Equal Too: How We Change the Law

change the law? What can we do to push equality for for people with disabilities? In high school, the only thing that we could do was was to see I think it's about having you know, fairness of opportunity is a really big part of it, and I do think

disabled people have to take some responsibility. Last camp being taken in a way and it's it's permanent in for the great reasons m oh your Market said, the persons have beloved the blood to hit the g Today, over one point to billion people around the world are living with a disability. We make up fifteen percent of the global population, and yet despite many countries establishing laws to protect our rights, no disabled person is immune to discrimination.

Last year, across thirty six police forces in England and Wales, more than seven thousand, three hundred disability hate crimes were reported, but only one point six percent resulted in perpetrators being charged.

Disability discrimination, often called able is um, comes in many forms, from not providing a wheelchair ramp or an interpreter and a press briefing two point six millions spent on the new press room, yet still no interpreter, to more extreme breaches in human rights, such as the practice of shackling or forced sterilization. All around the world, disabled people depend on laws to safeguard our rights. In the UK we

have the Equalities Act. In the US there's the a d A. In Colombia there's Law sixteen eighteen, and in Australia there's the Disability Discrimination Act. In some countries, these acts took disabled activists years of blood, sweat and tears to bring in. I highly recommend watching the OSCAR nominated documentary cryp Camp to get an idea of how hard fought the A d A was in the US. But

even when there are laws in place. When Ris searching for this podcast, we came to find that more often than not, it falls upon disabled people themselves to enforce those laws or in some cases outright change them. Yes, he goes again, going for the double in Even Paralympic legends like usas Tatiana McFadden, who can currently be seen on television screens all around the world as she competes

in Tokyo. Even Tatiana experiences discriminations. But mcfanna while she's on the hunt for six golds now and that's the first of all. Growing up in the US, Tatiana began wheelchair racing at the age of eight. At fifteen, she competed in her first Paralympics in Athens in two thousand and four, bringing home to gold medals. But when she returned home to Illinois and started high school, Tatiana found even Paralympic champions would not be treated equally to non

disabled high schoolers coming in into high school. I'll I'm one end to to do track. That's the that's a club that I wanted to do. Her school said she was not allowed to participate in high school sports due to her wheelchair being a safety hazard and creating an unfair advantage. I didn't want to do anything else that I didn't want to do Chazz. I didn't want to do be in the theater. I just wanted to do

high school track. And my my first year, um, you know, I didn't think how how tough it was going to be. And I I was denied a uniform, and I was denied to run alongside of of the of the able bodied runners. And so I thought, you know what, what can we do to push equality for for people a disabilities in high school? And the only thing that we could do was was to sue. When we went against

the state of Maryland. We won and that took four years in college, it became federal when we worked with Tatiana's lawsuit, which requires schools to provide equal opportunities for students with disabilities, was passed in two thousand and eight. It is now known as Tatiana's Law. Thinking about going through that lawsuit, and I thought of my sister Hannah immediately. She was also a Paralympic athlete, and I wanted and

wanted her to have the best experience possible. And people following after that, and now that it's it's federal and it's nationwide, you know, it's it's called the Tatiana's Law, and it's it's so cool going going through that as a high schooler and it was extremely hard, and yeah it was it was really tough. Um, but it last camp being taken away and it's it's permanent in for the right reason. So what does this story teach us?

It may have resulted in a positive and a lasting outcome, but isn't it shocking to think that equality of opportunity in sport may not have been possible for disabled children in the US had this Paralympic athlete not used every ounce of the resilience and determination we see her demonstrate on the track to make this happen. And why is it that the race for equality also has to be a battle? We all have human rights, so when those

rights aren't being granted, what then? The U n c RPD talks about how countries should make sure that people with disabilities have the same rights as others. In two thousand and six, the United Nations adopted an international treaty

to protect the rights of people with disabilities. It's called the Convention on the Right of People with Disabilities or the crp D. Its goal is to wipe out all forms of disability discrimination enabling disabled people to live independently, ensuring an inclusive education system, and offering protections from all forms of exploitation, violence and abuse. But it might shock you to learn that many countries have not yet ratified

this convention, including the US. Deborah McFadden is a founding member of Athletics for All oh and she's also Tatiana's mom. Here she explains why the crp D matters. So it's very important that the U N ratifies the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities. We are a blessed country to have so many wonderful laws, such as the

Americans with Disability Zack Tribal four two idea. But what we're saying is to the world, we can do it our own way, and we're not being an example to those countries that have asked us to be an example of what it's like to protect the rights of all people with disabilities. It's a policy statement, it's a leadership issue. We still have a long way to go in this country. But if they don't have to do it, why should

we do it. It's an operational document. It's something to say that these are the standards that we need to have for people with disabilities around the world, and we need to be a leader in that to say all people have rights and protections, and the US isn't alone. There are many other countries yet to ratify the convention. In a later episode, will be asking whether the l A Paralympic Games might be the tipping point that encourages the US to take that step, and if so, what

that might mean. Disabled people's organizations around the world agree that in order for change to be made, we need strong leadership with disabled people themselves is leading the charge. Nothing about us without us, as they say. In the first episode, we spoke with former British paralympian damed Tanny gray Thompson, and here she is again explaining why she

got into politics. I think it's about having you know, fairness of opportunity is a really big part of it, and I do think disabled people have to take some responsibility. You know, we can't just sit around and wait for it to be done to us or for us. Because I haven't got time to sit and rely on anybody else. So that's probably why I kind of had this set of urgency about a lot of stuff that I do. So I haven't got time to sit and wait for

somebody to say, oh, here you go. I think some of like that powerful political voice of disabled people's also been lost a little bit over the years. There are still organizations of disabled people, but in terms of the Equality Act, disability just ends up being a feel a bit lost. I don't really know where we are, but you know where we're still fighting for basic access to get into a building, or to get into you know,

high court, you know, you know, just those things. We shouldn't be fighting for some of those really really basic things. So I do think disabled people need to kind of you know, it needs to be more than you know, I'm part of a group of you know, quite strong disabled people, but it needs to be more disabled people asking more things, because otherwise they look at me and while I got it to her again and just ignored it. So one of the things I tried to do is

really important. It's just get more disabled people to talk about these things and to give them an opportunity and support to be an alternate voice. What Canada Senate is about to get a little bit fuller. The federal government announcing the appointment of seven new people to the Red Chamber in Canada in two thousand and sixteen, fourteen time gold medalist Paralympian Chantell Petty Clerk also made the switch

from record breaker to lawmaker. Moving into politics as a Canadian Senator was a bit of a strange moment because I did not plan for it and uh and and to me, I was exactly at that time, after being Chef de mission for Rio, after coaching for London, to to to choose you know what will this second part of my life be. Do I want to stay in sport,

do I want to do something different? So, but you know, it is such an amazing privilege and responsibility to say I can be in Parliament, I can try to be the voice of not only persons with disability, but the voice using her position of influencing government. Chantel has been able to make a monumental impact on a very controversial but life changing matter for disabled people, the assisted Dying Bills.

One of the very first impact that I had was also one that was very um difficult in in intense uh and it was only a few months after I was a pointed in the Senate of Canada where we had to deal with a very very important bill on medical assistance in dying it was very of course, I mean, you know, it is so delicate and so important and and at the same time so hard. It's so so

difficult to just even think and talk about it. This really talks to persons and some individuals with a disability in interable pain who want to make their choice for themselves. And so so I was a sponsor of that bill and trying to be the voice of those individuals who wanted to have the right to make that choice for them, and of course, uh, it was very tough for me.

It was also a very tough conversation in Canada because, as in many countries in the world, UH, persons with disability still have a lot of vulnerability, which is strange because when you're a paralympian, you're like this, champions of persons with disability, and sometimes you have sponsors, you have visibility,

people recognize you on the streets. So it was very very eye opening for me to come from being this multi medalist, very able and strong and independent, to have the voices of other persons with disabilities, with other challenges and vulnerabilities, and being able to also say there is not one person with a disability, there are thousands and millions of them, and each have different voices, different choices,

different strength, different vulnerability. But each and every one of them and me should have uh the right to choose how they want to live their life and and maybe how they want to end it. In Parliament, Chantel used her to advocate for all disabled people. But you don't need to be a politician to change your world. The mayor of Lima, Peru, is confronting disability challenges head on, and earlier this week, he discovered just how challenging life in a wheelchair can be when he nearly fell out

of his chair. Pilaja Reggie is a wheelchair badminton champion from Peru. She wanted the lawmakers of Lima, the capital city of Peru, to understand the difficulties that she had navigating the streets in her wheelchair, so she challenged Lima's mayor, Jorge Muns to try it for himself. I found it difficult when going out shopping, going to the pharmacy, basically everything. Many times I have run into palls and garbage cans,

things like that. Or I found that the rant was too steep and difficult to go up and down, So that is when I recorded a video and posted the on Twitter and Facebook saying that we're not invisible, and I challenged the mayor to try and pass through some of these streets. At the beginning, the challenge was to

try using the wheelchair for a day. After that, the mayor went viral all over the social networks and the next day the mayor was already in the wheelchair and I told him which routes I had to travel along. They implemented the regulations so that they could build ramps all over Lima. They've now built around three thousand accessible ramps. There are now regulated standards for how ramps should be built and how there should be a ramp on every corner.

Thanks to the Games, there has also been an improvement in the social sense society wide. It can be seen that there is much more respect. As in the past people used to park their cars on the actual ramps. Now you are more careful about that. Okay, so we've heard how paralympians have made an impact on the law, but what about disabled people who aren't Paralympians. I've faced so much discrimination in the United States, racism, sexism, and

the worst able ism. Harbon Germer, who is deaf blind has become one of the most prominent disabled activists in the world. President Obama even recognized her work when he named her a White House Champion of Change. So fed up with ableism that I wanted to make a career out of finding it, Harbon has used her position to change the law. One of the things I was proud of is to help increase reading access for blind readers.

There was an online library and blind readers were struggling to access books in the library, so we asked the company to make their books accessible. They ignored us, and we use the Americans with Disabilities Act to compel them, and after the lawsuit, they agreed to work with the Natural Ofederation of the Blind to make their library accessible for blind readers. Harbon shows us that activism works and

she's not alone. Today. Despite the access and attitudinal barriers that disabled people face, all around the world, activists with disabilities are pushing for changes to the laws that directly impact their lives. In India, Mana see Joshi, a young para badminton player, is campaigning to reduce the cost of prosthetic limbs. Or in Nigeria, rassak Adaquia, who lost his sight in a car accident as a young adult is

helping Nigerians get into employment. Others are more political. In Greece, Stelius Kim poor Opolis began his career as a psychiatryist, but in two thousand and nineteen became a member of European Parliament working to help disabled people live independently. And in another activist Eleanor Lalou became France's first counselor with Down syndrome. Advocates are even making a difference at an

international scale. Daphne free Us is a Mexican American campaigner with cerebral palsy who helps disabled people participate in climate action. And Eugene Mustafa is a Kurdish Syrian refugee who in two thousand and nineteen became the first person to address the UN Security Council from a wheelchair and is now a global advocate for refugee children with disabilities. Sharing these

examples with you is exhilarating. They are just a handful of stories, but all of these people represent countless more disabled individuals who are working to take control of the narrative and shift the dial. Often we see disabled people working in isolation, focusing on the issues that matter to them in the countries where they live, and rightly so, but it's time we joined together. You're such an inspiration,

so great you remind me for you break. Recently, a global campaign called We the Fifteen has launched time to coordinate with the Tokyo Games to raise awareness of the fact that we remain the most underrepresented an undeserved group on the planet. The International Paralympic Committee, the International Disability Alliance, the United Nations and UNESCO have all come together to amplify the cause because we all recognize that now is

the time to remove inequality and inactivity. We spoke with one of the founders of the We the Fifteen campaign, Eddie and Dopeu, who is an award winning, internationally acclaimed activist and humanitarian from South Africa. One of the things that Eddie is known for is his engagement with young activists to pressure lawmakers around the world to provide improved educational opportunities to use with disabilities. Eddie explains how he

goes about advocating for change. You know, Sophie, I think at the end of the day, it is so critical that we have an intersectional approach to to disability, right that you know, of course, we know that we are not a monolithic group. Right, of course we know that. But I think sometimes advocacy requires what is often called strategic essentialism, where we sort of stripped down our complexity in order to advocate for change in terms of legal

rights or legislation. And so the temptation to flatten the disability experience in the name of advocating for recognition and and and and fundamental rights and freedoms, that often means that we do so we do that stripping back at the expense of intersectionality, right, at the expense of a profound recognition that we are never just one thing, right, Because I think, how do we think about disability and gender? How do we think about disability and sexuality? How do

we think about disability and race? And then how do we think about disability across geography? Right? And and that is the magic of the lived experience of disability is that it is we we are we, we are disabled, and we are so many other things simultaneously, right, And I think, you know what the movement, what what needs to happen, I think is is that that texture to our lives and now they've the experience. That's what needs to be put at the forefront. Right. The questions that

Eddie asked need to be carefully considered. They need to be asked of one another, and we need to think about our answers. This subject requires us all to ask questions of ourselves and our understanding of what disability, justice and equality means. Eddie Tatiana Chantel are all disabled people making change for disabled people, which is vital when it comes to representing the many different lived experiences of disabled people.

As Eddie says, we are not a monolith. But no matter how successful these change agents might be in their field, they too encounter discrimination. So I was in Manhattan, downtown Manhattan, UM, showing up at this you know, really fancy building for a meeting. And I make my way to the entrance of the building and I'm all dressed up, looking absolutely

fabulous with my channel glasses, and UM. I arrived at the building and UM, the person at the door, the keeper of the building, sort of looked at me and said, UM, can I help you? And they said, no, I'm fine, I'm just here for a meeting. UM. And he said to me, oh, the doctor's rooms aren't here. The doctor's rooms are across the street, and I was like, I'm not here to see a doctor, but you know he

he automatical. And and this was, you know, five minutes before I had to be psychologically ready for you know, a really important meeting. That's quite significant, right, And so that was the moment where I was just like, oh wow, okay, Like, you know, no matter no matter how successful I think I am, no matter how UM accomplished that. And this is the thing, Sophie, is that you know, success does not inoculate us against able ism. And what about the

toll that this has on disabled activists? His hobbin again. So the way a lot of these laws are structured, they put the burden on disabled people to remove the barriers. That is a lot of work, a lot of time, a lot of emotional and physical energy. It's very exhausting and it's not fair. The burden should be on the institutions, the institutions who have the power to remove the barriers, rather than forcing disabled people to file complaints and do

the work of removing all the barriers. I do struggle with advocacy fatigue. It's really hard, and having a community of people who understand me. Is really crucial because if I'm too tired to advocate for a barrier, someone could stop in. I was going to ride a ferris wheel in a new city I was visiting. I was visiting Atlanta, Georgia a few years ago, and the person at the

ferris wheel said she can't come in no dogs. I had my guide dog, and my friend stepped in and said, this is a service dog under the Amery Goods of Disabilities Act. The dog gets to travel with her and the person gave in and let us write the ferris wheel. So it helps to have a community to help shoulder the burden of advocacy, and when you're too tired, someone else can step in and help. So how do we fight for our rights going forward? Do we need more

than the law? Laws help move our culture in the direction it should go. Laws are created when there's a systemic problem and you need litigation to help fix in. So it's important to have last It's not the only tour. It's a very important tour, but it goes along other It goes alongside other tours such as stories and leadership and having great examples and guides and how to do

the right thing. I spoke to leading disability activists, actress Jamila Jamil and co producer of this podcast, said Burke, to see what we feel is needed to galvanize people to accelerate change. I mean, I think it begins with non disabled people showing them up. That's where I think it begins. In the same way that the most traction we've ever seen for Black Lives Matter is when everyone got involved, and that's what made the noise so loud.

But finally, huge corporations and the government and the police even in some states where able to take notice of this incredibly important and vital movement that's been going for seven or eight years. I think more maybe even now I've lost track of time because of the pandemic. But I think it just means all of us together. And as I said, I think a lot of people who have now hopefully realized that disability can come into your life at any time, and and it's time to show

up and and help prepare the world. And I think, you know, amazing activists like Imani Barbarine and all these different voices, both of you, so many different added Upton, like there are so many voices out there who haven't been given the platform that they deserve. We also need stories in the media, film written stories, official stories, auditories, stories that will reach communities and shape their definitions of

disability and interdependence. And there are organizations that are doing that, getting positive representation of disability on radio so that people in remote parts of Ethiopia or India can learn about positive disability representation alternative techniques. The word able ism is English.

Let's get that word into other languages. Let's have disability activists who speak those other languages natively come up with their own terms for the word able is um so it could be part of the culture and community and strived for inclusion in order to make change. Therefore, we need a holistic approach. I asked Eddie his opinion on what we can learn from other movements who have achieved what we are aiming for movements who are one step

closer to reaching equality. The success of other movements is in you know, how they were able to leverage the power of arts and pop culture as a way to change hearts and minds and shift narratives and then build on that for institutional legislative changes. Right like, I think we've done at the other way around. Right, We started with the Convention and the rights of persons with disabilities, But we don't have a disabled actress who is an

Oscar winner and who's under cover of Vogue. So even when disability rights are enshrined in law, is there a danger of thinking that the battle is won. Today we've heard from advocates and activists, record breakers and lawmakers. Each story is different, but they all played a part in the fight for a more equal and hopeful world. But what I think they're telling us is that the change we need is too often overreliant on disabled activists to

make it happen. Too many of the laws that we've been talking about, our laws, our activists have been responsible for creating. The change we need is that new laws that directly or indirectly impact disability are demanded by everyone for everyone. This has been equal to next time we meet the change makers of film, television, fashion and beyond to explore representation, what is it, why it matters, and

what you can do about it. These podcasts have been made possible because of the support of Procter and Gamble, P and G share our ambition to create a more equal world, a world where everyone can have equal access and the opportunity to thrive. We are very grateful for their partnership in making these conversations a reality. Of people with a direct involvement in the production of the podcast, including guests identify as disabled. Hi, I'm Meg, and I

am disabled. I'm a wordy user with the brain injury. I've been working on this podcast as a prosestion coordinator, but I've also been given the opportunity to do a bit of scripting and even being an interior a change. I would love to see more production like this with disabled people working behind the scenes as rather disabled people on the mic. If you wanted further the story enjoying

the conversation, go to age Quiety dot World. This podcast was created by Greg Nugent, co founder of Harder Than You Think. I'm Sophie Morgan, your host and executive producer. Fellow executive producers are Chanaid Burke, Greg Nugent, Barnaby Spuria, Laura i'ms Mark Pritchard and Kimberly Dobrunner. Thank you to the I p C and Channel four for their support and use of archive material. Thanks to our podcast production partner, Stripped Media, and also to Seneca Women for their assistance

with distributing this show. If you want to follow the equal to story and join the conversation hashtag equal to, go to our website ht Whitey dot world, where you will also find the transcript and video versions of the podcast, along with subtitles and a BSL signed version in the coming days.