The influence of disability models in Indonesian past and present: disability rights law-making and policy-making

For decades, Indonesians with disabilities have been denied the rights guaranteed by the 1945 Constitution and human rights treaties. Despite the enactment of the Handicapped Act of 1997 to address disability rights issues, it had failed to fulfil the rights of Indonesians with disabilities, resulting in them being left behind. In 2006, the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities drove a national disability rights movement leading to the enactment of the Indonesians with Disability Act of 2016. It also brought the knowledge of new models of disability to Indonesian society. This chapter elucidates how the Global Northern medical, social and human rights models of disability were introduced in Indonesia, and how they have influenced Indonesia’s disability law-making and policy-making. Furthermore, it also explains the disability rights knowledge gap between the government and civil society that greatly affects the former’s capability and political willingness to implement the statutes.