Derek's human rights under ICESCR

"I’m a double graduate with 24 years of work experience. After my second brain injury, it was devastating. I couldn’t even remember my son’s name.

I thought after recovery I’d walk back into work. But it turns out that employers don’t have the resources, the desire or the expertise to employ someone with a brain injury and a visual impairment. I was unemployed for 8 years.

I’m in work now, but I’m not able to fully do the job I was recruited to do because of access barriers. I find myself overcompensating, working longer hours to get the job done, to make up for it.

Disabled people want to work, but we don’t have the support. I’d previously worked in employability. I thought we’d got good at supporting disabled people into employment, but I was really surprised. It really varies from region to region.

I got support from Glasgow Disability Alliance. They gave me the screen reader software I needed and the training to use it. I was able to get back and become more productive and more involved in community work with other disabled people in user-led groups.

It feels like a lot of the human rights are being chipped away. We keep working away to make sure disabled people’s voices are being heard, but sometimes it can be disheartening, and I feel like I don’t have the energy. My confidence came, not as an individual but from being involved in and as an ally to a movement.

The barriers affect so many areas of life. It took me 20 years of fighting my local housing authority to get information in an accessible format, never mind accessible housing. Wee things, you need three remote controls to tune the telly. Or online food shopping. They change their system so it’s not accessible and you think – what do I do?

I’m dreading because we’re coming into the winter, but I can’t use my thermostat because I can’t see it, although there must be a way of adapting it to make it accessible to me. I don’t know how to get hot water. There must be a way of turning it on. I’ve raised it regularly with the council, they don’t see it as a priority. I’ll need to go back to thermal vests and woolly jumpers."

This is an excerpt from the SHRC's State of the Nation 2025 report on economic, social and cultural rights in Scotland. Four people from across Scotland have shared their stories in this report, the stories show how all human rights are indivisible and interdependent. ESC rights touch on every part of our daily lives and often have an impact on one another, in ways that the experiences of Derek, Shamus, Anne and Nada show us.