Discrimination against Disabled People

Discrimination against Disabled People

This essay is going to focus on a particular service user group, (physically disabled people) and focus on the discrimination and oppression suffered by the service users. It will look at what affects discrimination and oppression has on the service user and also the affects it could have on their families. The role of the social worker will be brought into the essay; looking at how the social worker will be involved with the service users and their families in an anti-oppressive and anti-discriminatory way.

Disability discrimination had long been embedded in every aspect of civic and commercial life. For many centuries, however, discrimination was more a matter of ignoring than of targeting people with disabilities.

The definition of people with physical disabilities is:

“People with physical disabilities, also known as disabled people or physically disabled people, have a physical impairment which has a substantial and long term effect on their ability to carry our day-to-day activities. Someone with a moderate physical disability would have mobility problems, e.g. unable to manage stairs, and need aids or assistance to walk. Someone with a severe physical disability would be unable to walk and dependent on a carer for mobility.” (Firststop, 2010)

People with physical disabilities suffer many forms of discrimination and oppression in their lives which can also have an effect on their families. Discrimination and oppression can lead to them having a poorer quality of life compared to a person that has no disabilities. (Thompson 1993, p.31) describes oppression as being inhuman or degrading treatment of individuals and groups and how that one slightly more powerful group can cause injustice and hardship over another group. Oppression does not take count of the rights of individuals and groups.

Physically disabled people have suffered discrimination and oppression for centuries. Because of the way people with disabilities have been portrayed over the years this is still influencing people's opinions of people with disabilities. These opinions are being passed down from generation to generation.

Colin Barnes (1994, p.12) explains that during the middle ages physically disabled people were seen as Satan's children which were from the result of the mother having had intercourse with the devil. The recommendation for these children was that they should be killed. Before the industrial revolution people with physical disabilities were often sent to institutions as their families lived off the land and barely had enough food for themselves let alone someone that was unable to work the land due to their disability.

McEwan (2001, p.212) describes how a disabled act was brought out in the USA in 1944 to stop discrimination against disabled people. This was almost thirty years before sexual and racial discrimination acts were treated similarly. The reason the Americans brought this act out was because injured veterans returning from the Second World War could return to work without being discriminated against for their disability. Several more acts followed which influenced the UK in extending equal opportunities. It seems that the American government made the disabled act in 1944 just so that people that fought for their country were 'looked after'...