Today is the 30th ‘International Day of Disabled Persons’’, an annual event started by the United Nations in 1992.
While inclusivity and representation of disabled people has definitely improved over those three decades, as a disabled person myself, I would say we still have a long way to go and I’m sure most other disabled people would agree.
In fact, as a 23-year-old woman with acquired mobility issues, I would go so far as to say that in terms of diversity, disability seems to be continuously overlooked and pushed to the bottom of the pile.
To me, it feels like we are a second-class minority group.
Disability is unique in comparison to other minority groups in the way it's the only group that anyone, of any age, colour, gender, background or class can become a part of at any point in their life.
In fact, people with acquired disabilities make up 83% of the disabled population - and a quarter of the UK population is disabled.
So, wouldn’t it be reasonable to assume that equality for disabled people would be in the best interests of everybody, seeing as anybody could become one of us one day?
Yet, disabled people still struggle to find jobs. And when they do, they earn on average 13.8% less than their able bodied counterparts. However, their cost of living is higher, paying on average £583 more a month on living expenses.
On top of this, in modern England (and the rest of the world), disabled people still struggle to use public transport. Take the London Tube for example, only 86 stations out of 272 are accessible - and it’s even worse in other developed countries.
We’re the only minority group who can be stopped from entering a building or venue due to accessibility issues. We’re the only minority group who are often forced to forego basic human rights such as being able to use a toilet in a public place or access to rudimentary, accessible education.
Disabled women are more likely to suffer complications or fatality after child birth and twice as likely to suffer domestic abuse. Some recent studies suggest that disabled people are up to four times more likely to contemplate and attempt suicide.
It’s just not good enough.
Disabled people are the only group that require not only attitudinal change, but physical and infrastructural change to be equal members of the society, yet, it seems to me that the only people fighting for disabled people and our rights are, well, disabled people.
So I say, where are our grand gestures? Where are our World Cup armbands? Our protests in the streets? The hashtags and slogans? Who is standing in support alongside us?
I’m not saying other minority groups deserve less attention. I’m saying we deserve as much.
It seems to me that, often, rather than helping us fight for better accessibility and inclusivity, many able-bodied people think that offering us pity and their ‘thoughts and prayers’ is enough.
We don’t want pity, we just want acceptance and respect as equal members of society. We want understanding, education, accessibility, and the opportunity to contribute the best of ourselves to the world. But that's hardly likely to happen if we can’t even get there in the first place.
Disability and disabled people need to be at the forefront of the conversation. Did you know that less than 1% of our 650 MPs are disabled? It’s stats like this that so desperately need to change.
Until we are promoted from our ‘second-class’ position as “not-as-important-as-the-other-ones” minority group, we can’t achieve this.
