Although entitled to the same rights as all other human beings and to equal opportunities, disabled persons' lives are often handicapped by physical and social barriers, thus hampering their full participation in society. They are victims of stereotyped attitudes that have labelled disabled people as being incapable of any kind of worth, value or benefit to the family or the community; attitudes that maintain that they are only burden. These attitudes have led to and maintained inequities, discrimination, and the continued dependency of disabled people. As a result, disabled children and adults in all parts of the world often face a life that is segregated and debased. It is largely the environment which determines the effect of disability on a person's daily life: disabled persons are still denied the factors generally available in the community that are necessary for the fundamental elements of living, including family life, education, employment, housing, financial and personal security, participation in social and political groups, religious activity, intimate and sexual relationships, access to public facilities, freedom of movement and the general style of daily living. People with permanent disabilities who are in need of community support services, aids and equipment to enable them to live as normally as possible both at home and in the community do not always have access to adequate services due to a lack of knowledge and sensitivity to their problems. Disabled people are often forced into economic dependency, because employers feel they would be sufficiently productive. If they find jobs, they are usually low-paid and with no upward mobility.
It is not a person's disability that handicaps them but society does by not providing access to building, education, transportation and all the other necessities granted to the non-disabled.