Charter of Rights
Disability Action’s Charter of Rights for people with disabilities identifies the right to:
  • Live an independent, active and fully productive life, regardless of the severity of disability, whether physical, mental, sensory or hidden, or whatever combination of these.
  • Determine his or her own future, lifestyle and life choices, and to have access to the information necessary to make his or her own decisions.
  • Define him or herself, and his or her body image, free of limiting stereotypes.
  • Have personal privacy in all areas affecting his or her intimate and family life.
  • Have his or her sexuality and relationships respected, whatever his or her sexual orientation.
  • Marry and to bear and raise children and found a family.
  • Appropriate assessment, quality counselling, physical and mental health care, and to the equipment, assistance and support services necessary to live a fully productive life.
  • Make decisions about his or her medical treatment and to access the information necessary to this.
  • Communication and information, available in a medium appropriate to the individual, enabling full and independent participation in society and underpinning the exercise of all other rights.
  • Equality of opportunity in all aspects of social, recreational and cultural life.
  • Education provision suited to his or her individual needs.
  • Personal mobility and to live in an environment free of physical, information and communication barriers.
  • Appropriate housing, which meets his or her need to live independently.
  • An income that provides for the necessities of life, taking into account individuals different needs.
  • Training and employment without discrimination and with proper regard to the ability and choices of the individual.
  • Challenge and to seek changes in attitudes and perceptions which limit his or her participation in all aspects of community life.
  • Join a trade union and to have his or her specific needs properly represented by that body.
  • Legal representation and to equal protection under the law.
  • Protection from discrimination in all areas, including the legal system itself.
  • Participation in the political process on both an individual and a collective basis.
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