The movement for disability rights promotes equal rights and opportunities for people with mental or physical disabilities. Inspired by the Civil Rights Movement and other social changes of the 1960s, people with disabilities and their allies began agitating for change. By the 1970s, world leaders started to reconsider the ways in which societies could better support persons with disabilities.
Progress in the last few decades has shown that the international community has not only reconceptualized the ways in which society can better support disabled persons, but also the ways in which rhetoric is shaped around these issues.
Protestors in Washington D.C. advocating for disability rights, 1990. (image by Tom Olin via New Mobility)
Disability rights activists leading a demonstration (Tom Olin via Disability Voters)
Declaration on the Rights of Disabled Persons, 1975
The 1970s was marked as a time in which global leaders began to look at disability issues as more than just a social welfare issue and began to consider the ways in which we socially and institutionally disenfranchised persons with disabilities. Learn more >
SILHOUETTE OF TWO FIGURES HIGH-FIVING. ONE PERSON IS SITTING IN A WHEELCHAIR, THE OTHER HAS A PROSTHETIC LEG (PRAZIS/FOTOLIA VIA EUROPEAN PARLIAMENTARY RESEARCH SERVICE BLOG)
Inter-American Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities, 1999
The Organization of American States adopted the Inter-American Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities in 1999. It is one in a series of documents by the OAS to protect human rights in the Americas. Learn more >
Signing of the convention (via UN Photo)
Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities, 2006
The UN General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2006 to protect the rights and dignity of people with mental and/or physical disabilities. Its articles include protection for the rights to education, justice, and accessibility to facilities and services, among others. Learn more >