Landmark Disability Report

Today the Equality and Human Rights Commission published a report: Promoting safety and security of disabled people. (I'd like to thank Rich Watts for alerting me to this through his blog.) When I worked for the Disability Rights Commission we wanted very much to commission research into disabled people's experiences of harassment, crime and safety, but we ran out of time. I have blogged before about the work I carried out when working for the Mayor of London with People First and the Met Police.

This new report seems to be far reaching in its scope and its findings are sadly not surprising to me but will be to others I hope.

Disabled people are 4 x more likely to be victims of crime and around 47% of disabled people have experienced violence towards themselves or another disabled person.

The Another Planet report that I helped David Morris produce at the GLA identified that in London in 2003 half of disabled people had experienced harassment in their local community. As soon as you begin to break down these figures by people with learning difficulties or those with mental health conditions the figures become much higher.

I really welcome this report and really hope that the police, CPS, public bodies, landlords and the government take action.

I have certainly experienced random acts of harassment, and even assault which I am sure were connected to my disability. One city women who pushed me down the stairs at Tower Hill tube station made her opinion very clear by yelling "Get moving - are you blind or something!?" I did reply "Yes, actually," and was helped by a couple of passers by but the woman just stormed on.

Flight attendant discrimination tribunal

Back from just over a week off and the BBC are running the kind of story I like to use as a discussion point in training sessions. The BBC story is about a head flight attendant who claims her boss (who runs a small charter flight company) forced her to only employ young, slim, attractive, single women. Men were definitely not allowed as she claims that her boss would not tolerate male flight attendants as he believed all male flight attendants are gay.

I would use this story as a talking point for a number of reasons - looking at the alleged stipulation of who could be employed I'd get trainees to identify who is being excluded. Sounds obvious but many people don't realise that gender legislation includes marital status. Also the stipulation of "attractiveness" is always an interesting one to discuss.

Every training session will include someone asking about jobs that stipulate a requirement of attractiveness. I usually end up talking about the case of a person with a facial disfigurement who was refused entry to a wine bar because the wine bar bouncer felt she "didn't look right" for the bar. That bar would also turn away customers who were scruffy or who had poor hygiene. It's a good one to unpack and working close to Oxford Street someone always mentions certain fashion outlets who ask for a photo of applicants before an interview. One way I've heard of that certain fashion stores get round being discriminatory is by now advertising for in-store models, by doing this they can justify why they need someone who is well groomed and fits into their clothes nicely. I'd be interested to know how they would respond to a visibly disabled person - say a stunningly beautiful and model skinny wheelchair user? Any way this kind of thing always gets a lot of discussion about not just disability but age, and racial stereo types relating to social standards of "attractiveness."

Michelle Obama

Just thought I would post a link to a video clip from Michelle Obama's visit to an inner city girls school. Very inspiring and positive. The girls I used to teach in South London would have been so inspired by this and I hope they still are inspired.