PESHAWAR, Aug 27: Children with disabilities in the Frontier province have no facilities of getting education, said a report compiled by an NGO. “The NWFP has some 3.7 million people afflicted with different kinds of disabilities, the causes of which happened to be poor antenatal, natal, postnatal services, early and late marriages, cousins marriages and diseases such as diabetes and hypertension”, said the report, prepared by former provincial health minister, Prof Dr Mehr Taj Roghani, who heads Omeed (Organized Movement for Empowerment and Elimination of Discrimination).

According to official statistics obtained by Dawn, 375,848 persons, including 221,983 male and 153,465 females, in the Frontier province suffer from disabilities, such as blindness (27,176), deaf and mute (28,888), crippled (119,019) insane (22,169), mentally retarded (27,917), persons with more than one disability (30,452) and others (119,827).

No efforts are made to include them with mainstream society. The situation in rural areas is extremely bad, while in cities they are either shut away from the society or relegated to special institutions, because majority of the parents feel shame to bring to open their disable children, especially the girls. In such circumstances, mild disabilities are bound to convert into multiple and severe disabilities.

Current special education facilities for physically disabled, blind, deaf and similar groupings are discriminated against on the basis of being excluded from mainstream schooling. They do socialize with their non-disabled peers and social death is brought upon them as soon as they enter the school.

These children remain as the most neglected group and their vulnerability will continue as long as the segregation is in place. According to the country’s law, all young children are entitled to high quality education and care.