Thread by @WeAreDisabled

Big thread allert! I wanted to make a nice little fact thread called Disability things in the Netherlands. Some of these might apply for your country as well cause like most western countries our country is build on racism, ableism and classism but I just like to paint the

picture about our country a bit. The Netherlands seem to have this weird reputation to not have things like those I am going to mention, but it has and it need to be mentioned. I am making a start and I hope that some of my fellow Dutch disabled citizens will participate and put

in some more stuff as well!. I am especially looking for some people with experience with the horrible Participatiewet, Participation Law, to give more info if they feel up to talking about it in the comments.

Ah yes the Netherlands, where we are supposed to be made of

tolerance and nobody suffers ever and everyone has the same opportunities…. The land that signed the UN agreement disability but left out ratifying that good old part that makes it possible to sue people for accessibility infringement from the state. And the country where a

year after the UN agreement was signed it was made clear with a shadow rapport the position of disabled people in the Netherlands has worsened again, a trend that seems to continue. We have been slowly moving down the list as it comes to our healthcare and how good it is as well.

And our social care system is worsening significantly too.

A part of the issue with it is caused by the many budget cuts that happen into the various care systems. It has left disabled people with more they need to pay themselves, less access to disability income and less care

out of those care systems. It will not be awfully surprising to hear that the divide between rich and poor has been growing in the country and disabled people are widely represented between the poor.

Did you know that if you move outside of your city and you have a mobility

aid you got via the government, you have to go to the procedure for asking for one again in the new city, while losing said mobility aid for that time, until they, if they do, approve the new one? And if you are getting improved not only varies per city, it might also depend on

who you speak to.

Because we are a country of bureaucracy. So things are compartmentalized and departmentalized instead of on the state or country level it used to be. Therefor things often are made as complicated as possible, to persuade you of continuing and to save them

money. It is so very unclear which things you have the right to get and which not. It took me 3 years and a judgment by a judge to get my wheelchair and shower chair. If you have any kind of disability that might give you cognitive disfunction, an intellectual disability or are

someone newer to the country with a very basic understanding of our language, the system is going to be almost impossible to navigate because it is hard to navigate for everybody. So if you want certain things compensated you might find yourself lost in a system that sends you

to a few different places before you can even get your compensated. So some things have to be done at location, others at b, and so on and this continuous sending you from here to there makes the process more lengthy. But despite their complicating stuff, at the littlest thing

they assume anything you do or do wrong is lack of will or possibly fraud. But every mistake they make which leaves you without proper care sometimes for years is seen as justified.

The same thing happens when you switch health care providers as well, you have to go through the

system all over again. Oh and did you know they need to know your bmi for medical neccesary food supplements? Cause fat people oooooobbbbviously do not need it and always eat too much and can never ever have shortages. (sarcasm)

As it comes to accessibility there should have

been rules in place for building accessible homes but the country has made more and more cuts into these rules to the point that most building sites can still get away easily with being inaccessible and thus they do. Around 80% of all buildings are in some or more ways

inaccessible. Also voting locations are often inaccessible too. Despite the existing accessibility checklists. And there is no one there to help with the voting procedure, which makes it so voting is denied for a lot of people with intellectual disabilities.

And so is the news,

we are one of the last countries to make news properly available with a sign language interpreter, and until this year any news of critical events happened without. It was not until this year, that after 30 years of lobbying, Dutch sign language was actually recognized as an

official language. And yeah the inaccesibility of the straw ban is a real thing here as well, with no real proper thing in place to not make the ban harm disabled people.

And politicians are often not accessible as well, from big to small things like not putting alt texts on

their descriptions, disability separates you from the politicians. There is a positive thing happening though with one new political party called @Bij1 who not only is accessible to disabled people and has my friend, the disability rights activist @JeanetteChedda (who was one of

the hosts in the first half of the year) on the list of running candidates. It might break some of that inaccessibility down finally.

Segregation of disabled people is still very real and alive here. From ofcourse the well known institutionalization to the segregation in

schools, disabled people are separated away from able bodied people as much as possible. Which has the effect that people are less aware of our issues and how many of us there are because people often just don’t see us.

UWV. That’s it. That’s the tweet (Thanks Eline who has

no Twitter for the inspiration for this part).
Honestly though I can not express the randomness, the horror and trauma inducing thing that is the company that decided whether you go on to disability income or unemployment. The fraud idea lives here as well and is the reason why

the income you receive even when you get it is much lower than minimum wage.

Representation really is shitty here either. And because of things like doctors being expected to really not be disabled or sick, we have a lot of doctors who have a hard time connecting to their

patients about things they do not seem to get.

And then there is the Participation law I mentioned earlier, I got a lot of info from @WritingZebra since I am not effected by this personally. Supposedly a system that they created so everybody in society can contribute on it by

working within their means, but in reality it turns out to be a system to punish young disabled people for not doing what government think they ought to, to take their disability income and put them in a unemployment base system.

The base is that people work the amount of work

they can do. They are supposed to be helped onto a job or if need be a volunteering job. But in reality this is not by guidance and support but with force and because of that young disabled people have a set amount of rules they have to hold to under threat of things like losing

income. If they do get paid for their work but do not make enough they get supplemented by the government to a set kind of income. That income is like most disability and unemployment incomes less than minimum wage, up to 30% less and is by no means a real livable wage.

Normally young disabled people with no or less than fulltime ability to work would go into the Wajong, but together with the Participation law that system got changed and many people in there got kicked out into this new system and people who need Wajong have a much harder time

getting it.
In that new system the government is not really properly doing there part in helping people get a job, let alone one that actually fit their disability, despite the system being designed in such a way that young disabled people really can’t get out of there.

The disabled people are frauds prejudice is part of the system. The rules are hard to follow, but if you make a mistake, you get the blame and label fraud,...... and if the government makes the mistake you get the blame and label fraud.

You can get exemptions for certain

elements for one or two years but the testing of this is done by people with little to no knowledge of being disabled or chronically ill and it is empathy or the lack of empathy in them not proper ruling that will be the reason you get it. This law is messy, it is harmful,

it is trauma inducing especially if the work they find do not fit around your disability and is wholly discriminatory but yet it is part of our system. Make it make sense.

There is also the purely emotional aspect of things. We are often seen as fraudulent or fakers and the

participation law is just one element from it. From politicians to society and people do think we really do not deserve the help we get because there is a mentality here that sickness or disability is not something that happens to you but you cause and if you have not done a

nything wrong you would not have become sick. We are not just another way for humans to be, because we simply are what we are, no we are a problem that needs fixing. Equality in the eyes of a lot of people in our society means that everybody is the same. End off.

So yeah even a

country as the Netherlands, which has the reputation to be solid in those things, the reality of it all is very different and that was what I wanted to show with this thread. We are really not a good country to live in as a disabled person either. Disabled people are not seen as

full participating members of society and thus are treated as less than, and an afterthought. I hope some of the Dutch followers want to continue this list in the comments with even more examples. I made this list with my friends from @Fableism and @GeenDorHout

Anyway this was a hefty thread that Twitter demanded me doing in two parts, and I am very glad I prepped this in advance. If you skimmed this or did not read it because you do not have the energy, don't feel sorry, you are not obliged. But if you do want to read it but can not

read it in one go, you can maybe bookmark it? If that helps.