In numerous disability and deaf areas, ATR has discussed/debated the UN's involvement with disability issues, including the British Sign Language (BSL) Act. Although Scotland has made some progress, it is mainly through recognition and job opportunities rather than access or inclusion, which doesn't appear to be any different from before. Wales has no specific act, as it recognised BSL years ago. Northern Ireland faces the question of prioritizing BSL or Irish Sign Language (ISL), and overcoming sectarianism. England seems to now focus on the UN/European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) approach, since endless campaigns at the UK central government in London, end up getting nowhere, as London pays no attention to their efforts, it didn't pre-millennium, when the EU 'recognised' BSL (And 27 other European 'minority languages').
Today the UK government still hasn't endorsed BSL as a deaf teaching aid in schools, and all of them since closed entirely in Wales. (ATR has published many points, as to why this is the case, highlighting that none of it relates to discrimination).
Deaf campaigners appeared more interested in individual fundraising and specific campaigns, using disability status for funding and cultural purposes rather than applying the 'disabled' description to themselves, ignoring sensory loss and deafness descriptives, holding mainstream to account for issues they face. Disability and Deaf areas view social/medical modelling quite differently.
The majority of disabled/deaf people appear to have scant interest in it all, and there is little recorded statistical/numerical support among the 10m disabled, or 151,000 alleged deaf. Many will argue that trips to the UN and EU are pointless and fruitless and only serve as talk shops, or in the deaf case, social-interaction events. Pre-Brexit, BDA members attended many various EU events, funded by charities or local systems, to a lesser degree this still is the case. E.G. The creation of a Deaf-EU website reflected their opposition to Brexit and support for the Labour Party, hoping for a return to the previous situation. E.G. At the launch of the 1995 Disability Act, disabled groups had to pay the BDA to support deaf people attending, who actually failed to turn up. ATR did, and paid for himself.
The UK Government was criticized by the UN Committee for the Rights of Disabled People for their poor track record of upholding disabled people's human rights. Deaf and Disabled People's Monitoring Coalition and deaf activists were present to witness the Government being held to account. The Government's defence was deemed inadequate, with accusations of tokenism and lack of real progress in implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled People. The Committee highlighted violations of certain articles of the convention and criticized the Government's social welfare policies as demonizing disabled people.
Disability activists are calling for the UK Government to incorporate the Convention into UK laws to ensure the protection of Deaf and Disabled people's rights. The final report from the Committee with recommendations to the UK Government is awaited. ATR does not believe the UK government will comply, but draw attention to areas such as the BSL Act which is already empowering deaf people. Obviously disability campaigners are targeting UK welfare systems, primarily the DWP, who they claim as agents of the UK government , the system is now designed to attack disabled rights, and disempower their inclusion and access need.
