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words by their very nature degrade and diminish people with a disability.”
The term “disabled young person” tends to convey a message that the only thing worth mentioning about a person is their disability. It is better to say “young person with a disability” as this emphasises the person first without denying the reality of the disability.

Terms such as cripple, spastic, handicapped are derogatory, offensive and you should avoid them.
Sometimes people with a disability are compared to “normal people”. This implies that the person with a disability is abnormal and ignores the fact that everyone has their own unique identity and abilities.

The most commonly cited definition is that of the World Health Organisation (1976), which draws a three-fold distinction between impairment, disability and handicap.
According to WHO, impairment is any loss or abnormality of psychological, physiological or anatomical structure or function-loss of a limb or leg(s).
A disability is any restriction or lack (resulting from an impairment) of ability to perform an activity in the manner or within the range considered normal for a human being-

failure to walk using own legs.

A handicap is a disadvantage for a given individual, resulting from an impairment or a disability, that prevents the fulfilment of a role that is considered normal (depending on age, sex and social and cultural factors) for that individual.
According to activists in the disability movement, the WHO has confused between the terms “disability” and “impairment”.

They maintain that impairment refers to physical or cognitive limitations that an individual may have, such as the inability to walk or speak.
In contrast, disability refers to socially imposed restrictions, that is, the system of social constraints that are imposed on those with impairments by the discriminatory practices of society-social model of disability.

Thus, one such movement, the Union of the Physically Impaired against Segregation defined impairment and disability in the following manner.
Impairment is lacking part of or all of a limb, or having a defective limb, organism or mechanism of the body.
Disability is the disadvantage or restriction of activity caused by contemporary organisation which takes no or little account of people who have physical impairments and thus excludes them from the mainstream of social activities’.

However, I will now focus on basic rights of people living with disabilities with specific reference to workplace.
People living with disabilities comprise more than         600 million people worldwide.

While many people living with disabilities are successfully employed and fully included in society, some people living with disabilities face disproportionate poverty and severe unemployment.

A lack of global data about their numbers and situation is only one piece of evidence supporting the discrimination and exclusion they often face.
National data, when it exists, verifies the fact that people with disabilities, and especially women, are less likely to have access to education, training and employment of any kind. When they do work, people living with disabilities are more likely to be underemployed, to earn less money, experience less job security and have fewer chances for advancement.

In other words, people living with disabilities and especially women are less likely to find decent work.
It is not surprising then that an estimated 20 percent of world’s poor are persons with disabilities (International Labour Organisation).

At the same time, an estimated 99 percent of people living with disabilities are excluded from employment on the open labour market.
The high levels of unemployment amongst people with disabilities can be attributed to a number of factors.

They include low skills levels due to inadequate education, discriminatory attitudes and practices by employers, past discriminatory and ineffective labour legislation, inaccessible public transport and unsupportive work environments, inadequate and inaccessible provision for vocational rehabilitation and training and ignorance in society. The high level of functional illiteracy amongst disabled adults is a direct result of the lack of educational opportunities for children with disabilities, especially in rural areas. The result is low skills levels and a correspondingly limited access to employment opportunities and perpetual poverty.

Another factor that must be taken into account is the tendency of society to view people living with disabilities as a single group.
Thus, people in wheelchairs have become the popular representation of people living with disabilities.

This ignores the diversity of disability and the variety of needs experienced by people with different types of disability. Employers, in turn, stereotype people living with disabilities into certain positions, such as the lady in the wheelchair is earmarked for the receptionist position.

Failing to recognise that people living with disabilities can apply for any position in the organisation and should be assessed on competency first before the disability is assessed to determine whether the employer can reasonably accommodate the disability.

Employers also generally deem accommodation to be physical in nature, failing to understand that it applies also to the job, its content, job descriptions, performance agreements and performance assessments, selection criteria and selection tests, advertising and recruitment procedures.

In today’s global economy, managing diversity is a major factor in an organisation efficiency, productivity and overall business success.
Many multinational companies and small and medium businesses alike have discovered the potential of people with disabilities to make significant contributions to the

workplace. The DuPont Corporation was one of the first companies to measure the performance of its employees living with disabilities, which it did for more than 30 years.
DuPont reported in its publication Equal to the Task II that its employees living with disabilities performed on par or better than its non-disabled staff with regard to attendance, safety and overall job performance.

For other companies, however, the recruitment, hiring and retention of employees living with disabilities are not components of their diversity strategies.
Fears, myths and stereotypes come in all forms and are probably at the root cause of much discrimination and exclusion.

In the workplace, for example, the fear that people living with disabilities will be less productive than non-disabled workers is very common.
However, if people living with disabilities are empowered by rights and opportunities, and are given equitable access to training and related services, they make productive entrepreneurs and employees.

Promoting rights-based approaches and the business case for employing people living with disabilities are crucial to equalising opportunities and fostering inclusion.

• Taurai Musakaruka is Human Resources Practitioner and for feedback e-mail to [email protected] or [email protected]