Every year, March 15 is celebrated as World Consumer Rights Day to create awareness about the rights of consumers. One section of consumers who might remain invisible in these celebrations or even in the discourse around consumer rights is consumers with disabilities.
Imagine yourself in the place of a person with visual impairment heading to the supermarket to buy a toaster. You start by booking a cab ride through a mobile app, but since the app is not accessible, you seek external help to book the ride. At the supermarket, there are no tactile pavements in the building, so you seek external help to reach the electronic appliance section and buy a toaster. When you reach home, you realise the toaster is defective and try to contact the customer support of the toaster company. But since the contact details are printed on the outer pack, you seek external help to read them. Discovering that the company only accepts written complaints via postal mail, once again you seek external help to send a complaint to the company.
Every single day, persons with disabilities face this struggle of seeking help for the most basic human activities, and the consequent loss of dignity, independence, and privacy. The pervasive inaccessibility that they encounter as consumers not only undermines their right to lead an independent life but also prevents them from equally participating in society as others.
