Article: From Rights to Real Access: What SignUnity Research Reveals About Sign Language Interpreting
When Rights Do Not Guarantee Access: What SignUnity Research Reveals About Sign Language Interpreting
The SignUnity research across Croatia, Germany, Estonia, Ghana, Ethiopia and Kenya highlights two closely connected challenges in sign language interpreting: the gap between formal rights and practical access, and the lack of sufficiently specialised interpreting services in high-stakes settings such as healthcare, legal services and emergencies.
Rights do not always mean access
One of the clearest findings from the research is that legal recognition, professional standards and interpreter education do not automatically guarantee that Deaf and hard-of-hearing people can access qualified interpreting services when they need them.
The six countries demonstrate this in different ways.
Germany has comparatively strong university-level interpreter education and a developed professional infrastructure. Yet users and interpreters still report problems with availability, coordination and access to specialists, particularly in complex settings.
Croatia has legal recognition of Croatian Sign Language and a regulated communication-mediation framework, but interpreter education remains largely non-formal and insufficiently standardised for the wide range of professional situations interpreters encounter.
Estonia combines strong legal recognition, a national professional qualification standard and a publicly funded remote interpreting service. However, the shortage of trained interpreters and the limited active pathway for bringing new professionals into the field continue to affect availability.
Ghana and Kenya have important educational initiatives and policy foundations, but still lack fully harmonised national systems connecting training, certification, quality assurance and service delivery. Ethiopia faces an even more foundational challenge: interpreting is visible particularly within education, while a comprehensive professional training and accreditation pathway is still developing.
The comparison shows that formal recognition is only one part of accessibility. A right becomes meaningful when there are enough qualified professionals, functioning booking and funding systems, recognised standards and institutions that understand their responsibility to provide accessible communication.
High-stakes contexts expose the biggest gaps
The second major finding concerns where access problems become most serious.
Across the six countries, healthcare, legal and judicial settings, emergencies, employment, higher education and public services repeatedly emerged as areas where interpreting is either difficult to obtain or requires competencies that are not always sufficiently developed.
These are also precisely the contexts where communication failures can have the greatest consequences.
In healthcare, interpretation can affect whether a person is able to explain symptoms, understand a diagnosis, give informed consent or follow treatment instructions. Privacy and confidentiality are also particularly sensitive.
In legal and judicial settings, interpretation must be accurate and complete because errors can influence testimony, procedural fairness and the exercise of fundamental rights.
Emergency situations create another challenge because many existing services rely on advance booking. A system that works for planned appointments may fail when communication support is needed immediately.
The research therefore makes an important distinction: general sign language competence is not sufficient for every interpreting context.
Professional interpreters also need specialised terminology, knowledge of institutional procedures, preparation strategies, ethical decision-making skills and experience working under pressure. Healthcare interpreting is not the same as interpreting at a conference; legal interpreting requires different knowledge and responsibilities from interpreting in education or community settings.
What this means for SignUnity
These findings directly inform the next stages of the SignUnity project.
The future VET curriculum should not simply teach sign language. It must prepare interpreters for professional practice through competency-based learning, specialised modules, ethics, supervised practice and real-world scenarios.
Particular attention should be given to healthcare, legal and judicial interpreting, emergencies, employment and public services, while Deaf and hard-of-hearing people should remain actively involved in curriculum design, training and assessment.
The research ultimately points to a broader lesson: accessibility is not achieved by recognition alone. It requires systems capable of turning rights into reliable, professional and high-quality services.
For Deaf and hard-of-hearing people, the difference between having a right on paper and being able to exercise that right in everyday life often comes down to whether a qualified interpreter is actually available at the moment they are needed.
About the SignUnity Partnership
SignUnity brings together seven partner organisations from six countries across Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa, combining expertise in Deaf inclusion, sign language interpreting, vocational education, digital learning and community development.
The partnership includes:
- Association of Deaf and Hard of Hearing of the City of Zagreb (SGINGZ) – Croatia
- Learning Library – Estonia
- Youth Power Germany e.V. – Germany
- University of Education, Winneba (UEW) – Ghana
- Ghana National Association of the Deaf (GNAD) – Ghana
- Kua Zone Innovation College Ltd. – Kenya
- Nigus Tekile Haymanot Advanced Secondary School / Debre Markos City Administration – Ethiopia
Together, the partners contribute different perspectives from VET education, Deaf organisations, interpreter training, research and digital learning, allowing SignUnity to compare diverse national realities and develop educational solutions that can respond to the needs of both European and Sub-Saharan African contexts.
This transcontinental cooperation is central to SignUnity’s goal of strengthening the professionalisation of sign language interpreting while improving access and participation for Deaf and hard-of-hearing people.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.