Persons with disabilities in Indonesia face a range of challenges, including poverty, discrimination and widespread barriers to accessing and using facilities and services.
Until 2016, the Indonesian government took a medical and charity-based approach to addressing these challenges, focused on providing medical treatment, rehabilitation, care homes, vocational training and special education.
This paper explores the 10-year process which resulted in the passing of the human-rights based 2016 Law on Persons with Disabilities. This was the result of sustained campaigning by an increasingly large number of disability activists and Organisations of People with Disabilities.
The paper was written by Joni Yulianto, Adi Suryadini and Elisabeth Jackson.
The paper is part of the "Navigating Successful Policy Reform" series undertaken by Coalitions for Change and the Centre for Human Security and Social Change which explores developmental policy reforms in Indonesia, Kenya and Vanuatu that demonstrate politically smart and learning-orientated ways of working to achieve change in challenging political contexts.
