Do you think British Sign Language will ever receive legal protection from the UK government?
BSL was only officially recognised as a language by the UK government in 2003, although it has been the preferred form of communication by members of the deaf community for hundreds of years.
As it stands, deaf people do not have full acess to information and services that hearing people take for granted, including education, health and employment due to the fact that BSL is not legalised.
Do you think this will change anytime soon?
Thank you
It has some protection under the disability discrimination act – but any law that isn’t policed is a useless law and the DRC – isn’t exactly on the ball. the Human Rights commission hopefully will be of more use and will use investigators and uphold the Human Rights law – which is really a ratification of the European Rights convention – alone it is complete bollox! But as Professor Francesca Klug, of the London school of economics wrote in Guardian unlimited – the law isn’t being policed – she is an adviser to the government and she thinks it stinks!
