This category should not automatically be equated with Deaf people or sign-language users because people experience and communicate their hearing differences in different ways.

WHO similarly emphasizes that hearing loss can affect communication, education, employment, mental health and relationships, while appropriate rehabilitation, technology and communication support can enable people to reach their potential.

Let us learn to listen differently, involve Deaf people in decisions, use technology wisely, and remove the barriers that silence participation. Because inclusion begins when we stop asking how Deaf people can fit into our world and start asking what we can change so everyone belongs.

What does it mean to have a language that the world does not always understand? What does it feel like to have thoughts, dreams, emotions and opinions, yet repeatedly find yourself outside the conversation? Over the years, my work in special needs and rehabilitation has brought me close to Deaf children, young people and adults and taught me a profound lesson: the greatest barrier is often not deafness, but a society that refuses to listen differently. I have witnessed hands that speak with extraordinary beauty, eyes that communicate what words cannot, and faces that express an entire world of emotions. Yet I have also witnessed how quickly a person can become socially invisible not because they lack a voice, but because the world around them has failed to learn how to hear it.

Every September, the world observes the International Week of Deaf People and Sign Languages from 21–27 September, culminating in the International Day of Sign Languages on 23 September. The 2026 theme is “Declaring Deaf People’s Human Rights.” This year carries special significance as it marks the 75th anniversary of the World Federation of the Deaf and 20 years since the adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). The UN emphasizes that recognition and access through national sign languages are essential to making Deaf people’s human rights a reality.This should therefore be more than a day of ceremonies, posters and social-media messages. It should be a week of celebration, understanding, acceptance and reflection. It should invite us to celebrate Deaf identity and culture while asking whether our schools, universities, workplaces,........

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