ISLAMABAD, Nov 14: Lack of medical facilities, awareness and cousin marriages are main causes of abnormal births in the country.

This was stated by Chief Executive on Science and Technology, Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan at a seminar on “Awareness in Society for the Needs of Special Children”, on Wednesday.

“We have to break away from tradition of “intermarriages” in our society to have a healthy new generation,” he said.

Organized by Care for Special Persons (CFSP) Foundation, participants of the seminar discussed the attitudinal changes toward special children in our society which need to be transformed to make them an active part of our society.

He was satisfied over the attitudinal change towards handicapped in our society. “It is encouraging to see special children accompanying their parents at public places,” Dr Qadeer said.

He said we should see how special children are taken care of in the West. It is forbidden in the West to marry cousins unless certain prescribed medical tests are carried out to rule out hereditary complications.

There should be facilities for medical tests before cousin marriages at private level if not government level to avoid abnormal births in our country.

Chairman CFSP Mr Iqtidar urged on the audience to help organizations working for the welfare of the handicaps. His son suffers from MRC and said, he was aware of the care and supervision required to bring up a handicapped child.

In 1990, there were no institutions in Islamabad from where one could get guidance to deal with special children. In 1992 we established CFSP and despite scarcity of funds we are running it successfully, he said.

Principal CFSP, Ms Hina said, we have 40 students. Most of them belong to low income groups. They do not pay a single rupee, instead we help them in terms of books, cloths and boarding.

We have a physio and speech therapist. Presently our main problem is transport and lack of space. We have only one van that provides pick and drop facility throughout the day which consumes lot of time and fuel, she stated. Children have been refused admission in CFSP due to resource crunch. The foundation plans to make a hospital for special children but this depends on availability of resources, she added.

Dr Laeeq, an expert on special education regretted the apathetic attitude of people towards special children. People need basic knowledge to deal with handicapped people.

The Unicef representative, Ms Khalida Yusuf said children with disabilities need to be handled according to their needs and requirements and the family is responsible to facilitate their learning process.