Correction: This article has been amended to clarify that the launch of the UN HireAbility Campaign was held virtually.

The United Nations has launched a new regional campaign, to encourage employers across the Caribbean to improve disability-inclusive employment and improve access to jobs for persons with disabilities.

The HireAbility campaign is due to run for four months, ending on International Day of Persons with Disabilities on December 3. It aims to build support for more inclusive hiring and workplaces, bringing together UN country teams, governments, employers, disability organisations, youth advocates and development partners across the English and Dutch-speaking Caribbean.

Regional effort on access to work

The UN says the programme is intended to support people with disabilities who face barriers in getting and keeping work. Leading businesses have already shown support for the effort through a Disability Inclusive Employer’s Pledge. Through that pledge, companies commit themselves to equitable hiring, dignity, respect and equal opportunity in the workplace.

The launch places the campaign within a wider regional effort to make employment more accessible and equitable. The UN says the goal is a Caribbean where talent is recognised, barriers removed and persons with disabilities can participate fully and equally in the world of work. In the Cayman Islands, employers and policymakers have been considering how hiring practices and workplace design affect access for people with disabilities.

UN says employment must be treated as a right

United Nations Resident Coordinator for Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean, Simon Springett, said the initiative marks “an important milestone for disability inclusion across the Caribbean”. He said it had grown from an idea advanced by Zinzee Noel, a youth advocate and Grenada’s representative on the UN Youth Advisory Group, into a regional movement for inclusive employment and equal opportunity.

Springett said the aspiration is shared across the region, even where barriers differed from one country to another. He said persons with disabilities have to be able to take part fully in society, access decent work, contribute their talents and skills, and be recognised for those contributions.

He also urged governments, employers and other stakeholders not to treat the campaign as a one-off event. Instead, he said it should be viewed as part of a sustained journey towards more accessible workplaces and more inclusive communities.

ILO says decent work is a matter of rights

Deputy Director of the International Labour Organization Caribbean Office, Thomas Kring, told the launch that access to decent work was not charity. He said, “It is about rights, dignity, equality and economic participation,” and urged labour markets to give persons with disabilities fair opportunities to develop their skills, find decent work and contribute fully to society. Kring described the Inclusive Employer Pledge as a public commitment to equitable hiring, dignity, respect and equal opportunity. In practical terms, the pledge offers businesses a way to show that inclusion is part of how they recruit, manage and value staff.

The involvement of the International Labour Organization highlights the campaign’s economic side as well as its human rights dimension. The UN frames the issue as one of participation, not simply accommodation. It says that when workplaces become more inclusive, communities also become more resilient and more representative of the people who live in them.

The campaign comes against a regional backdrop of physical barriers, attitudes and uneven policy implementation that advocates say have limited opportunities for persons with disabilities. The new campaign aims to push those issues higher up the regional agenda.

By linking governments, employers, advocacy groups and UN agencies, the initiative is designed to move inclusion from statement to action.

For Cayman and the wider Caribbean, the campaign offers a reminder that disability-inclusive employment policy is not only about vacancies and skills, but also rights, access and the ability of every person to contribute to society on equal terms. The UN says inclusion had to be built into the workplace, not added later.