Athletes at Rio 2016 Para-Olympics

• Cultural attitudes towards disability = changing on a global scale
• 1983-92 = 'Decade of Disabled Persons' by UN
• UN Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities aims to bring cultural change on a global scale in line with Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
• USA: sterilization programmes sometimes targeted the disabled and continued well into the 20th century. Since then, there has been a seismic shift in cultural attitudes to disabled people globally.
• Social media = turn Paralympics into one of world's biggest sporting events by celebrating physical achievements of the elite athletes with disabilities.
• 1st Games = 1960s = Rome = participants from 23 countries.

  vs

  15th Summer Games = Rio, 2016 = athletes from 159 nations.
• Whilst attitudes for disabilities are changing in more and more places, there are still serious inequality issues for disabled people globally.