Promoting Disability Rights for a Stronger Democracy in Brazil

Abstract

Although disability rights advocacy in Brazil began in the early 1980s, it was not until that nation’s 2008 ratification of the 2006 United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities that the Brazilian state assumed responsibility for guaranteeing the rights of its disabled citizens. This article explores the efforts of the nation’s disability nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and points to potential limitations of their initiatives to promote disability rights and democratic politics. I do so by examining the online materials of disability NGOs and through interviews with seven leaders of such organizations, conducted in 2011 in São Paulo, Brazil. The analysis draws on interview data and compares the disability rights literature with the claims of these organizations to consider how their advocacy strategies might be recast to help the nation’s heterogeneous disabled population attain both a common sense of identity and their rights as they seek full citizenship.