Highlights of equality and diversity news from last week – Saudi Arabia is to allow women to compete in the Olympic Games, discrimination claims brought by deaf people have increased by a ‘shocking’ number, and UK’s 300,000 unpaid carers cost the economy £5.3bn a year.
With less than a month to go for the Olympics, Saudia Arabia has announced that it will allow women to compete in the Olympic Games for the first time. The issue of women in sport remains extremely sensitive in the ultra-conservative Muslim state, where women are not allowed to drive cars and the authorities shut down private gyms for women in 2009 and 2010. A senior Saudi official told the BBC, “King Abdullah is trying to initiate reform in a subtle way, by finding the right balance between going too fast or too slow.” Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Brunei are the only three countries never to have sent women athletes to the Olympics. But Qatar has already announced it will send a three-woman team to London and Brunei will send a woman as part of their two-athlete delegation.
According to statistics released by the RAD (formerly the Royal Association for Deaf People), discrimination claims brought by deaf people increased by 37.5% in the last quarter. Jeff Brattan-Wilson, RAD spokesman has commented: “Society has changed, with recession disproportionately affecting deaf people who cannot always find deaf-friendly advisors to help them. British Sign Language, not English, is the first language for most deaf people.” The charity also added that the ‘shocking’ increase underlines the need for more law firms to provide a service tailored to deaf people’s needs.
Carers who give up work to look after others cost England’s economy about £5.3bn a year, the charity Age UK says. It says an unfit care system means people often have to give up work to help the elderly or adult disabled. The figure was calculated on the lost earnings and forgone taxes of more than 300,000 unpaid carers. The Age UK analysis built on work from the London School of Economics, adding in loss of wages to previously calculated loss from tax revenues and claimed carers’ allowance. On Tuesday the Local Government Association warned the rising cost of adult social care could “soak up” almost all of council spending by 2020.
Did you come across any interesting equality and diversity news? If so, please do let us know – Equality.and.Diversity@lse.ac.uk.
