Disabled and sick fear welfare penalties

Guardian Letters, 28 July 2006

People with disabilities and long-term ill health, single mothers, pensioners and other claimants oppose the welfare reform bill [Welfare Reform Act 2007], which passed its second reading on Monday with little coverage. We face benefit penalties if we don’t take up training or medical treatment, erasing our right to consent to treatment. More private agencies in the benefits system opens the way to profit and thus to more disability discrimination, bullying, sexism and racism. Doctors are to get patients “back to work”. But we’re already working. Coping with disability in an inaccessible, prejudiced world is hard work. Many disabled women are also carers, meeting other people’s needs while lacking help. A quarter of single parents (mostly mothers) have some kind of disability.

The Disability Rights Commission and charities claiming to represent low-income people promote jobs as the answer to poverty and discrimination. DRC chair Bert Massie writes that 84% of mothers of disabled children are “not working” (Letters, March 13). Hasn’t he heard of caring? What’s to happen to those who need care if we’re all out at work?

Disabled adults are getting poorer as more of us take jobs - the lowest paid, of course. If mothers don’t attend the work-focused interviews, now more frequent, their benefits are also threatened. Suicides, destitution, rape and the exploitation of women forced to depend on violent men increase with benefit cuts. People are forced to shoplift or do sex work to survive, leading to Asbos and prison. We are treated as if society can’t afford us. But the military budget continues to rise, bringing death and disability to thousands, with little or no discussion about whether we can afford that.

Claire Glasman WinVisible (women with visible and invisible disabilities) Denise Lonsdale Bolton TUC Unemployed Advice Centre Tony Greenstein Brighton Unemployed Workers Centre Niki Adams Legal Action for Women Kim Sparrow Single Mothers’ Self-Defence Leo McLaughlin, Save Our Day Centres Angela Hopwood Chair, Sheffield Mental Health User representatives (personal capacity) Sara Callaway, Women of Colour in the Global Women’s Strike Michael Kalmanowitz, Payday men’s network