ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the implementation of disability rights in the Eastern European post-Soviet region which has been particularly neglected in terms of disability scholarship and activism. The process of social integration of persons with disabilities is not always smooth, and the very need to develop the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities itself confirms this. In many democratic countries the awareness of the rights of persons with disabilities and search for strategies for their inclusion has been taking place since the middle of the 20th century. In the Soviet Union and its satellite countries, the Communist system of care for persons with disabilities functioned in terms of ‘social protection and social regulation’. Besides shifts in language, after the collapse of communism many structural changes took place as well, mostly in attempts to transfer to a community based care model. The data of experts’ attitudes towards the disability discourse in respective countries was gathered using semi-structured skype int.
