Day 3: Sign Language Advocacy:
The third day of International Week of Deaf People aims to encourage everyone to actively advocate for the rights of deaf individuals and the official recognition of national sign languages. The World Federation Of The Deaf advocates to Sign up for sign language rights by promoting your national sign languages in public arenas.
Sadly, only 40% of countries in the world legally recognise their national sign language. In order to support the advocacy work, the World Federation of the Deaf has launched the Guidelines for Achieving Sign Language Rights. In the advocacy toolkit, the federation have developed tools and strategies that will strengthen deaf communities and advance the adoption of robust and meaningful legal recognition of national sign languages.
The need for this toolkit is essential due to the way deaf people continue to confront situations of discrimination with the use of their national sign languages. Unfortunately, these situations of discrimination happen systematically and frequently at various times in their daily lives by not having equal and real time access to information and communication. Deaf people are affected by this in all areas, but mostly in the education sector. Deaf children are put at a risk of language deprivation due to the lack of quality in education in their national sign languages. Due to 60% of countries not legally recognising their national sign language, the status of the sign language is unprotected in areas such as education. Subsequently, this creates a gap between hearing people and Deaf people.
In addition to sign language equality within education, it is also incredibly important in the legal realm. The World Federation of the Deaf states that there “should be provision regarding the legal capacity of deaf people, so there is no doubt on this matter”. In other words, Deaf people should have the benefit of the freedom of expression and opinion in their national sign language. Deaf individuals must have the right to use their national sign language to exercise their legal capacity.
On the third day of International Week of Deaf People, The World Federation of the Deaf ask those to advocate for legal recognition of sign languages. In the UK, the British Sign Language Act was passed in April 2022. The act legally recognises British Sign Language as a language of England, Scotland, and Wales. Indeed, this is a step forward to ensuring equality, however, there is still a huge gap with 60% of countries not recognising their national sign language. During this week, and the rest of the year we ask that you advocate for your national sign language.
