Accessibility is not difficult

Yesterday the global COP26 climate change conference made headlines for all the wrong reasons, when Israeli minister Karine Elharrar was excluded from the summit because of her wheelchair. 

On arriving at the event site on Monday, Elharrar, who has muscular dystrophy, was made to wait outside for two hours, after event organisers refused to let her enter the summit area in her adapted vehicle. She was later offered shuttle transport to the summit, but the bus was not wheelchair accessible, and she was forced to return to her hotel 50 miles away in Edinburgh.

When I saw the story, I was shocked but unfortunately not surprised. It’s a situation to which I, and many other disabled people, are far too accustomed: turning up to schools, jobs, events, and finding out that steps and curbs, heavy doors, or no accessible parking have made a place entirely inaccessible. And it’s not just physical access: problems such as overstimulating environments, a lack of assistive technology, large-print resources, captioning or audio descriptions; even attitudinal barriers to disabilities. These are problems we are forced to face on a daily basis.

But that shouldn’t have to be the case. 

In response to the situation, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said, “You can't worry about the future and climate if you don't worry first about humans and accessibility.” For an organisation such as the United Nations, running something as globally visible and politically significant as COP26, the fact that such an event was not made accessible sends an inadvertent message to 15% of the world's population: disabled people are not welcome here.

And whether or not this particular instance was indeed an honest and ‘genuine mistake’ as many have said, it’s a mistake that should not be being made in this day and age. Particularly in the wake of the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games, when high-profile disabled people entered the public eye and became the topic of many conversations. The #WeThe15 movement was launched this year by the International Paralympic Committee, using the Paralympic Games as a vehicle to push the goal of ending discrimination and improving inclusion for disabled people. 

The Paralympics brings disability issues such as accessibility and inclusion to the fore every four years, but as a society we have yet to capitalise on this momentum to bring about real and meaningful change in society for disabled people, and the accessibility issues at COP26 have proved this. I’ve said it before: it shouldn't have to take one huge event held every four years to have a conversation about the way we address disability. 

The Environment Secretary George Eustice MP later told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the incident at COP26 was "deeply regrettable". But his preceding comments, which placed some blame on the Israeli delegation for not communicating effectively their own access needs to the venue, is proof that disablism (assumptions, conscious or unconscious, and practices that promote discrimination or prejudice against disabled people) is still ingrained within our society. 

Historically, the exclusion of disabled people from society has often been considered an ​​individual problem, and not a societal problem. The 'problem' of disability was seen as being within a person’s limitations, and what a person couldn’t do because of their impairment or health condition; society did not need to change to become more accessible and inclusive. Because of this, the onus has often fallen upon disabled people themselves to ask for accessibility - and when we do speak up, these requests are seen as a burden. 

But in order to fully include disabled people, we must acknowledge that society as a whole has failed to take into account the needs of disabled people. The responsibility shouldn’t have to fall to individuals to ask for accessibility; it should be the responsibility of government, organisations and individuals across society to identify and implement changes to remove barriers (physical, attitudinal or otherwise) and make society more accessible.

For people who do not have a disability, or who are not close to someone who does, it might be difficult to understand how barriers in society can affect disabled people. But if there’s one thing we can take away from situations like this, it should be that accessibility does not have to be difficult. And the responsibility shouldn’t have to fall to disabled people themselves. 

In fact, with careful consideration, by having accessibility in mind and making services accessible by default, everyone’s lives become easier. And with considerations that actually consult with and take into account the experiences of disabled people - I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve come across too steep ramps, too small lifts or toilets, and other inaccessible' accommodations that were clearly put in place by able-bodied people ‘assuming’ they understand access needs.

I applauded Israel’s Prime Minister Naftli Bennett who said that he would not attend the next day of COP26 if the wheelchair access was not fixed to allow Elharrar to attend as well. However, it shouldn’t have to come down to gestures such as this for disability access to be taken more seriously by organisers.

Accessibility shouldn’t be an afterthought or an oversight, nor should it be seen as an exercise in box-ticking. It is a human right, and something that should be considered by us all every single day.

An edited version of this post was published with permission on the MDUK blog.