Every year, on 3 December, the International Day of Disabled People is marked around the world. This date was established by the United Nations in 1992 as a reminder of the obligation of states and societies to work toward inclusion, equality, and the realization of the human rights of disabled people.
This date should not be understood as a day for mere “awareness raising” or for ritualistic and empty commemoration. It carries a much deeper meaning: it reminds us that disability, or more precisely, disablement, is a social and political category, not an individual tragedy.
Oppression
The fact that disabled people live on the margins of society is not the result of chance or simply a lack of awareness among decision-makers. It arises from the relationship between disabled and non-disabled people, especially those in positions of power, a relationship based on oppression. For many, “oppression” is a harsh word, but it accurately captures the way disabled people are viewed and valued by non-disabled people: as inferior, insufficiently capable, productive, or desirable, and as a burden and a cost to society.
Progress in the struggle against marginalisation has never come from the top down in any country. It has always emerged from strong and diverse social movements of disabled people, movements that introduced new ideas, new ways of understanding disability, new policies, and new forms of advocacy.
To understand the current situation of disabled people in Serbia and beyond, we must return to a key moment in the history of the movement. In 1972, in the United Kingdom, the Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation (UPIAS) was founded, an organisation led by disabled people themselves. UPIAS introduced a radical conceptual distinction that later became the foundation of the social model of disability.
According to UPIAS:
- Impairment refers to an individual physical, sensory, or intellectual condition that affects how our bodies or minds function.
- Disability (disablement) is not the result of impairment, but of the way society is organised — a way that disables people with impairments by denying them access to space, education, work, decision-making, and resources.
In other words, disability is not a “personal problem”, but a form of injustice produced by society.
This idea was later taken up by academics, activists, and international networks, making the social model the dominant concept in international disability policy. The model transformed how the world understands disability: shifting focus away from “personal tragedy” and bodily deficits toward recognising and removing social barriers and structural inequalities.
Although the Serbian language still lacks a fully agreed term to describe the social marginalisation of disabled people, the most precise concept encompassing these processes, similar to disablement in English, is “onemogućenost”, a socially produced condition in which people with impairments are denied rights, opportunities, and participation. This is a political category, and political categories require political organising and action.
The social model as an ideological foundation for collective organising
The social model is not just an abstract idea. It enabled different groups of disabled people — blind people, deaf people, people with physical, intellectual, mental, sensory, or combined impairments, to understand that they share a common denominator. That denominator is not a medical diagnosis, but:
- discrimination across different areas of life,
- denial of resources and services,
- segregation and social isolation,
- decision-making and policy-making carried out without the participation of disabled people.
These shared experiences of oppression, not impairment itself, form the basis of solidarity among different groups. This is what makes it possible to build a unified Disabled People’s Movement based on political struggle, rather than charity and pity.
The situation in Serbia: time for new organising — what can be learned from the student movement?
In Serbia, the phrase “disabled people’s movement” is often used to describe a complex network of associations organised by type of impairment. Many of these organisations were founded decades ago, some in the 1960s or 1970s, or even earlier. While they played an important historical role, today’s social context and political challenges require new forms of organising, for several reasons.
1. Fragmentation by type of impairment
Most organisations are structured around specific impairments and registered as non-governmental organisations (associations of citizens): associations of deaf people, blind people, people with cerebral palsy, paraplegics, and so on. This model has at least two major problems:
- it prevents mutual learning and solidarity;
- it fractures the shared political identity of Disabled people, which is essential for social change.
In practice, many groups are unfamiliar with the experiences of others and do not act together, despite being united by the same root cause of marginalisation: social disablement.
2. A hierarchical and outdated model of representative democracy
The current system of what is called the “disabled people’s movement” — which in reality resembles a collection of interest groups — operates through multiple levels: local associations → provincial or national federations → a national umbrella organisation (NOOIS). Individual members can vote and participate only at the lowest level of organising.
Imagine if citizens of Serbia could vote only in local elections, while decisions about members of parliament and the president were made by local council members. That is roughly the model that exists today within the “disabled people’s movement”.
This produces:
- a democratic deficit,
- closed circles of power,
- leadership that lasts for decades,
- invisibility and exclusion of ordinary disabled people from decision-making processes.
A movement cannot exist without a base. It cannot exist without spaces where people, not a narrow circle of delegates and organisational leaders, exchange experiences, define problems, and plan collective action.
The need for new spaces and new practices
Over the past year, students in Serbia have demonstrated that horizontal, democratic, open, and participatory organising without prominent leaders is possible. In their protests and plenums, we see exactly what is missing from the disabled people’s movement:
- open plenums for ongoing dialogue,
- direct participation,
- transparency,
- strategies developed from the bottom up, rather than within small leadership circles or through project frameworks funded by state ministries.
Such models should inspire the organising of the disabled people’s movement as well. We need open forums, both physical and digital, where people with different impairments meet, talk, understand shared problems, and propose joint solutions and policies.
Why is this urgent and necessary?
Because without this, there is no social movement.
And without a movement, there is no political power or influence.
And without political power, there are no changes to laws, accessibility, education, work, housing, transport, culture, or social protection — all the areas that make life dignified.
In Serbia today, there are many organisations but little social movement with a clear ideology and political articulation. There are many representatives, but little participation by ordinary disabled people. There are many organisations, but no collective energy born from solidarity and struggle.
If there is one lesson to be learned from the history of the international disabled people’s movement, it is this:
- change begins when people organise horizontally;
- when they connect through shared experiences of marginalisation, oppression, and resistance;
- when they understand the importance of solidarity — recognising autistic people, deaf people, blind people, people with chronic illnesses as sisters and brothers in unjust disablement;
- when they refuse to be controlled through “representatives” they did not elect to represent them, and who often represent the interests of those in power rather than disabled people;
- when they believe they have the right to speak and decide directly about their own lives.
“3 December” as a call to action, not a ceremony
The third of December should not be just another date on the calendar, but a call for renewed organising of the social movement.
The disabled people’s movement in Serbia must not remain trapped in structures formed more than half a century ago. It must open itself to young people, to marginalised groups, to those who have never been part of those organisations, and to those who want to fight for rights, not positions.
That is the meaning of the international movement.
That is the message of the social model.
And that is how 3 December can become more than a one-day symbol, and a day of political power for disabled people, instead.
