The experiences of disabled people in the United Arab Emirates: Barriers to participation in higher education and employment

Abstract

I draw on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as a human rights model of disability to analyze how the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is meeting its obligations toward disabled people in higher education and employment. This paper argues that institutions in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi adopted a paternalistic and reactive approach to address the rights of disabled people. Drawing on the experiences of disabled people in the UAE and evidence from interviews conducted from 2016 to 2018, the analysis identifies several key challenges to inclusion that stem from a weak enforcement and accountability framework, which results in a lack of accessibility measures and supports in university and workplace settings. The paper recommends interventions that would create an institutional environment where disabled people are treated as rights holders and given equal and equitable access to higher education and employment.

Points of interest

• This paper studies the barriers that disabled people face in higher education and employment in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

• The UAE is a very rich oil-producing country located in the Arabian Gulf with a small number of citizens and a large migrant population.

• The key problems disabled people talked about are how they are denied equal access to learning supports in the university and how employers do not give them measures and tools to do their work.

• Because the UAE has signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), it should not allow that disabled people are treated unfairly or that they are treated in an unequal way.

• The UAE should make its laws stronger and monitor the implementation of the CRPD.

Keywords:

• Disability rights
• CRPD
• United Arab Emirates
• barriers
• education
• university
• employment

Acknowledgements

I would like to sincerely thank the research participants for agreeing to share their lived experiences and their insights with me. I am grateful for the wonderful support I received from my research assistant, Yamna Al Rashidi. Thank you to the journal’s reviewers for their thoughtful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by the ADEC Award for Research Excellence.