The Disability Rights Handbook serves as a key resource for family, care givers and diverse professionals, aiming to promote and implement the rights of persons with disabilities as stipulated by various policies, national and international laws. It is designed to help stakeholders learn about the legal requirements, resources available and ensure Persons with Disabilities’ rights are protected to the maximum extent of the law. Moreover, it allows one to jump from rights into areas of interest, to applications and programmes. It shares insights on concepts on human rights framing, enabling protocols, policies and legal framework. 

1.1    Disability rights handbook objectives

• To provide comprehensive information and instrumental guidance on policies, laws.

• To empower and create awareness to Persons with Disabilities, their families, care givers and the public about their rights and services.

• To guide implementation of associated programmes enshrined in the legal framework and pronunciation.

1.2    Disability Models

Models of disability provide a reference for society as programs and services, laws, regulations and structures are developed and are interpreted as favouring different responses to disability. Disability models are useful for understanding disagreements over disability policy, providing disability-responsive health care, and articulating the life experiences of Persons with Disabilities. Each model addresses the perceived causes of disability, appropriate responses, and deeper meanings. However, claims about the causal justification of disadvantage do not always yield straightforward prescriptions for their remediation (Wasserman 2001; Samaha 2007; Barclay 2018). Moreover, definitions of disability primarily focused on developing and interpreting legal and regulatory definition needed to implement disability policy heavily influenced by “anatomy”—impairment and social response. 

1.2.1  Charity 

The Charity Model of disability focuses on the individual as vulnerable and passive victims, in need of pity and care, with impairment being the main identifier (Retief, 2018). Persons with Disabilities are viewed as reliant on tasks performed by others, recipients and beneficiaries of services. The model depicts PWDs as helpless, depressed and dependent contributing to the preservation of stereotypes and misconceptions (Seale, 2006).

1.2.2  Medical 

The Medical Model (Degener, 2016) regards disability as an impairment that needs to be treated, cured, fixed or at least rehabilitated. Exclusion of people with disabilities from society is regarded as an individual problem and the reasons for exclusion are seen in the impairment. Disability according to the medical model remains the exclusive realm of helping and medical disciplines.

1.2.3  Social

The Social Model explains disability as a social construct through discrimination and oppression. Its focus is on society rather than on the individual. Disability is regarded as a mere difference within the continuum of human variations. The social model differentiates between impairment and disability. While the first relates to a condition of the body or the mind, the second is the result of the way environment and society respond to that impairment. Exclusion from society is politically analysed as the result of barriers and discrimination. It has been developed as a powerful tool to analyse discriminatory and oppressive structures of society. The social model of disability acknowledges the importance of rights and has often been associated with the rights-based approach to disability as opposed to needs based or welfare approach to disability policy. The social model of disability served as a stepping-stone in struggles for civil rights reform and anti-discrimination laws in many countries.

1.2.4  Human rights

With the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability (CRPD), as the new one of human rights model of disability emerged. It encompasses the values for disability policy that acknowledges the human dignity of persons with disabilities. It is the only one that explain why human rights do not require absence of impairment. Moreover, it defies the presumption that impairment may hinder human rights capacity. Furthermore, it is more comprehensive and encompasses civil and political as well as economic, social and cultural rights