Disability rights in El Salvador

Larissa Hotra, a Peace Fellow of the Advocacy Project working in El Salvador, has written an article on the site Upside Down World titled A Recent History of the Disability Rights Movement in El Salvador. Here's the introduction to the article:
Many argue that El Salvador has come a long way towards trying to repair its disabled past by declaring itself mine-free in 1994, implementing the 2001 National Disability Rights law and ratifying the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2007. The Permanent Table of the Office of the Ombudsman for Human Rights (PDDH) and disability rights civil society organizations such as the Landmine Survivors Network have led the struggle in Central America to promote the rights of people with disabilities and guarantee them “free and equal access to services” through the construction of accessible infrastructure and much-needed legislation.

And yet, El Salvador has only made nominal progress in implementing disability legislation and awareness. A census tailored toward understanding disability demographics in the country, implementation of current legislation, and a greater emphasis on disability rights as human rights will help to pave the inaccessible pathway towards more inclusion for all. The upcoming 2009 elections may also have a significant impact on the provision of disability rights in El Salvador.

Read the rest of the article here, and visit Larissa's blog at this link.

Comments

El-Visitador said…
I tend to stutter while under pressure, and have been known to transpose numbers, aka, dyslexia.

Since my height is only average, I was too short, really, to qualify for my high school basketball team. I say "unfair." It traumatized and scarred me for life.

Where do I collect my disability checks? Can I get free and equal access to the national basketball team? Where is my legislation?

;-p
Anonymous said…
When EV says

"And to think women like this were just robbed of the hope and economic potential that a whole new industry, the mining industry, could have brought to El Salvador.

Choices have consequences. El Salvador has opted for the frightened Maria's with the empty larders."

and then

"Since my height is only average, I was too short, really, to qualify for my high school basketball team. I say "unfair." It traumatized and scarred me for life.

Where do I collect my disability checks? Can I get free and equal access to the national basketball team? Where is my legislation?"

it's a sign he has a disability...he's a right wing, free market loving, neoliberal spouting kinda dude. Many might say that's truly being incapacitated.

You're a whiner like Phil Graham.
Unknown said…
Here's the introduction to the article:Many argue that El Salvador has come a long way towards trying to repair its disabled past by declaring itself mine-free in 1994, implementing the 2001 National Disability Rights law and ratifying the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2007