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Over the last few years there has evolved a new attitude towards the disabled. Rehabilitation no longer means a course of therapy, but full reintegration of the disabled to daily life, and this is increasingly the attitude of those in charge of vocational rehabilitation workshops, of rehabilitation technicians, doctors and also organizations of disabled persons. The International Labour Review recently published an article on this subject and—by kind permission—we are pleased to reproduce it here, for it describes the efforts being made so effectively in Czechoslovakia to enable the disabled to carry on an occupation.

Not only was 1981 the United Nations' International Year of Disabled Persons (IYDP), but the following period 1983-1992 was proclaimed the UN Decade of Disabled Persons, emphasizing the need for increased awareness of and commitment to address the living conditions of people with disabilities worldwide. The Year's key goal was to affirm and implement the principle "full participation and equality" contained in the UN General Assembly's 1975 Declaration on the Rights of Disabled Persons. Disabled people should participate fully in communities, self-identify their needs, and share in their societies' socio-economic development. However, continued social and political action, advocacy, and awareness-raising is needed everywhere to more completely realize these goals.

The International Year of Disabled Persons (IYDP) 1981, following the International Year of the Child 1979 and the International Year of Women, 1975, aims to create and spread general awareness regard ing the problems of the disabled just as the former two international years tried to spread general awareness regarding the problems of women and children all over the world.

This issue brief will focus on the ways in which U.S. policy towards disabled persons both intersects and comes into conflict with U.S. policy towards Middle-Eastern Americans. It will additionally explore the political representation and participation, socio-economic status and discrimination against these two minority groups, highlighting the disparity between U.S. policy and public U.S. sentiment and actual treatment of the disabled and Middle-Eastern Americans.