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THE term disability traverses an entire range of health problems ranging from infirmity due to Alzheimer’s, diabetes, cancer, arthritis and old age to congenital diseases, malnutrition, accidents, terrorism, warfare, and domestic violence. However, people suffering from visual, hearing, speech and physical impairments, and intellectual and learning disabilities, face more serious challenges due to inappropriate government policies that do not facilitate their access to adequate treatment, care, intervention, community support and equal education and employment opportunities. In addition, environment and attitudes create social barriers and the stigmatisation of persons with disabilities.
They have no representation in parliament despite the fact they are a much larger segment of the population than religious groups, who get 10 seats in the National Assembly at 3pc of the population. They have little access to public transport, public buildings and other amenities, including basic facilities such as sign language on public television. They are cut off from communication technology, job opportunities, medical and psychiatric interventions and rehabilitation programmes because they are under-reported even in the census. And lastly, inclusive education is not their right because the government has still not passed the requisite legislation despite having signed (in 2008) and ratified (in 2011) the Convention on the Rights of Disabled Persons which makes specific law-making mandatory.
At present, most disabled children do not have access to any sort of education, while those who have are forced to attend special schools. This kind of arrangement keeps the disabled secluded and ostracised. On the other hand, inclusive education helps change society by nurturing tolerance and an acceptance of disability in general, especially among young persons in their formative years, while providing children with disabilities an opportunity to mix with their peers and learn from them.
The Constitution promises equal rights and opportunities for the disabled.
In 2002, the National Policy for Persons with Disabilities was formulated for the first time in consultation with stakeholders, followed by the National Plan of Action. But political changes put these issues on the back-burner, and then in 2011, the federal government finally washed its hands of its responsibilities, notwithstanding its international commitments, by introducing the 18th Amendment through which the ministries of health, education, social welfare and women’s welfare were devolved to the provinces. The National Policy for Disabled Persons and the National Plan of Action were abandoned.
Subsequently, the departments of social welfare, women’s development, the Bait-ul-Maal, zakat & ushr, and special education in the provinces, continued to do this work without the umbrella of the federal government. However, without a national policy with benchmarks and minimum standards, the provincial departments are working in a very haphazard manner.
For example, the Punjab government’s budget for special education, at Rs1.14 billion (amounting to Rs76 per disabled person per year), is mainly spent on the construction of buildings. No attention is paid to training and the capacity-building of teachers, citizens’ awareness programmes and the development of education materials, although these are explicitly stated in the Functions of the Department of Special Education. The Department of Zakat & Ushr purportedly helps the disabled by providing a subsistence (guzara) allowance of Rs1,000 per month, provided that the person is “total[ly] blind, unemployed and not a habitual beggar”.
The Constitution promises equal rights and opportunities for the disabled, but the government has not been able to translate these into enforceable laws, or even implement their 2pc job quota. That is why most of us continue to be complacent and complicit in their invisibility; we do not have to encounter the blind or the deaf & dumb, or other persons with disabilities, in public places.
Civil society organisations, especially those run by persons with disabilities themselves, have time and again proposed different measures to improve the situation. One of their long-standing demands is that government officials with disabilities working in different departments be transferred to relevant departments working for persons with disabilities. This makes a great deal of sense, as these are the very experts who can put things right in the absence of alternative ownership.
Social change was one of the promises made by the present government during its election campaign. However, social change requires awareness of the problems and the political will to resolve them through resource allocation and service delivery, none of which is possible without appropriate legislation and a clear social protection policy which has been missing from the country since 1994.
The writer is a former federal secretary.
Published in Dawn, March 31st, 2015
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