Despite being one of the world’s largest minority populations, children, youth, and adults with disabilities still face serious barriers in all aspects of life. Persons with disabilities in high- and low-income countries alike experience significant challenges in accessing meaningful and competitive employment; children and youth frequently do not have access to education at all, let alone a quality education; the accessibility of the physical environment is too often limited; opportunities for full participation in social and political life are curtailed. Despite the adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and the cumulative efforts of the disability rights movement, there is still a great deal of work to be done globally to ensure equal rights for persons with disabilities.
Through systematic analyses of constitutions, legislation, and other sources, the WORLD Policy Analysis Center has developed globally comparative, quantitatively analyzable data on many areas critical to children, youth, and adults with disabilities. Our data examine whether equal rights for persons with disabilities have been recognized constitutionally, whether education is inclusive, whether there are guarantees to non-discrimination and reasonable accommodation at work, and whether countries provide direct assistance to families to help with the additional financial costs of raising children with disabilities.
