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This guide is designed to help businesses and business leaders to build their Disability Confidence by learning directly from and with people with disabilities.

This document gives employers practical tips for interviewing candidates with disabilities.

Findings from this report show evidence that some persons with disabilities face multiple types of jeopardy during Covid-19: they are at an increased risk of violence and are suffering a dramatic loss in household earnings. They are also taking action: many plan to adapt their livelihood and are mobilising resources for their communities. Persons with disabilities ask government and NGOs to do more and to be more inclusive in their response to the crisis.

● Three of four respondents report increased risk of violence since the pandemic began. 77% of women and 80% of men report an increase in economic, physical, psychological and/or sexual violence after Covid-19.

● One in three women respondents report experiencing an increased risk of physical and/or sexual violence.

● Livelihood support could reduce violence risk. Three in four (76%) of respondents say livelihood support, such as start up capital for small business, would be very or extremely useful to them in order to reduce their risk of experiencing violence during Covid-19.

● Respondents report losing 64% of their monthly household income since the outbreak. After adjusting for purchase power parity, this is the equivalent of falling from 181 GBP to 65 GBP per month.

● Covid-19 support is unequal and insufficient for many. Where support has been distributed, one in two report that they do not receive the same protection support (ie PPE) as others; one in four report that they do not receive the same Covid-19 survival support (ie food); one in three report they do not receive the same Covid-19 information; and one in three say that support does not meet need.

● Most respondents will try something new. 59% indicate that they will start something new to make ends meet if the situation continues.

● OPDs are obtaining food support through lobbying, providing vital psychosocial support and information.

● Some OPDs are not able to respond because they are capacity-constrained.

● Government and NGOs can do more.


From these interviews and findings, some recommendations emerge for government and NGOs:

● Support livelihood to reduce violence risk and increase survival strategies.

● Increase access to capital.

● Meaningfully engage persons with disabilities and their respective organisations in response planning and implementation.

● Ensure distribution of support reaches persons with disabilities, more specifically the underrepresented groups.

● Change attitudes toward and increase knowledge about persons with disabilities.

The aim of this article is to advance knowledge on how Swedish primary schools organise education and what strategies they deploy to ensure inclusion and attainment of newly arrived migrant students. The article is based on semi-structured interviews with 30 teachers and school administrators, and one-year of fieldwork undertaken in two multicultural urban primary schools in the Stockholm region. One of the schools initially places students in separate classes, while the other one places them directly into mainstream classes. Both are evoking inclusion and attainment as a reason for using their respective models. As such, do both ‘get it right’? Using inclusion as the theoretical and conceptual framework this article addresses the broader question: How is the meaning of inclusion constructed in the processes of its practical implementation in these two schools? The results show the ambitious tale of inclusion in both schools was, in the process of the construction of its meaning and implementation, reduced to some of its aspects. Teachers and school administrators are allowed to include or leave out of their model whatever they deem necessary, obsolete, expensive or unrealistic and still fitting under the umbrella of inclusion. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not, and both schools ‘get it right’ and ‘wrong’ in some aspects.

Purpose: Effective menstrual hygiene management is vital to the health, well- being, dignity, empowerment, mobility and productivity of girls and women. This study was conducted to ascertain menstrual hygiene management challenges and coping strategies of adolescents with disabilities in the Kumasi Metro of Ghana.

Method: An exploratory study design with qualitative approach was employed to select 18 participants. Data was collected through in-depth interviews and focus group discussions, and then transcribed and categorised into specific themes.

Results: Females with visual impairment had difficulty in maintaining good menstrual hygiene because of problems in detecting menstrual blood, inability to fix sanitary pads appropriately and wash underwear properly, and anxiety and stress from not knowing whether their period has started. The problems of those with physical impairment were related to inaccessible washrooms, long hours of being seated on the part of wheelchair-users, and difficulty in fixing sanitary pads for those with upper limb impairment. For those with hearing impairment, the main challenge was the communication barrier between them and their significant others whenever they needed help.

Conclusion: There are common challenges faced by all girls across the globe with regard to menstrual hygiene management. Adolescent females with disability however face additional challenges with regard to MHM. Those with physical disability encounter accessibility challenges, while the main challenge for the deaf and those with speech problems is communication. The visually impaired live in anxiety due to fear of staining their clothes.

Purpose: This study investigated the attitudes of secondary school teachers towards students with blindness or partial sight in selected states in Nigeria.

Method: The authors utilised the modified version of a previous instrument to collect data from 306 secondary school teachers in Nigeria. Six basic questions were established to address: respondents’ attitudes towards inclusion; training acquired related to teaching; knowledge pertaining to policy and legislation; confidence levels to teach students with disabilities.; impact of geographical location; and differences in attitudes by the variables of subject(s) taught, school level taught, and years of teaching experience.

Results: Attitudes of participants were mixed but were generally positive. The level of training was low, with teachers showing limited knowledge of policy and legislation. A little over a quarter (27%) of them lacked confidence in teaching. There were differences in attitudes related to the geographical location of respondents. Those who taught at the senior secondary school level tended to have higher attitude scores on average than their counterparts at the junior secondary school level.

Conclusion and Limitations: This study used self-report measures, although observations and interviews could be additional ways to evaluate the attitudes of participants throughout the country. Moreover, in-service programmes may need to be implemented to increase teachers’ knowledge base and expand their experiences in line with established policies and legislation.

This report presents the findings from a rapid global survey of persons with disabilities and other stakeholders which took place between April and August 2020. The organisations behind the study seek to “catalyse urgent action in the weeks and months to come,” as transmission rates of COVID-19 continue to rise in many countries and persons with disabilities are again subjected to restrictions which have already had severe consequences.

The report analyses over 2,100 responses to the survey from 134 countries around the world. The vast majority of responses were from individuals with disabilities and their family members. Within the questionnaire responses respondents provided more than 3,000 written testimonies documenting the experiences of persons with disabilities and their family members during the pandemic. The qualitative and quantitative data provide in-depth, comprehensive insights into the experiences of persons with disabilities and the consequences of government actions or inactions on the rights of persons with disabilities.

The report is organised around four themes which emerged during the process of analysing responses received to the survey. These themes are:

1. Inadequate measures to protect persons with disabilities in institutions

2. Significant and fatal breakdown of community supports

3. Disproportionate impact on underrepresented groups of persons with disabilities

4. Denial of access to healthcare

A webinar was held to mark the launch of the report

In order to show the scale and scope of shackling of people with real or perceived psychosocial disabilities worldwide, Human Rights Watch conducted a study of mental health legislation, relevant policies, and practices across 60 countries around the world.

This report includes research and testimonies collected by 16 Human Rights Watch researchers in their own countries. We worked closely with partner organizations to visit private homes and institutions in Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Ghana, Indonesia, Kenya, Liberia, Mexico, Mozambique, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Palestine, Russia, the selfdeclared independent state of Somaliland, South Sudan, and Yemen. Human Rights Watch researchers interviewed more than 350 people with psychosocial disabilities, including those who were shackled at the time of research or had been shackled at least once in their lives, and more than 430 family members, caregivers or staff working in institutions, psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses and other mental health professionals, faith healers, lawyers, government officials, representatives of local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), including organizations of persons with disabilities, and disability rights advocates. The testimonies were collected between August 2018 and September 2020 through in-person and phone interviews.

Desk research and consultation with international disability experts was also undertaken

Background: Cross-border entrepreneurship is one source of livelihood that is transforming people’s lives, especially those with limited resources and educational qualifications and those in need of supplementary earnings to complement meagre formal earnings. However, despite strides made to make this avenue worthwhile, this Zimbabwean study shows that hidden hindrances still persist from procedural and structural barriers from road entry point management systems. To people with disabilities (PWDs), the impact of these hidden barriers is severe to the extent of obstructing their optimum progression into cross-border entrepreneurship.

Objectives: This article sought to interrogate some veiled challenges in border management systems affecting PWDs’ quest to venture into cross-border entrepreneurship. This angle has, to this end, been timidly addressed as most organisations and legislation have concentrated on making things work for the majority of the populace.

Method: Qualitative phenomenological method in which researchers’ lived experiences, review of literature, ideas and opinions is complemented by secondary survey data from a road entry point management system study in the Zimbabwean setting.

Results: Cross-border entrepreneurship has potential to transform people’s lives: 1) road and border management systems’ procedural and structural complications present hidden challenges impeding PWDs’ entry and optimum participation in cross border entrepreneurship, 2) people with disabilities are not automatically dependents; in fact, most have dependents looking up to the, 30 social construction of disability persists and must be curbed and 4) there is a need to institute a ‘stakeholders triad approach’.

Conclusion: The existing road entry points’ management systems are not informed by considerations from PWDs, hence the existence of hidden challenges. Cross-border entrepreneurship can open significant livelihood avenues to PWDs. A stakeholders ‘triad-approach’, proposed herein, can solve some of the policy discrepancies as it recommends utilising inputs from PWDs, research and policy-makers.

African Journal of Disability, Vol 9, 2020