my six wheels, my ‘lived experience’, my administrative hassles, and my stacks of medical files. And I can't help but wonder: am I sitting here, without knowing, on a gold mine?” (Translated from French) ## “I didn't feel like a poem” I'm turning 40 next month, and appreciated Rebekah Taussig's beautiful reflections on the same milestone. Taussig, writing from the US, shared what her body has found out: > “13. The limitations of a body can be a creative prompt, like the edges of a poem – what comes out when you are only given the space of seventeen syllables in three lines of five, seven, five? Something distinct from a novel or even a sonnet, and no less beautiful for the narrow parameters. > > “14. And also, when I fell on the bathroom floor and reached for the side of the bathtub, then the edge of the toilet, then my wheelchair frame, trying to hoist myself up and couldn’t, I didn’t feel like a poem. Micah was there in a few short moments. Silent and sturdy, he lifted me up. I felt like deadweight. I felt safe. I did not want this. And this was where we were. The limit of sharpening edges can fortify love and shred your skin like a cheese grater. > > [...] > > “17. There is a reason people are petrified of aging. Old age often comes with new limitations – in our bodies and choices – and it reminds us that one day we are going to die. Hello, that is hard! Even as it can, and often does, include new beauties and depths, even as we can imagine delicious new ways of being, it makes sense that even the most ordinary aging would sometimes invite a kind of grief.” ## A whole authentic self Also in the US, Meier Galblum Haigh writes about how the war on Trans Folks is Disabling. They share their own story about growing up disabled: > “I came out as nonbinary and transgender at 32 years old. I was so worried about survival as a chronically ill disabled person for much of my teens and twenties that I didn’t have the time, energy, or emotional bandwidth to think about a whole authentic self. It nearly killed me. As I made a transition from invisible to visible disability in a period of intense illness, therapy let me examine the cost of every closet I was in.” ## “To unlearn the blame” In New Zealand, Soph Jackson shares her choice to identify as disabled after being diagnosed with ADHD and autism: > “My life had been shaped by these conditions. I know a lot of ADHDers and autistic people (along with others with mental health conditions or sensory/cognitive/intellectual conditions) struggle with the idea of claiming disabled identity. For me, it was obvious. To unlearn all of the blame I had put on myself, my mind and my body, I had to also accept that a lot of my struggle had come from being unsupported, and living in an inaccessible world.” ## Learning curves In the US, Yewande Komolafe shares how losing her limbs made her a different kind of cook: > “Our learning curves are steepest when the skills we’ve leaned on all our lives have been swept out from under us. I’ve had to set my faith in my physical body aside, focusing on the skills I do have, and consigning to the future the skills I must relearn, like how to whisk a bowl of cream to milky soft peaks with prosthetic hands.” ## Not-in-my-backyard effect In Germany, Verena Bentele, president of the welfare association VdK tells Robert Bosch Stiftung about how social acceptance and discrimination of/against persons with disabilities both exist at the same time: > ‘The discrepancy can also be explained by the "not-in-my-backyard effect." This describes an attitude where people generally support certain social measures or projects but don't want to tolerate them in their own neighborhood or immediate environment. Socially, the participation of people with disabilities and their equal treatment is often fundamentally supported. However, when it comes to establishing housing, support, or care services locally for them, they encounter resistance in the immediate neighborhood. Many then suddenly don't want guests with disabilities in restaurants, don't want changes to their residential environment, don't want children with disabilities in their own children's school class, or don't want support so that someone can participate accessibly. Although many people fundamentally accept that people with disabilities need social support, they reject corresponding measures in their environment because they fear personal or social disadvantages.’ ## “North America kind of sucks at elevators” On YouTube, About Here and Sightline Institute have a feature on North America's Elevator Problem. They share how costs and building codes mean that the US “has the lowest number of elevators per capita in the developed world”. And they put this in context of the elevator as “a core part of a city's infrastructure”: > “At the end of the day, elevators are an essential part of our cities. They're really what makes our modern city today possible. But more importantly, they make our cities accessible to anyone regardless of their age or ability. And as our cities grow, they will only continue to become more important in the future.” Meanwhile, in Sweden, Tanzila Khan reflects on how a broken elevator shows her the differences between accessibility in Sweden and Pakistan: > “[In Sweden] the elevator is there, fantastic, it's big enough, I can get on it, I've done that so many times. But there are times when it's not working. Do I automatically start relying on [society's goodwill]? That's not how society in Sweden is built. Probably it's applicable in Pakistan, you can ask a couple of people, they'll come, lift you up, take you left, right, wherever you want to go.” ## “I don't want to go to the moon” The beauty of the Artemis II mission, and its photographs from the far side of the moon, reminded me of a moment from my studies in Brazil. One of the first events I went to as a researcher was a small manifestation. A wheelchair user pointed to the busy highway next to us and said, “não quero ir a lua, só quero atravessa a rua”. _I don't want to go to the moon, I just want to cross the road._ All best for your journeys big and small, Peter ## Outro **Further reading**. There is a back catalogue of Debrief newsletters online, as well as a library of disability news from 170+ countries. **Let your friends know**. Sharing the newsletter is how people find it! **For more from Kinanty,** see her website. **Connect**. Get in touch. You can find me on Linkedin and Bluesky. **Help us do more**. The Debrief is free thanks to reader support. ## Acknowledgements Thanks to Kinanty Andini for the illustration. And to the readers and organisations whose support makes the Debrief possible.

disabilitydebrief.org

How do I know if I'm being used?

Fake Friends, by Kinanty Andini Dear Debriefers, Since I was a child, I’ve loved traditional advice columns for their heartwarming stories of real people, and the opportunity to see the world through somebody else’s eyes. But I was always left with a prickly-hot feeling that people like me were never featured. Now I have words for this feeling: exclusion, lack of representation, ableism. As an undiagnosed tween, I was given the impression that my problems were too complicated, too agonising, too problematic even to be mentioned. My wordless shame was confirmed at every doctor’s appointment, by every teacher, and every “friend”. It wasn’t until I started sharing my story online that I realised I am not as alone as I thought. Through creating online spaces for the disability community, it became clear how many people experience the same problems without the words to express them. The absence of stories like ours is a symptom of systematic oppression. Our isolation is not inevitable. This edition introduces my new advice column _Dear HB_. I am an agony aunt… in constant agony, and sharing the advice I wish I'd been given myself. Today I'll be answering questions exploring friendship, dating, mobility aids, and beyond. If you have a question you'd like answered, send it to me here. ## About this edition **Disability Debrief can write from a disability perspective thanks to** support from readers**.** Thanks to Brendan, Genevieve and Disability Rights International for new contributions. **Blossom (HB)** is a disabled writer from England, and creator of Tea with HB and Poetry Orchard. **Kinanty Andini** is an illustrator and digital artist from Indonesia. Sign-up for a disability lens on world news Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. Weekly in your inbox ## How do I know if I'm being used? **Dear HB,** **As a young autistic woman, how can I figure out if someone is using me or if they are genuine? I don’t want to go around being bitter and not trusting anyone but it is so hard to keep getting hurt like this. – Young and Bitter** Dear Young and Bitter, Some of the best things in life are bitter: dark chocolate, fresh lemonade on a hot summer day, or that hit of coffee on a groggy morning. But they do not have a choice about being bitter. We do. Bitterness comes for us all at one point or another. It is good to acknowledge, as it can guide you how to treat others, as well as how you would like to be treated. But that doesn’t mean you have to embrace it as a lifestyle. I am a golden retriever, bounding up to people seemingly care-free, I truly can’t help it. “Everyone is a friend!” …until they’re not. Some days I long for bitterness, after all, couldn’t it protect me from a multitude of malice and pain? But I think it would also prevent me from the deep joy in finding kindred spirits. I am not willing to sacrifice that. Are you? Regardless of how many times you have been hurt, it doesn’t mean it was your fault. It doesn’t mean you have to change. It means someone chose to be unkind, and that says more about them than it ever could about you. You could make a list of non-negotiables in your friendships, things that have happened in the past that you know should not be repeated. Make a list of some desirable qualities too! The friends you need are those who make you feel _good!_ There are a few questions I try to ask myself when I am around new people: How do I feel? Do they bring out the best in me? Do I feel safe? Is my nervous system dysregulated during or after hanging out with them? You will never know if someone is using you until it is too late. It is not on you to figure it out. Be yourself, and trust that this will attract others like you. Love, HB ## My date jokes about switching off my life-support **Dear HB,** **I’m super new to the whole dating-with-a-disability thing and I had a really bad flare up recently that caused a lot of injuries. In an effort to keep serious topics light on dating apps, one of my prompts is “Believe it or not I died once!”** **I went on a date where this guy commented on it, saying it seems like I get injured a lot. I told him that I was in the ER 4x in two days, and he responded “No offence, but if I was the ER doctor I would have pulled the plug.”** **My first instinct is to gloss over it and try to take it as a joke, a throwaway comment, but then I was like, y’know what, actually, that was a really hard time for me! So I am proud of myself for telling him it wasn’t okay, and he did apologise. Now I am wondering if I am being too harsh… my instinct is to write him off but should I give him another chance?! – Dying to Date** Dear Dying to Date, Plenty of disabled and chronically ill people use dark humour as a coping mechanism. I don’t know where I’d be without threatening to run away and my mother responding “with what legs?” Nevertheless! It is important it is on our terms, and from people who know our boundaries. I am glad you got an apology, and even more glad you had the confidence to communicate your discomfort. Whether or not it is a throwaway comment matters less than how it made you feel – especially when it comes to romance! Women are often told we are overreacting and conditioned to put our needs last. This might be why you are doubting your gut instinct and feeling like you are being “harsh”. Your date took the joke too far. He might genuinely have found the concept of switching off life-support funny, or bad humour might be how he deals with someone opening up to him. Either way, the plug needs to be pulled on this relationship. Trust your gut! Love, HB ## “Why am I pretending I need this?” **Dear HB,** **I feel like an imposter for using a cane. I just feel like I am able to walk and as I use it I can’t stop thinking “why am I pretending I need this”. Rationally I do think it might actually help me on a long day. But I feel like an impostor trying to be disabled. I just don’t feel disabled enough. Am I still allowed to use a mobility aid when I don’t need it all the time?? – Imposter with a Cane** Ohhhh, dear one, how I feel this! I was 17 when I first started using a wheelchair. Not the kind of puberty you expect! I thought I was finally giving up. This was it. I’m trapped. Wheelchair “bound” and I can’t even use it by myself. Surely I need to wait until my legs stop working completely? When will the police catch me? Lock me up for taking it away from someone who “really” needs it. But I was missing school and sick of bed being my only option. So, I gave myself a thought experiment: What is the worst that could happen if I really am faking it? Maybe I have a bit more energy at the end of the day. Maybe somebody sees me who does need it and feels able to try it for themselves. Maybe somebody meets me and their stereotypes and assumptions about disability are challenged, and the next person they meet who is “truly” disabled won’t have to spend their energy educating them? Maybe my legs will hurt… less. Maybe, just maybe, this could give me my life back? It did. Using a mobility aid gave me freedom, and confidence, and a whole new hatred for English cobblestones. A common phrase passed around our community is “If you are thinking of using a mobility aid, that is the sign that you need one!”.**** Because that would not cross the mind of someone who has never had their body let them down. As disabled people we are made to feel awful for needing “more” but this is only because our needs are not automatically met like everybody else. I don’t know of any truly disabled people who have not had this internal battle. So if anything, these complicated, vicious cycles are more evidence that you are not an imposter. We need to expand our definition of “need”. Are you allowed a sweater even though you might take it off when you get too hot? Are you allowed a mobility aid “just” because it will help you sometimes? Yes, my love. There are no requirements necessary. These resources are not finite, in fact it is quite the opposite. Providing demand for access means more places will realise it is needed. And a stick has many more uses than helping you walk, it is a distinguished accessory, a self-defence tool, a cat-pointer-outter. Go forth and swing that cane! Love, HB ## How do you ask for help without feeling guilty or embarrassed? **Dear HB,** **I need to work on ways to ask if anyone will give up an accessible seat for me. Even when I use a walker or wheelchair, people don’t notice on their own and I have to ask them to do things like move their bag or stop manspreading across 2 seats. They probably wouldn’t give me a hard time but I don’t know how to just announce my need to, say, a bus full of people? How do you ask for help without feeling guilty or embarrassed? – Helpless on a Bus** Helpless on a Bus, I’m no stranger to asking for, and being denied help. I asked for help repeatedly when I first became ill as a child. Instead, shame was instilled in me for expressing my needs. “Do you mind carrying my bag for me?” It’s lunch time and my shoulder has just subluxed. That means leaving its socket in an undecided sort of way. “What do we get in return?” My so-called “friends” laugh derisively. My bag, new, a gift from my mother, is now dragging along the horrible school tarmac, its beautiful pattern being marked irreparably. I can still feel the sting in the centre of my chest, the all too familiar misunderstanding of how this world apparently works, the disappointment. My own answer to this question became avoidance. Simply, don’t ask. I would sublux at a birthday party, and hold in my scream. I would walk back carrying my bigger-than-I-was school bag and collapse on the concrete ten minutes from home. I masked my pain for so long that I lost my identity. If you are disabled, you are not only comparing yourself to other people, you are comparing yourself to a standard that was not designed with you in mind. You are forced to feel like you are asking for exceptional treatment when you have no other choice. Asking for help needs a prepared justification, armour on for the battle ahead. Until you realise:**** You need not justify! Ask with confidence and explain as little as possible, you don’t need to share your medical history with every stranger to be given support. Giving yourself permission to ask without explanation changes everything, and saves a lot of time. I tried to get comfortable with embarrassment, and to… befriend! my guilt. I decided that I could not be embarrassed or awkward without first consenting to it. I practiced asking for help and made a note of every time it went well. “Please tell the driver to put the ramp down at the next bus stop” six strangers leapt to it! “Could you reach that for me please?” a laugh is exchanged in a supermarket, an interaction I would never have had otherwise. “Has anyone else struggled with x?” I ask on social media, and dozens of people all over the world send stories of solidarity and wisdom. I wondered how I would want someone to feel if they asked me for help, and channelled that. Rather than internalising guilt and shame from being denied help, I chose to feel sorry for those who weren’t interested in helping me. How lonely! What a missed opportunity for connection. From being an “invisibly” disabled child to using a wheelchair now, here’s something I want you to know: In public, outside of school and hospital, I have never been denied help by a stranger. Maybe some funny looks, sure, maybe a comment that was unnecessary. People love to help. Asking for help is not weak, or embarrassing, or wrong. It is brave, and it reminds others that they too are safe to ask, and be helpable, when they need to be. We _all_ need to be. Love, HB ## Outro **Blossom is creator** of TeawithHB.com, a movement for social equity through storytelling and authentic disability representation, and co-founder of PoetryOrchard.com, where she runs inclusive, intersectional, online creative writing workshops and Open Mics. Send her further questions here. **For more from Kinanty,** see her website. **Further reading**. There is a back catalogue of Debrief newsletters online, as well as a library of disability news from 170+ countries. **Let your friends know**. Sharing the newsletter is how people find it! **Connect**. Get in touch. And you can find the Debrief on Linkedin and Bluesky. **Help us do more**. The Debrief is free thanks to reader support. ## Acknowledgements Thank you to Peter, for the opportunity to bring this years-long project to life and for his editing skills, Kinanty Andini, for illustrating this piece, and to my Tea with HB communi-tea, who shared their stories and allowed me to publish them in the hopes it helps just one other person feel less alone. Thanks also to Belinda, Michael, and Patrick, for igniting the “agony” aunt idea and giving me endless support and encouragement. Special thanks to everyone at Poetry Orchard, you know who you are! And, of course, thanks to the readers and organisations whose presence makes the Debrief possible, it is thrilling to be part of this incredible project.

disabilitydebrief.org

Made by humans, for humans

Peter working from his bed. Photo by Damien Demolder. Dear Debriefers, I’m Peter, and I wrote this newsletter. The Debrief is made by me, working with writers and illustrators from around the world to do reporting and tell stories through our own words and art. Our lived experiences shape how we see the world, how we write, and what we write about. We don’t use Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools to write these articles, or to make the illustrations. We work hard – draft, redraft, edit, and draft again – to find authentic and creative ways to share them. But we’re not totally AI-free either. There are some points we use these tools, especially in translation and transcription. In this article I go through each area of the Debrief’s work – writing, illustrating, collaboration, making a media platform – and share how we approach AI in each. The Debrief values independence, lived experience, accuracy, originality, and community. These require care and cultivation, and for the Debrief I believe that further use of current AI technologies would go against these principles. I think the wider disability community needs to be cautious too. Sharing our lived experience is an essential part of our advocacy, and if we undermine it with reckless use of AI tools, we undermine our mantra of “nothing about us without us”. ## About this edition **If you value human-made media and are able to contribute, please join those** supporting the Debrief**.** Thanks to Allison, Erika and Louise for new contributions. **Peter Torres Fremlin** is editor of Disability Debrief and is from the UK. Sign-up for a disability lens on world news Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. Weekly in your inbox ## “This should be published” When I was fifteen, I wrote a piece for school boldly titled “Being Disabled”. My English teacher, Mrs. Jarvis, wrote on it “This should be published”. Her feedback gave made me believe that I could write, and that it might be important. That confidence lasted years. I went on to study English Literature at Cambridge university. Each week my essays were taken apart by teachers. When I later started work in international development, a manager sat me down and took out all the semi-colons I’d used in a report. Bureaucratese was a different style than a university essay. I spent over a decade living abroad, most of which I was trying to learn one language or another. When I moved back to the UK in the pandemic, I said that I was now going to “learn English”. It wasn’t exactly a joke. Since then I’ve had several writing coaches and the Debrief itself is a testament to how my writing has changed through those years, especially evident in my poetry. ## Writing a newsletter Most of my work is done at my desk, or lying down in bed. I spend some days (or weeks) researching, reading, or calls, and then structuring notes. Ideas emerge slowly, or at the end of the day after I’ve stopped work. When it’s time to write, I open a blank page and stare at it for a while. I write, browse social media, write some more. When that doesn’t work I turn on some TV show in the background. When I get into the flow, I write more fluidly, especially if the weekly deadline is looming. If there’s time, I send the draft to Celestine Fraser to review it. She tells me she likes it, she doesn’t have any many comments at all, and then I see ten minutes of voice-notes going through line-by-line with what would make the piece better. I revise, proof-read, check the links, and then, nearly always with the feeling I must have missed _something_ , I press send. ## How I use AI when I write There are some areas where I rely on AI tools, especially in translation and transcription. I regularly use machine translation to navigate sources from different languages. If I quote something I check against my own knowledge of the language or by asking a native speaker. I prompt AI chatbots for alternative translations. Automatic transcription is very helpful. For more serious things, I use rev, which combines machine with human transcription. And if I quote something, I check it against the audio. While writing, I make very occasional and minor use of AI. For example, I recently asked ChatGPT for “space-related phrases beginning with P”, so I could make a title where all the words began with “P”. (No luck.) I’ve also tried ChatGPT as the last proof-read in the moments before pressing send. But so far I’ve found it to be inconsistent, and not a replacement for going through it myself. And, after all, the time-old method for finding the last typo is to publish. ## Picking news highlights by hand I've basically followed the same method for curating news as I did for the Debrief's first edition in 2020. Through the month I save disability-related links from browsing, google alerts, other newsletters and what readers send me. Then I sit down, and over few days, go through hundreds of links. Many of them I can close quickly, some I skim, others I spend more time with. At the start it’s quite entertaining, but by the end my mind is overwhelmed, and I’m just clicking through. I still do it myself because seeing the wide scope of the news shows me the trends. And curation comes from my intuition – shaped by over fifteen years working on disability issues – to pick out things that are interesting or I haven’t seen before. And it’s from this informed view that I then make editorial decisions about what to commission on the Debrief. ## Quoting from AI-generated material One of the ways that AI has entered Debrief newsletters is through sources that are AI-generated material. The Debrief uses a wide range of sources – reports, news articles, comments from readers – and now an increasing amount of such material has used AI in its generation. Some of these I avoid, as excessive AI can appear inauthentic or boring (qualities which make me less likely to quote it, who or whatever wrote it). But some people use it also to make interesting or newsworthy points, which then make sense to quote. And either way, there are many times I can’t tell the difference. AI-generated writing has many of the qualities previously associated with good human writing. And humans are now in turn imitating AI writing in their style. Not to mention the many cases where there’s a bit of both. ## Working with others The Debrief has published articles by over twenty different writers. They range from reporting on floods in Brazil, insights from a special education teacher in Tanzania, to an interview with an activist in Myanmar. Each article comes out of very close work together, over a series of zoom calls, and several rounds of editing drafts. It’s usually months and sometimes well over a year from an initial conversation to the published article. These organic collaborations have become one of my favourite parts of the project. It’s an honour to think and laugh together. And often the work moves us to tears. ## Collaborations based on mutual trust Working together in this way counts on a good deal of mutual trust. And while I do sometimes work with old friends and colleagues, many contributors are people I only know through the Debrief itself. I work to create a safe space where writers can explore sensitive and often painful subjects. And I trust that they are who they say they are, and that what they share is accurate to the best of their knowledge. I look at someone’s previous writing, count on a mutual reference, or see how they use social media. And then, mostly, I rely on my intuition in the way we build a relationship through conversation and discussing the initial pitch of an article. For over a year now, I’ve asked each contributor how and if they use AI in their writing. If they use it for help with grammar, I remind them that that is my job as editor. One of the joys I find in editing is to work with imperfect, messy drafts to help bring out a writer’s unique style. This process is not fool-proof. Maybe not everyone is totally transparent about how they use AI. As I would with fact-checking and sourcing, I do some due-diligence. And, as with other areas, if I find out something wasn’t right, I’ll share a correction. ## Using machine translation on drafts written in other languages Several Debrief articles have been drafted in languages other than English. Articles on women with disabilities in Yemen, austerity in Argentina, or black people with disabilities in Brazil started, respectively, in Arabic, Spanish, and Portuguese. In each case, the first translation was done using machine translation. I personally used Google translate for the Arabic and Portuguese; Eduardo Quiroga used Deepl.com for the Spanish. These tools were credited in the Acknowledgement section of each article. And in each case, the articles and their translations were still checked and edited by me. So far I’ve only used this process in languages where I have a reading ability. (Like I said, I had many years of language learning before I started the Debrief.) ## Illustration and photography The Debrief commissions illustrations from disabled artists, and publishes photographs of disabled people. As with writers, I work carefully with illustrators, and these relationships are nurtured through several years. Artists’ own lived experience and artistic visions leads to gorgeous pieces that respond to the article material with soul and depth As with my own writing, you can see, for example, how Kinanty Andini’s art has developed through her years of illustrating on the Debrief. For a sneak peak into how Kinanty does her work, see this time-lapse video of how one drawing was made. As for the photographs we publish, many of these are editorial photos licensed from Getty Images, where it’s clear where they were taken and who took them. They’re selected by Celestine, who trawls through hundreds of photos from the last month. Her filmmaker eye is sensitive to selecting one that will challenge our expectations and show disability in new ways. ## Making an independent media platform Behind the scenes, I am also a simple person, carrying on in my pre-AI ways. I go to meetings and take my own notes (although I do use the auto-transcription for reference afterwards). I write my own social media posts, and reply to emails myself. Relationships are one of the most important things I can cultivate, and outsourcing them would be absurd. And, indeed, when I don’t reply to messages, that is also done by me, a human, feeling slightly guilty. The joy and challenge of starting something new is the range of things one has to be across: fundraising, admin, contracts, or legal issues. I might ask ChatGPT for advice in an area I don’t know. One area that ChatGPT did help me with was in coding some Python scripts a couple of years ago. These scripts upload the database of curated links to the website, and getting AI advice was much easier for me than Googling, confused. More regular work on the website is done by Cathy Sarisky. She's gradually using generative AI more in her coding, but it still needs a lot of careful review from her. As for the fundraising, so far I haven’t used AI in writing proposals for potential donors, but then again, I also haven’t been asked to do a twenty page application. ## We can only do this because you support us I can spend days going through disability links, writing newsletters, or editing other people’s work, because this is my job. And I can commission the work from writers and illustrators because I have the funding to do so. If it weren’t my job, maybe it would make sense for me to use AI to highlight the latest disability news. Or if I didn’t have the time to edit and mentor someone to develop their writing, then maybe an AI tool could provide some assistance. The Debrief position on avoiding AI in its writing and illustration isn’t meant as a judgement on how others are or aren’t using AI in their work. Work in other areas has different constraints and opportunities. The Debrief shares the lived experience of disabled people, and finds creative new ways to tell disability stories, thanks to the readers and organizations who support this work. ## The rising tides of AI-slop The care we can take with our work seems to be going against prevailing currents, of how journalism and independent thought are being undermined. Seeing how quickly AI writing is spreading often makes me despair. It can be hard to keep faith in the hard work and where it gets us. There is a lot of AI-slop in my inbox, on social media, and in online writing (increasingly offline writing too). It’s dispiriting to see how our language can be hijacked, and I hate the way it makes me read texts wondering who or what wrote it. Indeed the question about whether a text is AI-generated has added another layer of distance between us. I get that it might be difficult to acknowledge, but it is sad, and adds to the alienation, when people are not forthcoming about the fact they used AI to write something. ## Technology and independence There are further ethical issues around the use of AI, including questions of intellectual property, and the social and environmental damage these technologies are causing. These are covered elsewhere. One overall concern I do have is that of independence. Outsourcing our ideas to products owned by our technological overlords would abandon the independent view that the Debrief has fought hard to establish. I publish the Debrief on Ghost, an open source platform, rather than venture-capital funded platforms whose interests will ultimately diverge from those of their users. ## Assistive technology and Authenticity From a disability view, there are a few further issues worth touching on. AI can be an assistive tool. It can generate captions or describe images. Some neurodivergent people say that it helps organize their thoughts. And tools that help more people write fluently are especially useful to, say, those with learning difficulties or people writing in a second language. Not to mention that work and life are draining, especially for disabled people, and someone might not have the energy left over to craft a post on social media. But there are also vital questions of voice and authenticity. What does “nothing about us without us” mean if our posts are written by machines? AI tools can generate posts about lived experience whether or not the experience was, in fact, lived. Disability influencers are among the adopters of these tools. Of course not everyone posting online was honest in pre-AI days either, but it is now exponentially easier to make false, fabricated or even exploitative stories. Perhaps there are ways to use AI tools to generate writing in more authentic ways. For example, I imagine someone could work with AI with the same thoroughness that one might work with a ghost writer. We need to be careful, as individuals and as a community. Establishing trust takes many years. And inauthentic use of AI can break that quickly. ## Doing things our way The Debrief is made in community, through human relationships with readers, writers and artists spread across the world. The reason we do this work is to make a place on the internet where we can do things our way, and tell our own stories in our own words. Our disability lens comes from combining our lived experiences of disability with reporting, analysis and creative writing. We are working hard to tell disability stories in original ways. Unquestioning adoption of AI tools would corrupt these goals, not further them. Maybe the boundaries I set with AI will be stricter or looser in the future. Either way I’ll let you know. I write this piece in the interest of transparency, and also to know how you readers see this rapidly changing technology. I have spent decades learning how to write. I don’t intend to stop now. It is the most fulfilling work of my life to create a newsletter where we can exchange and learn together, and where I can share my skills with others, as I in turn learn from them. I'm sitting at my desk as I press send. It's exciting and vulnerable to share how I work and what I believe. I wonder what I’ve missed, and feel a thrill in my stomach. Peter ## Outro **Help us do this work**. The Debrief is published through a pay-what-you-can model. **For more on disability and AI,** see the Debrief library of curated links on AI, or Ria Andriani's essay on how AI opens up visual access but closes down social change. **Let your friends know**. Sharing the newsletter is how people find it! **Connect**. Get in touch. You can find me on Linkedin and Bluesky. ## Acknowledgements Thanks to Catrina and Damien Demolder for the photograph and being such fun to work with! Thanks to Celestine Fraser for helping conceptualise and thoroughly revising this piece. And to Anne, Kinanty and Sonaksha for having a look at previous drafts. And of course to the readers and organisations whose support lets us do this work.

disabilitydebrief.org

Annotation for Artificial Intelligence

****Annotation for Artificial Intelligence.**** People with physical disabilities in a social work services center in Lanzhou, China. January 2026. Photo by Chen Bin/Xinhua/Alamy. Dear Debriefers, Today's edition is another world tour of disability news. We visit North-West China to see where a group of disabled people are working on training artificial intelligence systems. Then we go to the Gulf to see the impacts the Iran war is having on disabled people in the whole region. Further news explores the fragile infrastructure of disability rights. Yet, even as that infrastructure is being undermined, further work on rights work continues. Plus a wheelchair-user in Palestine who trades Arabic lessons for assistance. As I press send on this newsletter, Alice Wong's celebration of life is being livestreamed. See previously for the Debrief piece remembering her work. **Explore the full guide of 135 hand-picked links:** curated across 40 countries or 38 subjects. This edition continues from the update in February. ## About this edition **The Debrief is published through a** pay-what-you-can**model.** Thanks to Ryan for a new contribution. **Peter Torres Fremlin** is editor of Disability Debrief and is from the UK. Sign-up for a disability lens on world news Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. Weekly in your inbox ## Annotation for Artificial intelligence In Lanzhou, a city in North-West China, a small group of people with physical disabilities have been trained to work as data annotators for artificial intelligence systems. Yang Zhiwen, one of the trainees, told Xinhua that it “enables him to keep pace with the times, rather than being left behind.” Another trainee, Xu Junlin, had been long-term unemployed she can now earn 3,ooo to 4,000 per month (435 to 580 USD): “it feels fulfilling”. The Xinhua feature presents the initiative in positive light but that should be taken with caution. Annotating data for AI is gruelling work. And it's unclear how much their workplace is segregated for disabled people. Segregated workplaces are common around the world (and, for example, being expanded in Singapore), but not necessarily compatible with rights-based approaches. **In other AI news:** * Last year, Klaus Fürlinger, a member of the Austrian Parliament gave a speech with an AI version of his voice. * GAAD Foundation checked whether AI models make accessible websites. Open AI models come top, Claude doesn't do well. * OECD has a report on opportunities and risks for AI and neurodivergent learners in vocational training. ## The US-Israel-Iran war and its aftereffects In Iran, the US-Israeli bombing campaign is creating a growing number of amputees who are forced to ad-hoc solutions, like welding their own wheelchairs from scrap metal. But I didn't find further information on the impact on disabled people more generally. In Lebanon, Israeli bombing and ground-invasion has led to a mass displacement of over a million people, which is especially complicated for disabled people. The humanitarian response includes an emergency task force on disability and some accessible shelters. Emergency cash support was given to 6,000 families receiving the National Disability Allowance. And just last month, before this phase of conflict ignited, the country approved a new National Strategy for Persons with Disabilities. In the United Arab Emirates, one of the victims of Iranian attacks was Alaa Mushtaha, who worked at the Zayed Higher Organisation for People of Determination, “where she taught people how to make cheese and other dairy-related products.” In Qatar the government announced on social media special attention to the safety of people with disabilities. Meanwhile in Israel, under attack from Iranian missiles, Access Israel has lamented the neglect of disability rights in missile defence. A survey they did found “40% of people with disabilities in Israel do not have accessible shelter options.” (Although if that means that 60% of people with disabilities _do_ have accessible shelter options, that sounds very impressive!) Outside of these countries, the fuel shortage, supply chain and economic impacts are already being felt around the world. I haven't seen good coverage of the disability dimensions of that yet. ## Undercutting the fragile infrastructure of disability rights In the **United States** , Allison C. Carey has written a paper that puts the Trump's administration “unprecedented” attack on disability rights into a historical context. Carey shows their precarity and the multiple ways they are being undermined now: > ‘The current administration has largely rejected the value of disability rights, as well as a broader set of rights and programs that pursue active pathways to enable opportunities and participation by a range of groups. > > ‘To undercut disability rights, they define disabled people as unworthy, emphasize and even manufacture conflicts to justify the denial of disability rights, dismantle the infrastructure required for disability rights, and reconfigure power relations across settings to disempower disabled people in claiming rights. [..] > > ‘The fragile infrastructure of disability rights is indeed easily subverted. As relational claims, rights quickly fall apart if these claims are no longer recognized as legitimate, if the rights holders are again constructed as unworthy, and if the infrastructure for participation and empowerment is decimated. In this context, even rights on paper do little to empower disabled people.’ In a similar vein, New Disabled South has a new report, Project Eugenics, on the rollback of disability rights. Or, looking at backsliding in terms of digital accessibility, Anna E. Cook writes: > “**Ignoring accessibility represents regression** , a return to earlier assumptions that access is a privilege granted to some, rather than a right owed to all.” And in India, Vijay K. Tiwari et al explore how authoritarian government impulses are visible in state surveillance and suspicion of disabled people, manifested in a directive from Maharashtra state for disabled employees to reverify their disabilities. ## But work on human rights continues **For a global view** on human rights setbacks and the place of disability rights within those, see the Human Rights Watch World Report 2026, which includes extensive information on disability. **And an international view on disability rights in developing countries** comes from the Global Disability Fund's review of situation analyses from 51 countries. They find that 40 of those 51 countries have dedicated disability laws or comprehensive policies. However: > “49 countries assign [Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities] responsibility to social welfare ministries that lack authority or resources. Only five of 36 national disability councils function effectively.” **But also, further rights frameworks are under development**. The UN Human Rights Council has opened negotiations for an international treaty on **the rights of older persons**. There are important questions to explore around decision-making. And, a group of scholars outline on Opinio Juris, the need for the treaty: > “There are some issues of particular relevance to the rights and wellbeing of older persons—such as access to long-term care, caregiving responsibilities that often arise in later life, and the ability to both continue working and receive a pension—that existing conventions do not address. Meanwhile, evidence that older persons’ rights and needs are going unmet is found across low- and high-income settings alike.” ## Free choice or forced choice? Discussing assisted dying There was a vigorous reader response to this month's Debrief on how countries approach assisted dying by Joe Wood. More on that in an upcoming edition. For now, thanks to Maria and Alberto for a correction: the article mentioned Colombia among the countries where doctors aren’t allowed to help patients die. But this is incorrect, as assisted dying has been regulated there since 2015. In further news from Europe**,** the European Network for Independent Living (ENIL) has a position paper on assisted dying: free choice or forced choice? Because of the context of structural inequalities and lack of support for disabled people, they conclude that “assisted dying cannot currently be considered a safe or rights-based option.” Join a further discussion on this with ENIL, who are hosting a webinar on Wednesday 8th April, 3pm CEST. I'll be one of the speakers. And, from the Netherlands see a disturbing profile**** on a psychiatrist who gives lethal injections to patients with mental suffering. ## Assistance for Arabic and other news In Palestine, Ekhlas Al-Azzah is a wheelchair user in the West Bank. Ekhlas has taught over 700 women from around the world Arabic, in exchange for care and assistance. In India, a man allegedly cut off part of his foot to qualify under a disability quota. From the United States, a practical checklist on dealing with winter storms. From the**** United Kingdom, a report on creating news for and with people with learning disabilities. ## Breaking the silence And in case you missed last month's Debriefs, as well as the piece on assisted dying, see also: * Spotlight or substance? My view from the Zero Project 2026. * Together as a collective force: Debrief readers have their say. * Roots of Belonging, Nyuki Msimulizi breaks the silence on cultural practices in Tanzania. And that's all from me for today. Enjoy your adventures in disability news, Peter ## Outro **Further reading**. All the links from these curated editions go into the Debrief library, which now has over 7,300 links from over 170 countries. See below for contents from this month's update. **Let your friends know**. Sharing the newsletter is how people find it! **Connect**. Get in touch. You can find me on Linkedin and Bluesky. **Help us do more**. The Debrief is free thanks to reader support. ## Recent News This update has 135 curated links from 40 countries and regions, organized across 38 subjects. You can explore it organized by subject or by country. ### Subjects * Accessibility and Design * Ageing * Civil Society and Community * Climate Crisis and Environment * Communication and Language * Conflict and Peace * Culture, Entertainment and Media * Data and Research * Digital Accessibility and Technology * Disaster Risk Reduction and Crisis Response * Economics and Social Protection * Education and Childhood * Employment, Business and Work * Gender Equality and Women with Disabilities * Health * History and Memorial * Humanitarian, Migrants and Refugees * Independent Living and Deinstitutionalization * International Cooperation * Justice Systems and Legal Capacity * Lived Experience and Opinion * Mental Health * Mobility, Travel, Transport and Tourism * Policy and Rights * Politics and Elections * Relationships, Sex and Reproductive Rights * Sport and Paralympics * Violence and Harassment * War in Ukraine ### Countries * Global * International News * Latin America and the Caribbean * Africa * Kenya * Mozambique * Nigeria * Sudan * Tanzania * Uganda * Zambia * Asia * Asia * Cameroon * China * India * Iran * Israel * Japan * Lebanon * Malaysia * Palestine * Singapore * South East Asia * South Korea * United Arab Emirates * Europe * Europe * Austria * France * Greece * Ireland * Italy * Netherlands * Russia * Ukraine * United Kingdom * North America * Barbados * Canada * Cuba * Dominica * United States * Oceania * New Zealand * South America * Colombia ## Acknowledgements Photograph by by Chen Bin/Xinhua/Alamy. Thanks to Celestine Fraser for help with photograph selection. Many thanks to everyone who shares links, news and reports, and the readers and organisations whose support makes this work possible.

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