Implications of the COVID-19 Crisis for Disability Policy [Audio]

Speaker(s): Baroness Campbell, Neil Crowther, Clenton Farquharson, Liz Sayce | This panel event will explore the potential implications for disability policy of these possible futures under the political and socio-cultural themes. It will explore questions including whether the ‘vulnerability’ framing is likely to inform future policy and what the implications are for disabled people’s lives, communities and activism. There has been a shift in many countries over recent decades to position disability policy as an issue of rights and equality: the aim is social and economic participation, rather than a more paternalistic concern for care and containment. This found its expression in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, ratified by 181 countries by 2020. Some states, for instance Australia, have responded to the COVID-19 crisis by creating plans framed precisely in terms of disabled people’s rights to equal treatment (equality in healthcare, employment and the li