For concrete visibility as a human right

Rome, Chamber of Deputies press room

Invisible, indeed more. People with disabilities in our country are completely forgotten, not only by the state but also by the media and by individual citizens who do not do enough to promote inclusion and make their main needs known.

Of course, there is no lack of concrete attitudes of sensitivity and solidarity, but unfortunately there is no lack of discrimination and prejudice: in short, there is very limited attention to those who live with a disability and to their living conditions. Yet we are dealing with a world that affects over 15% of the population, including people directly involved and their families.

Discrimination and prejudice seem very distant and insignificant to us in our lives, because we recognize how absurd they are as much as they are arbitrary. But when discrimination and prejudice strike us directly, we feel that it is an abomination, a disease of reason that creates differences and distance where understanding and closeness should reign.

It is very sad to live today in a country where episodes of intolerance, discrimination and inequality have returned to be overwhelmingly at the center of the daily narrative. the student in a wheelchair stuck in the subway station and freed by the firefighters and the recent case of the child with autism mocked by his teachers, are just two episodes in a very long series of unacceptable and unaccountable facts.

In the face of these episodes, after the first, immediate and radical indignation, anger and shame, I believe more and more, to counter certain social phenomena, to bridge the huge gap that separates civil disabilities from disabilities resulting from accidents at work.

Equalization would represent the legislative tool to definitively break down this enormous barrier. Like the injured person at work, the civil disabled should also have the right to access rehabilitation that corresponds to their needs. Equalization would represent the only way to counter prejudice and discrimination and therefore all disabilities: intellectual, mental, physical and cognitive.

If there is a chance to improve our lives, where could it begin if not in our consciences.

Happy Easter

Salvatore Cimmino