KARACHI, Feb 24: Physically handicapped persons, especially deaf and blind and their instructors urged the government to officially recognize Braille (script used by blinds for communication and learning)
and sign languages and provide them opportunities on merit to earn their livelihood.
They were speaking at a seminar on "Making Braille and sign languages available in more mother languages" organized by the Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF) at the Vicky Zeitlin Media Library here on Thursday.
The seminar was held in connection with UNESCO's International Mother Language Day 2005, with focus on Braille and sign languages, observed on Feb 21, all over the world. They criticized the government organizations, departments and institutions over their discriminatory attitudes against such people and claimed that they could perform responsibilities assigned to them as efficiently as normal persons after getting education in their respective sign languages and Braille script.
Speaking on the occasion, Coordinator Pakistan Association of the Deaf Ms Laila Dossa informed about the categories of deaf people, their problems, causes of their inability to hear and speak and details about sign language used by them.
According to her, sign languages used in each and every country of the world including Pakistan were complete languages in all respects like all other common languages and it was the basic right of everyone, including deaf, to get education in their own language.
Ms Dossa deplord that instead of doing something helpful and beneficial for the deaf people, government was creating problems for them to live a normal life as they are not given jobs, denied the right to drive while their most popular TV program "Isharoon Ki Zaban" on PTV was closed without citing any reason.
According to her, deaf were the most unfortunate category of disabled persons. "Nobody tries to understand their problems as owing to their inability to draw attention of others through noise, they can't express their feelings nor understand anything except sign language," she said.
Presenting a detailed paper on sign languages' evolution, she said it was in doldrums in Pakistan as there was no uniformity in the syllabus being taught to deaf children.
Ms Dossa advised parents to pay attention towards their infants and get them medically checked whether they could listen and speak or not as within two years of birth, the problem was curable.
Former President of Pakistan Association of Blind Shahid Memon informed in detail about the evolution of Braille. He claimed that Pakistan was the most advanced country in Braille script and several books had been published in the country, which were even being recognized internationally. Pakistani Braille experts were performing their responsibilities all around the world.
According to Mr Memon, bureaucracy in Pakistan was creating problems for qualified blind persons and they were not being provided jobs despite promises and pledges by the president and the prime minister.
"We are not demanding alms from the government. We are demanding our just right of employment on merit as blind people can appear and pass all requirements of the jobs" he said.
Head of Islamic School of Deaf and President, Educational, Welfare Society for Special Persons Syed Abrarullah complained of scarcity of funds owing to which his institution was unable to teach disabled students through speech therapy and urged philanthropists to provide funds to Islamic School of Deaf, Surjani Town for carrying out its welfare activities.
Deaf students and members of the Pakistan Association of the Deaf also attended the seminar and for them, their interpreter Ms Shehla translated and conveyed the proceedings of the whole seminar in sign language. -PPI
