How equal is the Equality Act 2010?
From the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 to the Equality Act 2010 it might be assumed that all of the groups mentioned within the legislation are protected without condition against discrimination, harassment and victimisation.
This doesn’t seem to be the case. Disabled people are needlessly expected to jump through hoops even if they can’t jump high enough or jump at all - just so they can gain access to products and services that improve their quality of life equal to that of non-disabled people.
Education healthcare plans (EHCp), Personal independent payments (PIP), Disability Living Allowance (DLA), and Blue Badge applications all require the ability to read and fill in paperwork using terminology specific to the criteria that each system uses. If you are not able to articulate yourself within their specific framework then you fail, not because you failed at being disabled but because you didn’t frame your disability within the rigid and often limiting criteria.
It doesn’t end there - not only do you have to subject yourself to what may be considered unnecessary stress but you are also expected to sink huge amounts of your time, time that you won’t ever get back, to then be faced with weeks sometimes months awaiting the outcome.
Those who are rejected, should they feel able to, appeal that decision and with that comes even more paperwork to navigate - without legal knowledge your chance of winning is massively reduced and so more support is required to navigate the system. This, often traumatising ordeal, can lead to a tribunal consisting of a panel of experts and a judge who each take their turn asking the appellant a deluge of ambiguous questions, as though guilty until proven innocent.
By the end of it all you feel like a square peg that has been forced through a round hole - except this time the round hole isn’t harmed because it’s made of steel and you’re just made of wood.
Repeat this process for all of the above applications and then be told that you have to do the same again for the rest of your disabled life every 3 years!
How is anyone expected to do all this while trying to earn a living wage and support their family? I know many who have lost the fight and are left too traumatised to pursue what could have empowered them, while others have taken their own lives- all in the name of ‘Equality!’
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